“[I’m taking away] the importance of a long-term commitment to expanding public participation and deliberation by ordinary people as central to our ability to sustain our democracy. The concept of the Empowerment Congress was a major a-ha moment in how to structure our next community stakeholder event.”
“[As a result of participating in the Institute], we are stepping back from some of our aggressive action plans, to focus more on education and empowering more of our community members. It might take a little longer to implement some of our goals, but we will have built more long term sustainability.”
“It was absolutely fantastic to have the time with the community activists, staff and Supervisor Ridley-Thomas. The context provided to enable our own team discussions was very valuable. I appreciated the feedback on our and others’ work.”
“I really liked learning about the Empowerment Congress, from the panel, the tour, and the Summit. It was inspiring to see something so big and powerful in action.”
