As many in our community are aware, one of the hallmarks of the NewGround is our annual Muslim-Jewish fellowship program. This year, due to the ongoing global pandemic and the increase of political, economic, and social tensions that accompanied it, we’ll be doing something different: regrouping with our alumni, strengthening the bonds between them, and focusing on matters at hand. It is in that spirit that we announce our inaugural Courage Accelerator: Take on Hate program.

The Courage Accelerator program aims to empower a cohort of highly skilled, committed, and compassionate NewGround “practitioners” to address the most pressing modern issues of social division, hatred, and strife utilizing leadership skills grounded in expert best practices and research-based methodologies.

This program aims to not only build resilient relationships, encourage self-awareness, and build sustained trust and collaboration between participants, but to equip those participants to proactively apply these skill sets in their own social circles, organizations, and communities. For example, participants will learn about a present-day social ill such as online hate speech, and then practice applying NewGround’s methodology to that social ill in their personal or professional lives. 

In January 2021, the Courage Accelerator cohort joined together for their first retreat.

Rooted in relationship-building, mutual commitment to address social tensions, and our cornerstone NewGround approach, 2021 will be the year of the Courage Accelerator for us. We encourage our fellow Angelenos to ruminate over these themes over the coming months, and to keep a look out for more opportunities to engage with them alongside the rest of the NewGround community.