In response to the call and request of our indigenous partners to “change the dream” of the modern world, the Pachamama Alliance created the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium in 2005 with the hope and intention for it to spread widely and quickly. And the aim from the very beginning was to make this an offering to organizations part of the broader movement who are welcome to either adopt or adapt the symposium to suit their own constituents and goals.
This is occurring and with growing momentum. Facilitators have now translated the Symposium into French, Spanish, and Russian. This past October, the first Facilitator Training was offered in the French language, in Belgium, with trainees from both France and Belgium. Symposiums are now being offered in those two countries. There are about 50 trained Facilitators in Australia, and 100 in the United Kingdom, with momentum picking up in both groups, including another facilitator training in the UK just recently.
In July 2007, an organization called the Transformational Leadership Council—made up of over 125 highly regarded leaders in the area of transformational books and seminars––asked for us to train 30 facilitators in the Symposium. This group included well-known authors Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul) and John Gray (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus). Members of this group of Facilitators now have incorporated parts or all of the Symposium into their own work, which is being offered in China and Europe, among other places. One member of this group is now having the Symposium translated into Mandarin Chinese, and has committed to offering it repeatedly in China—which she believes is a place of rapidly-growing receptivity to this message.
In the United States, one group of Facilitators has worked for the past year to design a version of the Symposium aimed at the corporate and business world. They are now testing out this version in the business world, in Europe, Australia, and the United States.
Another group of Facilitators is working on adapting the Symposium for teenagers and young adults. In fact, an adapted Symposium has been presented to a group of fourth graders in Seattle. The Pachamama Alliance has committed to supporting the rapid development of this youth version, and is working with several groups who could sponsor it in high schools throughout the United States in the next year.
And Facilitator Trainings are spreading into new locations—one was just completed in Northern New Mexico (with Native American participation) and another one is planned for Kansas City in May—the first Facilitator Training in the mid-west. One Facilitator in the mid-west has committed to putting on Symposiums for 5,000 people in the mid-west in the next year alone.
If you would like to host or sponsor a Symposium in your community and be part of this growth, please email Adrienne White. If you would like to participate in a Facilitator Training in 2008, click here...
