Transforming Justice Hub Facilitator, CORA

Posted by CORA Good Shepherd Mediation on December 12, 2023

At CORA Good Shepherd Mediation, we aim to encourage peace, reconciliation, and social justice by equipping communities with the tools to transform cycles of conflict and harm as an alternative to the legal system. Our Restorative Justice department offers a range of programs designed to respond to systemic and interpersonal violence, including circle process, victim-offender conferencing, youth diversion models, peer mediation trainings, and other forms of restorative justice education.

Our newest program, the Transforming Justice Hub seeks to empower Philadelphian youth, who are both impacted by and at risk of involvement with neighborhood gun violence, to interrupt cycles of conflict, and the systems of oppression that cause them, through community organizing and community dialogue.

In service of this mission, the hub will host a recurring six-month Popular Education course that trains youth, in neighborhoods most familiar with the conditions of gun violence, to become certified circle keepers, peer mediators, and community organizers. The course consists of 30 hours of facilitation training, 20 hours of political education, and 6 hours of hands-on practice leading restorative justice models. The second component of this program is to engage youth in opportunities to apply the tools they gain through the course. Youth apprentices will be connected to ongoing movements that are pursuing racial and economic justice in Philadelphia as a pathway to engage as community organizers. Youth apprentices will also be invited to partner with our trained staff as co-facilitators of the restorative justice services that CORA Good Shepherd Mediation provides, including de-escalation and healing circles, to impacted individuals in their neighborhoods and to our community at large.

The Hub was designed with the understanding that gun violence, and other forms of interpersonal violence, are a symptom of the material conditions that marginalized communities are subject to, and that “those closest to the ‘problem’ are closest to the solution”. We seek staff who share this analysis and can engage those at the epicenter of our gun violence epidemic to be leaders and experts in this movement.

Learn more and apply here.