This program will not take place in 2012. It will be replaced by an intensive nonviolence fellowship. Stay tuned. 

Announcing Metta Mentors 2011

Our applications process for 2011 has now come to a close and this summer’s mentees have been notified. Congratulations to all those who applied, we applaud your dedication to nonviolence.

Please use the bar to the right to navigate the Metta Mentors section of our website. There you can learn about this year’s program, get your questions answered, and check out Metta Mentors photos and blog. If you know anything about this program, you will know that last year’s program was an unqualified success. We hosted an amazing group of mentees, and our lives were changed, even as we hoped to be helping to change the lives of those who came to us. Many, many seeds were planted that we hope will blossom wildly this year as an even more transformative program!

Please help us to get the word out about this very special program. In order to reach others who might be interested in applying to Metta Mentors, please forward this information widely!

Contact us at mettamentors@mettacenter.org with questions or comments. Thank you!

Welcome to Metta Mentors, 2011

Last year, some of us from Metta had the pleasure and privilege of participating in the deeply inspiring Gandhi-King Conference in Memphis, a three day convergence of folks from all over the country working to keep Dr. King’s dream of a nonviolent world alive. Throughout that event we heard the same urgent question raised by different voices: what happened to nonviolence after the era of the Civil Rights Movement ended? During that time, an entire nation had awakened to the transformative power of nonviolence. Can such a movement be mobilized today? Where would we even begin?

By the time the Civil Rights Movement erupted, the seeds of nonviolence had already been planted by the small organizations who nurtured young activists to become the nonviolent leadership of this country. Today the Metta Center for Nonviolence and its partner organizations are striving to continue this work, incubating the next generation of nonviolent leaders through our Metta Mentors Summer Program. The program, now entering its fifth year, pairs young (aged 18 to 35) activists with Bay Area nonprofits three days per week for social change work, bringing them together twice a week for personal practices and workshops grounding them in the principles and methods of transformative nonviolent action.

This year’s program will be proudly hosted at our offices on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, now established as a nonviolence resource center for the Bay Area, giving this year’s ‘mentees’ access to Metta’s resources and deep immersion into the local nonviolence community. With this year’s program, we will be stepping even further into our promise to live the nonviolence we teach at the center, by putting together a program that does the most possible good with fewer resources, reaches more people without compromising values, and touches the hearts of all involved with the program with a spirit of service, community, and mutual support.

Please browse our site to find out more about our program, share the information with anyone who you believe will be interested, and check back with us to keep yourself informed of developments with this year’s program.

Metta Center is contributing in many ways to building a nonviolent future. But it has become clear to us that in terms of contributing to the personal transformation of future leaders, movement building among nonviolence advocates, and the merging of the inner and outer traditions of nonviolence, Metta Mentors is one of our most in-depth program for young people . This is a program that is contributing to movement building from the inside out. Dr. King’s dream of a nonviolent world still is alive, and Metta Mentors is one of the incubators for its next generation of leaders. Please help spread the word!

Here’s to another wonderful year!