How We Impact the Community
EmpowerMT believes that each of us plays an individual role in creating a community that is safe, welcoming, and inclusive of all people. We work to strengthen communities throughout the entire state of Montana by empowering marginalized groups, teaching allyship skills, and increasing communication and understanding across group lines. Each year, we partner with several agencies to provide community events and trainings locally, regionally and statewide.
Our community work includes collaborating with businesses and groups for our two, annual, signature celebrations: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Diversity Day. We are proud to sponsor two events that engage hundreds of people each year in civil dialogue and action.
To learn more about Missoula’s MLK Day Celebration, click HERE!
To learn more about Diversity Day click HERE!
EmpowerMT also helps facilitate community conversations around divisive issues. Examples include leading a three-month process involving more than 200 people in the controversial issue of siting a new location for the city’s emergency homeless shelter, and facilitating the UMatter forum on Sexual Assault for The University of Montana.
Would you like to host a workshop or partner with us for a community event? Do you need support facilitating a community conversation? Contact us at info@empowermt.org to discuss collaboration and partnership opportunities.
COMMUNITY FACILITATION & TRAININGS
EmpowerMT is proud to have played a central role in facilitating community dialogue around controversial issues as well as providing trainings to the wider community on issues of equality and justice.
EmpowerMT provides periodic training opportunities for community members, including one-day introductory workshops that give participants basic skills, concepts and exercises to develop awareness and goals on interrupting bias and systems of oppression. Through our long-standing partnerships with many other organizations, we also coordinate several racial justice educational events and workshop series. The most extensive of those being an eight-week long training course called True Colors that focuses on ending white racism and offering white allies anti-racist skill building.
Let us know if you’re interested in our 2021 True Colors workshop by signing up HERE!
When Missoula’s emergency homeless shelter, the Poverello Center, needed to relocate, EmpowerMT facilitated a three-month long processes that involved 200 people to identify key concerns, think creatively about collaborative solutions and create community buy-in. After the sexual assault crisis came to light on the University of Montana campus, EmpowerMT was invited to facilitate the UMatter Forum that provided space for people to tell their stories, discuss sexual assault, consent and how the campus community could move forward. EmpowerMT has also worked with the leaders of Soft Landings and other community leaders to advise on having productive conversations around the reopening of a Missoula refugee resettlement office.
If you would like to attend a future community event or workshop, subscribe to our newsletter or check back for future opportunities. If there is a community-wide issue you think we can help with, please contact us at info@empowermt.org.
Recent Posts About EmpowerMT’s Community Work
NCBI and YWCA Host Anti-racism Series
This March, NCBI partnered with the YWCA Missoula to put on a three-part anti-racism training series called True Colors. The True Colors training was created in an effort to address the unique challenges faced by people of color, as well as white allies taking action against racism. The True Colors training was inspired by the […]
Blooming Into Spring
This year’s TTT was divided into two main sections: our Building Bridges workshop and our Controversial Issues process. The Building Bridges workshop is tailored for youth, businesses, and organizations and is the most familiar of our offerings. No two workshops are the same, however, and going through the Building Bridges workshop with this group […]
Speaking Out About Things That Matter
The 2016 Missoula Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration theme was based off of Dr. King’s quote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Throughout the whole day youth and adults from Missoula, as well as across Montana, spoke out about issues that matter to our community. The […]