LDIR’s family of alumni grows every year. Over 700 people have graduated from LDIR’s 6-month leadership training programs in Los Angeles, California’s Central Valley, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. After their training, our alumni collaborate on community projects, participate in future training programs as facilitators, contribute to LDIR’s work by joining project teams, and have even joined [...]
By making a contribution to LDIR, you are personally helping to strengthen our communities. Your gift will allow us to reach and support as many emerging leaders as we can, and help us provide them with affordable, dynamic training on creating social change. Please read on to learn about ways to give. Give online [...]
The Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LDIR) Program grows out of a specific moment in the landscape of Los Angeles culture. In the late 1980′s, several community centers and places of worship were vandalized with messages of hate. By 1989, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) began thinking seriously about developing a program that would provide individuals with specific skills to address human relations issues. The first LDIR program began in 1991 and graduated the first LDIR participants a few weeks after the Los Angeles 1992 civil unrest. While the first class was conducted solely by APALC, after the graduation the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC) of San Gabriel Valley added their support. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference/Martin Luther King Dispute Resolution Center (SCLC/MLKDRC) also joined as a formal partner to better round out the program’s curriculum and community representation. In 1997, with the support of...
By Jenny Chhea, LDIR Intern Watching Oprah Winfrey’s show from 1992 that had a segment of Jane Elliot talking about race in America made me look at race at a whole new perspective again. In this video, Jane Elliott – a white women – claims that she herself is racist because she was born and raised in a racial society. Explaining her experiment as a teacher to her students, she explains how in her blue-eye/brown-eye experiment to teach diversity training, brown eyed people...
By Karen Driscoll, LDIR intern On April 2, 2013, the California Association of Human Relations Organizations (CAHRO) held a daylong conference, “Overcoming Violence & Injustice: The Humans Relations Approach.” The conference featured a panel discussion on how Restorative Justice is helping to transform and heal communities. Rooted in an indigenous practice, Restorative Justice (RJ) aims to proactively address conflict and build community simultaneously. Through the use...
Photos from For the Love of Justice 2013 are now up on Facebook! So many thanks to everyone who came out, volunteered, and contributed to the event! For the Love of Justice 2013 Read More
Many thanks to Deborah Meehan and Leadership Learning Community for this shout out to LDIR! Several years ago I had the opportunity to participate in StarPower a game simulation that was conducted by Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LDIR). Without giving anything away I think that I can safely say that most of us thought it was a powerful and illuminating experience. LDIR hosted the session for leadership development programs so that we could learn from and about StarPower...
By Carmen Morgan, LDIR Program Director Setting the Tone We cannot force someone to become enlightened, transformed, or aware. Our only role is to create the path by which someone can walk towards their own self- awareness. As we create that path, we should acknowledge and be aware that we are also walking that path ourselves. Our own journey continues. Our own awareness process is not over. If we come to this work with an attitude of one-ups-manship, or as the “enlightened teacher”...
Check out LDIR’s February 2013 newsletter! Learn about our newest interns, Healing for Social Change, a new resource on intergroup relations, and more. Read More