The Alliance of Community Trainers is a small collective that works with broader networks of trainers, allies organizations and projects.

The activities of our organization include:

• Providing education to individuals and organizations. Education curriculum include consensus and facilitation skills, diversity training, strategic planning, organizing for the long haul, building social infrastructure, developing community infrastructure, and communicating with the public.
• Developing informational materials, including manuals, handouts, and flyers, power-point presentations, teaching boards and tables.
• Organizing multi-day intensive training sessions, mini conferences, and conferences on topics to further the organizational goals.
• Working collaboratively with groups and organizations to educate and protect natural and cultural resources in their local communities.
• Raising funds for the operations and projects needed to further the above activities.

Administrative activities will take place in the greater Austin, Texas area. Program activities will take place both in Texas, and throughout the United States. All activities will be provided by the Board of Directors, consultants, and volunteers. All activities will contribute directly and importantly to the organization .

Alliance of Community Trainers is a 501(c)3 Texas nonprofit corporation.

While we each bring a particular focus we all believe and try to embody an empowered learning approach.

Empowered Learning

We call our philosophy of training “empowered learning”, which comes from Paolo Freire¬πs work in popular education. Empowered learning embodies respect for all participants. We share what we know in a spirit of mutual exchange and equality and we expect to learn from the skills and life experiences of participants.

We believe that people learn not from being told what to think or do, but from reflecting on their experiences. We facilitate processes in which
participants gain tools, skills, and confidence. And we realize that
anything we share will be adapted by participants to fit their own culture,
political philosophy, and needs. Our trainings are active, involving little
lecturing and many exercises, role plays, and much discussion.

Although we are deeply rooted in the practice of strategic nonviolence, we
have worked with groups practicing a wide diversity of tactics. We are
skilled at bridging different political cultures and styles and in helping
mediate between groups with diverse ideologies and needs, from respectable
members of NGOs to anarcho-punks to indigenous communities.

We offer trainings and preparations in all aspects of organizing and mass
direct action: strategic planning, campaign building, effective action
planning, tactics for actions, street health and safety, nonviolence, civil
disobedience, directly democratic decision making, meeting facilitation,
anti-racism and cultural sensitivity, nuts and bolts organizing, conflict
resolution and training for trainers and organizers. We see ourselves as
supporting the goals of the organizers and participants in an action, and we
prefer to work with the organizing team to craft trainings that can meet the
specific needs of each community and situation.

What training and preparation can do:
. Increase the safety of participants.
. Build confidence in participants facing dangerous situations.
. Teach the theory and practical tools of strategic nonviolence.
. Help people remain calm and centered in tense situations, and able to make conscious, thoughtful choices about what to do.
. Allow participants to employ sophisticated and coordinated tactics in actions.
. Teach the skills of organizing, campaign building, and effective action planning
. Conserve the learning that has grown from previous mobilizations.
. Increase sensitivity and communication around diversity issues.
. Build skills and capacity in the local community, and train trainers.
. Help ensure that our actions and mobilizations are successful