The city of Aurora will offer another Crucial Conversations for Community Action workshop next week, following a robust showing of nearly 100 people taking part in morning and afternoon sessions of the workshop earlier this week, city officials said.
The sessions are “an interactive and informative workshop designed to prepare you for meaningful – and sometimes difficult – conversations at home, at work and in the community,” according to officials.
In a press release from the city, it was announced that a third session of the workshop will be offered Monday beginning at 6 p.m. at Aurora City Hall, 44 E. Downer Place.
To register for the session, go to www.aurora-il.org/CrucialConversations
The evening session will again be led by Michele Clark, the city’s diversity and inclusion director, who guided participants during the first two sessions earlier this week.
Aurora Chief Engagement and Equity Officer Clayton Muhammad said there was “amazing conversation and just great dialogue and insightful observations from community members” during the two recent sessions.
“There were a lot of tips from our facilitator Michele and it really reminded me of the old study circles that Mary Jane Hollis used to do here in Aurora. It was akin to that spirit,” Muhammad said.
Hollis created the Aurora Community Study Circles which ran from 1996 through 2007.
Muhammad said recent political events including the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump this past weekend underscored the importance of the Crucial Conversations for Community Action workshop.
“We’re coming right off a weekend of an attempted assassination, and this workshop really builds upon how not to be divided by rhetoric and dialogue,” he said. “This was the goal anyway and we couldn’t have planned that, but due to the unfortunate circumstances in (Pennsylvania), it certainly led to the overall notion of unity, of coming together and talking through issues and concerns as a community to move forward.”
During the two recent sessions, Muhammad said Clark “spoke about how you prepare, how do you share, how do you compare and how do you repair?”
“Those four steps kind of guided the conversations. We heard from some community members about the need for more collaboration, more open dialogue – that just really is the goal of uniting and also people spoke about the need for the voices of youth,” he said.
Muhammad said the city wanted to offer a third opportunity for people to attend a session, this time in the evening.
“We want to continue to have a regular platform and build on these ideas with community initiatives, both the city and with each other and different organizations and agencies,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.