a Grief and Connection series for people with and without children

Do you have grief around parenting or not having children? Have you lost relationships or friendships around the issue of children? Does the conversation about why you don’t have children sometimes feel too difficult to have? Are you lonely in your parenting and need more community support? Would you like more acceptance around your choice to be child-free? *** We know that parents of all genders have unacknowledged pain around parenting and childless people of all genders have pain around not having children. This is an inclusive dialogue to support healing, reconciliation and increasing empowerment and togetherness in our communities. This is a 3 session event. Sunday 11th October - 2pm - 3.30pm Session 1: Separate Sharing spaces for a) Parents and b) Childless + Child-free people Sunday 18th October - 2pm- 5pm (Note this is a 3 hour session) Session 2: Fishbowl sharing to hear each other across our different experiences Sunday 25th October - 2pm- 3.30pm Session 3: Grief and Integration circle for all participants together.  

Who are the facilitators? Ceri Buckmaster is a group facilitator, mediator and writer based in London, UK. She is a Certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication. She longs for communities in which we see the humanity in what people say and do, even when they do things we don't like. She believes a lack of spaces to mourn and grieve brings about more disconnection. She's fascinated by finding ways we can unite. Ceri is interested in this topic because she is a single parent in the UK and has experienced the challenges and loneliness of parenting a neurodiverse child. She is beginning to see the privilege and rank being a mother gives her. She trusts in the value of coming together across differences to deeply listen to each other’s grief and experience. Dayalakshmi is a Mountaineer, Play for Peace® trainer and facilitator. She has been practicing and sharing Nonviolent Communication for about 8 years and is currently a certification candidate. She is trained in Advance Mountaineering and basic Skiing. She has facilitated many groups of varied ages in outdoor experiences and treks in the forests and mountains of South India and in the Indian Himalayas for about 14 years. She has also been part of mountaineering expeditions to peaks in the Himalaya. Her passion for environment sustainability, conflict resolution and restoring community drives her to work with focus on Environmental consciousness, Gender disparity and Communal problems. She offers Play for peace® and Nonviolent Communication in schools and Ngo’s to create empowerment and safe spaces for people to share their reality. Daya is interested in this topic because she is a child-free person out of choice and she has faced disconnection and pain about her choices both in family and in Indian society. She has a longing to create spaces for people to share their own experiences and to be understood for their choices.