BD101 "Basic" 5 Day
February 4-8, 2026 at Pendle Hill
Wallingford, PA
CLICK HERE TO APPLY
Join us Feburary 4-8, 2026 for our next BD 101 Basic Offering. Details Below!
Pricing:
More information about accommodation and pricing options can be found in the registration form.
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Private Room Price: $1,175
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Shared Room Price: $975
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Commuter Price: $775
Teachers:
Niyonu Spann - Lead Teacher
Niyonu is a singer-songwriter, organization development practitioner, coach, and mom/grandmom of three amazing sons and three delightful granddaughters! Niyonu designed and led the first Beyond Diversity 101 Intensive in 1999 after some 10 years of facilitating “diversity workshops” and becoming dissatisfied with the pattern of measuring “success” by how guilty the white folks ended up feeling; and on the other side, if the people of color got sufficiently in touch with their pain and expressions of anger?” In creating BD101, Niyonu moved beyond that cycle. She now refers to her work as Training in Whole-System Liberation. Her work centers heart-knowing, radical truth-telling, and somatic wisdom.
Paul Bryant Hudson - Assistant Teacher
Paul is a musician and strategic consultant based in New Haven, CT. Paul has attended several BD101 sessions, including the Training for Trainers, and has facilitated various core BD101 frameworks and activities in his hometown of New Haven, CT. He brings over a decade of experience in financial systems and non-profit work, along with excitement and passion around creative ritual as a liberatory framework. Paul currently works as a Capacity Building and Training Partner with CEIO, partnering with organizations and communities to advance justice, equity, and liberation in New Haven and beyond.
Slate Ballard- Assistant Teacher
Slate is a creative, communications, and organizational transformation consultant, a father, partner, and community cultivator. Slate works with individuals, groups, and his local community to support connectedness, conscious co-creation, systems transformation, cooperation, and care. For over 20 years, Slate has developed many community-centered offerings, including an award-winning coworking space and multi-purpose music venue. Slate is a member of the Co-Creating Effective and Inclusive Organizations/Organizers (CEIO) Core Team. Slate says that his ways of being and relationships have been transformed through his experience at many BD101s, including BD101 Basic, Race, Train the Trainers, and Whole Systems Transformation.
Beyond Diversity 101 intends healing transformation. We provide frameworks, offer practices, and hold a space for growing skills to de-structure systems of oppression and raise up liberation. Participants are offered pathways to move beyond the guilt-blame cycle toward radical truth-telling, co-responsibility, and activating joy & justice!
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Participants will:
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Recognize and remove blocks that hold
you back as a facilitator, artist, leader,
healer, teacher, or organizer; -
Articulate and break patterns of
domination/power-over/oppression; -
Practice being a courageous and
heart-centered transformer; -
Increase the ability to discern, speak,
and activate a vision of liberation; -
Recognize how our spiritual lives relate
to our social justice work; -
Develop applications for continuing
work at home.
MIND. BODY. SPIRIT.
Lecture and presentation, large and small group discussion: these intellectual efforts are only one dimension of a holistically conceived curriculum. Integral and primary to BD 101 is the establishing a circle of mutual respect, good faith and a commitment to deep caring, which is able to sufficiently ‘hold’ the group through both the painful and joyful revelations that arise in the course of the workshop.
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The intuitive is honored along side the intellectual. We especially tend to the body in the midst of this transformational learning. A massage therapist is on the BD101 staff during the course of the workshop, providing one-on-one sessions.
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Music and expressive movement, yoga and qi gong, as well as activities out of doors, are integrated into each day’s schedule. Care is taken to select workshop environs that are comfortable, where nourishing food is served. Each aspect of the intensive is designed to support, in as holistic a manner as possible, the deep work of the participants.
What Folks Are Saying....
"BD101 is an opportunity to tackle difficult and tender material in a clear-eyed way with others who are likewise committed to this work. It offers a different point of access to justice work than most other settings."​
~July 2017 Participant
" I deepened my understanding and practice around discussing and acting on issues of identity and justice."​
~August 2017 Participant
"In the end, BD101 caused me to dig deep, to process and release what I was unaware of previously. I have found new freedom to engage in new ways.I'm sure this will be an ongoing process as I am still learning from the experience weeks later. Invaluable!!!!! "​
~August 2017 Participant