9-day retreat in Nonviolent Communication
Tēnā koutou katoa - Greetings all!
We welcome you to join us for this residential retreat in Aotearoa (the indigenous Māori name for New Zealand) on 11-April to 20-April-2023. We envision that this event will help you bring authenticity and harmony into all areas of your life. We hope that you will discover skills that will help you improve the quality of your relationships, deepen your inner peace, and increase your contribution to the world!
This 9-day immersion experience into Nonviolent Communication (NVC) will offer learning sessions, home groups, coaching and feedback from skilled trainers, and a community environment where you can learn and practice the key skills of NVC.
Our team of Certified Trainers will share both the core curriculum of NVC as developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, as well as their own unique applications. We expect a group of approximately 60 to 80 people from different countries, cultural backgrounds, professions and walks of life.
People around the world are using Nonviolent Communication skills to transform conflict, create resiliency in their relationships, and build a world where everyone's needs matter and are met collaboratively.
We will create a dynamic learning laboratory that will show you how to create a more compassionate and peaceful culture in your life at home, at work, and in your community by learning how to:
- Speak from the heart
- Practice deep, non-judgmental listening
- Build self-empowerment from the inside out
| Basic Details |
Format: In-person, 9-day residential retreat
Language: English
Begins: Tuesday, 11-April-2023 (5:00 pm)
Ends: Thursday, 20-April-2023 (1:00 pm)
Venue: Tauhara Retreat and Conference Centre, Taupō, Aotearoa New Zealand (see the exact location)
Sponsor: Center for Nonviolent Communication
Organiser: Irma Jager, Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication
Organising Trainer: Anna Groves, Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication
Register: Click this link
| Goals of this Training |
The purpose of this intensive training is to give you the opportunity to live the process of Nonviolent Communication in community over an extended period of time, in order to develop the mindsets and practical tools to help you in three areas:
1. Personal and Professional Relationships
- Increase connection and closeness with the people you love.
- Speak in a way that inspires compassion and understanding.
- Initiate difficult conversations with more ease and confidence.
- Remain centered and peaceful when receiving difficult messages.
- Express and receive anger fully, safely and respectfully... yet powerfully.
- Resolve long-standing conflicts and heal painful relationships.
- Parent children from the heart and move beyond power struggles into cooperation.
- Translate criticism, judgments and blame into life-serving messages.
2. Inner Transformation
- Shift patterns of thinking that lead to depression, guilt and shame and that perpetuate pain.
- Transform anger into self-understanding, thereby increasing inner peace.
- Enliven yourself by expressing and receiving gratitude.
- Learn to embody unconditional love.
3. Contribution to others and Social Change
- Share NVC in ways that transmit and model its power to transform and inspire others.
- Create educational systems where students love learning and teachers love teaching.
- Learn to engage in effective, lasting nonviolent social change in the tradition of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Facilitate meetings and support group decision making in a power-sharing, collaborative, and consensus-based ways.
- Support holistic and human-based workplaces
- Engage with others at work and in the community to foster openness, trust and authenticity.
- Support mutual understanding and connection when working in colonised countries.
- Foster restoration and harmony by mediating conflicts and helping to resolve differences among others.
While we will prioritise these three areas in the curriculum, there is also room for co-creation. There will be opportunities for you to request specific topics and applications to support you in living and sharing NVC at work, home, and in the community as well as internally in how you relate to yourself.
| The Training Team |
Each member of the training team is a Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication.
Trainer: Anna Groves (Aotearoa New Zealand)
I am delighted to be the initiating trainer for this event. I have been sharing Nonviolent Communication for 17 years and was certified in 2010. As a trained dancer, choreographer and performing arts secondary school teacher, I have a body based approach to NVC.
Currently, I offer online courses and immersive retreats to support sustainable change, and mentoring for new trainers. I specialise in working with teenagers and their families (family conflict, suicide, anxiety, depression, self-harm), and also in the areas of addiction and trauma.
What inspires me? The work of Robert Gonzales has touched my life in a significant way. I am so grateful I was able to learn from him. I value Māori worldview (Te ao Māori) and appreciate the cultural mentoring Rongoitekai Ngata has offered me, and our mutual exploration of the role that NVC can play in addressing our colonial history - I am curious about how we can bring this within an IIT context. I am excited about the upcoming launch of a somatic resource I co-created - Inner Nature Cards.
I am determined to thrive in my life and contribute to others to do the same. I trust this event will be full of fun and meaning! Learn more about Anna.
Trainer: Fabiola Fuentes (Colombia)
I am a lawyer and hold a Masters degree in Political Science in Colombia, my country of origin. I lived in Britain for 11 years where I studied Nonviolent Communication from 2001 with Marshall Rosenberg and other mentors, and in 2004 I was certified as a CNVC trainer.
My passion is to work with individuals and communities who wish to contribute to making this planet a better place, healing their families, their communities, their workplaces, their organisations, corporations, wherever they live or work. I have done this work in different places in England, Scotland, Sweden, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Argentina.
I have worked with individuals, groups and communities, organisations, businesses, corporations, facilitating processes to create trust, connection, leadership, teamwork, cooperation, to improve the quality of life and strengthen relationships. I have shared my experience of how to apply NVC and other tools like permaculture, Transition Towns and support of the local economy.
My intention during this intensive training is to nourish our community, connect with ourselves and each other, and to value our own resources, using a participative approach based on Paulo Freire's popular education. Learn more about Fabiola.
Trainer: Jeff Brown (United States)
After becoming a Certified Trainer in 2005, I spent 12 years leading Nonviolent Communication trainings in 11 countries and more than 30 states in the United States, the country of where I have lived throughout my life.
In 2017, I shifted my primary focus from training to providing administrative support for NVC trainers and organizations including financial oversight, development, marketing, online program management, and executive leadership functions, a path that eventually led me to become the Executive Director of the Center for Nonviolent Communication in July 2021.
I have heard many people tell me that my strongest skills as a trainer are precision, clarity, and depth, particularly when I share my inner process, guide mediation processes, and facilitate groups.
In addition to CNVC, I have worked for five other NGOs / nonprofit organizations including as Executive Director from 2009-15 for the Compassionate Communication Center of Ohio. Also, I have a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology; am certified as a community mediator by two organizations; and I draw heavily upon developmental models such as Integral Theory and Spiraldynamics.
Trainer and Assessor: Sabine Geiger (Germany)
As a psychologist, I have been leading workshops all over the world for 28 years to support people on their path to freedom and choice. Working with people nourishes me deeply. I came in contact with Nonviolent Communication in 1998 and started teaching soon after that. As a Certified Trainer and Assessor for CNVC, I promote a community-based certification approach.
To me, Nonviolent Communication is a journey of the heart. When I crossed paths with Marshall Rosenberg in 1998, I was amazed. How could anyone describe my inner processes so accurately, without ever meeting me?! The empathic, curious and open heart has always seemed natural to me. Discovering NVC and passing it on to others has immensely enriched my life. Since I recognise conflict as an invitation to learn more about others, exploring and sharing restorative approaches has become an important part of my teaching.
My passion? Tapping into the wisdom of the body while using the framework of the NVC process. How can we explore body sensations and link them to our feelings and needs? To me, this is an ongoing exploration, which you are kindly invited to join.
I love the outdoors and cannot live without movement. Learn more about Sabine.
| The Organiser |
Organiser: Irma Jager (Aotearoa New Zealand)
When I was asked to be the organiser for the Aotearoa New Zealand IIT, I had such joy and gratitude rising in me. Community lives in me very deeply. To be able to support the co-creation of a 9-day NVC community with opportunities for connection, growth, learning and more… I immediately said ‘yes’.
I have been a Certified Trainer since 2021 and have been living and breathing NVC in many different roles since 2005: as a mother, partner, friend, someone who lives in community with seven households, a volunteer firefighter, as a trustee of the NVC Aotearoa New Zealand Charitable Trust and (last but not least) as an NVC trainer/facilitator/coach.
I love organising events; spreadsheets appeal to me; answering emails gives me satisfaction; I find being in a role of "service and support" hugely rewarding. To sum it up: I am very much looking forward to welcoming Kiwis* and participants from across the globe to this IIT! Learn more about Irma.
*Kiwi (/ˈkiːwi/ KEE-wee) is a common self-reference used by New Zealanders, though it is also used internationally. Unlike many demographic labels, its usage is not considered offensive; rather, it is generally viewed as a symbol of pride and affection for most people of New Zealand.
| Cost |
The cost of this training has two components: 1) Tuition; and 2) Room and Board (accommodations).
1. Tuition (USD): convert to your currency
- $1,989 Early Bird (make your payment by 11-January-2023)
- $2,340 Standard (12 January 2023 and after)
Additional tuition discounts (you may apply only one of these discounts):
- 15% for registered Certification Candidates
- 10% if you participated in (and paid for) a previous intensive training with CNVC
- 10% if you have been a Supporting Member of CNVC for 6 months or more.
Financial assistance:
After applying the available discounts, if you are not able to afford the tuition, you can request financial assistance to further reduce your tuition fee (Note: We do not offer assistance for Room and Board, which is a direct expense for us to the venue). We have a limited amount of financial assistance available and we prioritise people who meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Actively collaborating with others in the NVC network
- Can use what they learn in this training to make an impact such as in education, government, environmental sustainability, equity and inclusion, or with an NGO or community-based organization.
- From a region that has fewer in-person NVC trainings.
- Part of an economic system that offers less access to financial resources.
- Come from a disadvantaged group (race, ethnicity, origin, religion, gender identity, class)
- Willing to search for other sources of financial support such as their workplace, family, or organizations they are involved in (in order to be in partnership with us about finding the resources to host this training while including as many people as possible)
2. Room and Board (USD): convert to your currency
Room and Board prices include your room and all meals throughout the event beginning with dinner the first day and ending with lunch the final day. Some room types are limited and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Room options include:
- SOLD OUT - Self-Contained (private room): $925
- SOLD OUT - Self-Contained (share with 1-2 other people): $735
- Bunk room (shared with 4-5 people): $680
- Campervan site (park your campervan on site): $650
- Camping site (bring your own tent): $595
- Commuter (stay off-site): $545
| Location |
This event will be in the Taupō region. The heart of Aotearoa New Zealand’s beautiful North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui). At the centre is sparkling Lake Taupō, and you will find every landscape you can imagine surrounding it. Snow-blanketed winter ski fields and alpine deserts. Ancient forests alive with birdsong. Trout-filled rivers and the thundering Huka Falls.
Steaming geothermal valleys with rejuvenating hot springs. Three towering volcanoes in the awesome and otherworldly landscape of Tongariro National Park. The giant Mine Bay Māori rock carving that tells the story of the great Māori high priest Ngatoroirangi.
You can also experience Taupō’s Māori culture and discover more about the heritage of local iwi (tribe) Ngāti Tuwharetoa. Some of New Zealand’s most significant Māori pā sites (fortified villages) are in this area, plus the site where the last major engagement of the New Zealand Wars was fought in 1869 at Te Pōrere Redoubt.
Venue:
Tauhara Retreat & Conference Centre
Address: 60 Acacia Heights Drive, RD 5, Taupō, Aotearoa New Zealand 3385 (location in Google Maps)
This event will be held at the Tauhara Retreat & Conference Centre in Acacia Bay, overlooking Lake Taupō, Aotearoa New Zealand. Tauhara is a non-profit spiritual, cultural and educational centre that opened in 1977.
Tauhara has a number of diverse indoor and outdoor spaces available for guests, among which a meeting room, hall, common room (lounge), library and dining room. You can enjoy the stunning views and beautiful nature while wandering around the grounds. An inspiring series of tracks offer varying walks with points for solitude, reflections and scenic vistas. Learn more about the Tauhara Centre.
| Travel |
Travel Visa
If you need to obtain a visa, please consult the Embassy of New Zealand in your country. If you need an invitation letter from us in order to apply for your Visa, email us.
General Travel Information
Please wait to purchase your travel until we confirm your registration.
Air Travel:
If you are traveling by air, choose Taupō Airport, which is 15 km from the venue. A shuttle service meets each scheduled flight and operates a door-to-door service.
Public Transport:
Public transport to the venue is not available.
Car:
Here is the location of the venue in Google Maps.