The Acro and Social Justice Teacher Training sets aside a number of places and scholarships for participants that identify with under-represented groups.

 

Representation in practitioners, teachers and leaders matters.  Heteronormative, middle+ class, white (or white presenting), able-bodied (or able-bodied presenting) practitioners and teachers currently make up a disproportionate numerical majority in acro communities in North America and beyond. 

 

There are many root causes that contribute to this reality.  People that fit into dominant categories tend to have more opportunities and fairer representation in society in general.  This program recognizes that given factors such as generational poverty, explicit exclusion, and systemic oppression many people that represent marginalized identities and groups in society have less access and/or less easeful access to resources, healthcare, education, jobs, and entrepreneurial endeavors.  As such-scholarships are a way of making this Teacher Training more financially accessible.  If we want more marginalized groups represented in acro and to have access to this beautiful practice we need more diversity in the identities of people that are teachers.

 

The aim is that by explicitly providing opportunities for certification for people that identify and represent groups that are marginalized, they will be able to influence and shift the Acro culture to be inherently more inclusive.  

 

The hope is to create more diversity in the teachers and leaders so that we can start to shift the culture towards a broader representation and inclusion of the racial, ethnic, spiritual, gender, class, body, ability and other diversity that exists in our society.  The desire is to go beyond tokenism, with minority and diversity candidates simply assimilated into the dominant** culture, but towards true representation in our acro communities of our larger, richer, diverse society.

 

If you represent a marginalized identity but have been fortunate enough to have access to resources in society and can comfortably afford the full fees you are welcomed to pay them. 

 

* I don’t talk about majority and minority groups because it’s not about numbers but about power. 

It’s rather about centers and margins, and systematic ‘norms’.

 

** The dominant culture as: white/Eurocentric, patriarchal, heteronormative, culturally Christian, gender-binary, cis-centric, ableist etc.

 

OTHER OPTIONS:

Not feeling like you fully qualify under the scholarship policy? Check out the sliding scale, payment plan, and work-trade options.