2022 Toronto Jam
Toronto Jam 2022
February 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 2022
on Zoom!
Quick info:
Applications are here!
Alumni of a previous Toronto Jam? Apply here!
Application deadline: Friday, January 14, 2022
If you need more time or any accommodations to submit an application, please let us know so we can support you.
Ok, what’s a jam?
Jams are gatherings of 30 changemakers exploring connections between self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, and systemic change. We do this through facilitated dialogue, sharing circles, artistic expression, games, movement, and free time for participant-led activities and spontaneous interactions and connections. A Jam is not a conference, seminar, or meeting. It is an experiment in ‘beloved community’: a place where we can intentionally come together to practice the art of connection, collaboration, and co-liberation, in the context of a society that is constantly seeking to divide us.
How will it work online?
This is the second time we’re doing an online Toronto Jam — the first was in April 2021 as a response to our ongoing pandemic reality. So much of the beauty and power of Jams in years past has been the sharing of physical space together and still, we felt that given the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, meeting virtually feels like a vital and exciting opportunity to keep connecting and collaborating together. We also found that gathering virtually made Jam-ing more accessible for some folks, which was a profound realization. So! We’re doing it again. (We hope to Jam in person again soon but do not have dates set at this time.)
This year’s Toronto Jam will take place between Friday, February 4 and Thursday, February 10. We will meet for 2.5 hour sessions from 11-1:30 pm on Friday (February 4), Saturday (February 5), Monday (February 7), Tuesday (February 8), and Thursday (February 10). Sunday (February 6) and Wednesday (February 9) will have no pre-scheduled sessions.
To honor the flow and the collective building that happens over the course of the Jam, we ask that all participants are available for all the scheduled dates and times listed above.
Aside from the 12.5 hours of pre-scheduled programming over the week, we invite you to see the whole week as the Jam. We recommend making as much time as possible in your schedule outside of the scheduled hours for community interactions, participant-led sessions and workshops, rest, reflection, and integration. While we’ve had people attend who are still working full-time during the Jam, in our experience, you will get the most out of the Jam if you can reduce the number of commitments you have that week and leave your schedule as open and spacious as possible to support your engagement and wellness.
Why Toronto? Why now?
The pandemic has shed light on the deep interconnectedness of so many of our systems, in both good and troubling ways. Systems of power–fueled by capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and more– hurt, kill, divide, and dehumanize us, and challenge our ability to thrive. And in spite of it all, or maybe because of it all, people are stepping up. We have seen a rise of powerful mutual aid networks and movements for Indigenous sovereignty and racial justice that are weaving together and redistributing our collective resources to meet urgent needs in ways our traditional systems and institutions have not. We’ve seen, in the last year, intense division and separation, and also stunning coming togethers and connection fostered despite very difficult circumstances.
The Jam is an opportunity to explore this complexity in an environment of healing, connection, and (re)humanization. It is a reminder that our interdependence is an essential part of our nature. We want to celebrate our victories, support each other through our struggles, and share what it looks like for each of us to create safe, just, and regenerative lives and communities. The Jam is an opportunity to slow down together so we can feel our own truths and listen and learn from others.
Why is it called a “Jam”?
In music, a jam is a creative, live gathering of musicians who together spontaneously create a new sound, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Similarly, Jams are places where people who care about the world bring together their passions, questions, and unique perspectives. We provide a structure to support the gathering, and what is formed in that space is dependent on who shows up, what they bring and what emerges in our collaborations. The Jam asks that all the players are present and ready to listen deeply to each other. What is then co-created are previously unimagined outcomes that flow from our often untapped collective resources — something none of us could have done alone.
Who attends a Jam?
Jammers are people who are dedicated to creating change in our local communities; people who know the beauty, power, and wisdom of each other, our diverse cultures, and varied communities; people who see the potential of our collective liberation in this vibrant and challenging part of the world. The Jam offers an opportunity for people who use different approaches to change and who have different areas of focus to connect and build stronger networks in our city.
And so when we are asked “who attends a jam?” the answer is “YOU!” — organizers, artists, entrepreneurs, healers, strategists, public officials, business leaders, dreamers, thinkers, activists, builders, educators, poets, researchers, philanthropists, non-profit leaders, spiritual leaders, environmentalists, and anyone with a desire to impact social change — are invited to join us for the 7th Toronto Jam!
Given that we’re doing this year’s Jam online, we’re open to applicants from neighbouring Toronto areas or who otherwise have or feel some kind of connection to Toronto and to transformation work.
What questions do we explore at the Jam?
For the 2022 Toronto Jam, we anticipate exploring and deepening into these questions:
- How do I take care of myself while caring for and being taken care of by the community?
- How do I find more balance across the many responsibilities in my life?
- How do I open myself to connection and discovery with the reality of ongoing isolation or separation?
- What’s my purpose/calling and how do I live into it more?
- What tools and processes are useful to help me pause, heal, and (re)centre myself?
- How can we lean more into curiosity and find connections and common ground across our different forms of social change work?
- How can we heal wounds that have been developed and inherited across our social identities and generate friendships and webs of ongoing support?
- How can we create forms of dialogue and conversation that centre learning, love, truth, and transformation together?
- How can we build and sustain our movement infrastructure?
Yours, these, and many more questions are the basis of the Jam. And, by exploring them together through a variety of modalities — circles, small group work, movement, meditation, visioning, the arts, play, and more — we hope to build a foundation for lasting, transformative change.
Working at the intersections of the personal, interpersonal and systemic
In the Jam we will address three interconnected levels of transformation. Our aim for gathering is to:
- Rejuvenate (internal/personal) – We aspire to give ourselves space to reflect on our personal stories, learn and unlearn, take off our masks, seek our next growing edge, recharge, and renew. We want to nurture our own spiritual and emotional health in order to fire our activation and work in the world.
- Build solidarity (interpersonal) – We want to make and take time for authentic conversations to emerge, to discover common ground, and to celebrate differences. By taking an honest, loving and transformative look at our conflicts, we seek to move beyond collaboration and allyship towards deep friendships that will sustain us over the long-term.
- Foster collective liberation (systemic) – We aim to connect the dots of what we are each doing and link issues that are not commonly linked, to find new intersection points, and to gain a clearer vision of the whole.
We hope to emerge renewed: bringing back grounded passion, spiritual fortitude, new relationships, and re-imagined solutions for our home communities and projects.
Logistics
The 7th Toronto Jam will take place on Zoom. We may also use Google Sheets, Google Jamboard, WhatsApp, and other apps. Please let us know through the application form if you have any accessibility requests related to technology or otherwise so we can support you throughout your Jam experience.
Cost
The Jam is run by a group of organizers and facilitators who believe and are passionate about the work. We are excited that this year the Jam is online and therefore there are no fees associated with accommodations or food. The full cost of the Jam this year is $300 to support honorariums for facilitators + organizers, and given the challenges many folks have had during the pandemic, we are asking participants to pay within a sliding scale ranging from $50-$300.
We never want money to be a barrier, so we will do everything we can to make it work for you to attend. We can also create a monthly payment plan that works for you.
If you have more resources, donations above $300 are welcome and help us provide scholarships to support the broad spectrum of participation on which this event thrives.
How do I apply?
Apply here!
(alumni, see below)
Application Deadline: Monday, January 10, 2022.
If you need more time or other accommodations to submit an application, please let us know so we can support.
If I’ve been to a Jam, can I still apply?
Yes! If you are an alumni of a previous Toronto Jam and want to apply to come again, please do!
Use this application form instead. Same application deadline: Monday, January 10, 2022.
Please keep in mind that as much as we’d love to have everyone back, we want to make this experience available to as many interested people as possible, which may mean we are unable to accommodate some alumni.
Questions? Comments? Feelings?
We look forward to welcoming you to the Jam. If you have any questions, or want to check in at any point, please reach out to us at: yestorontojam[at]gmail.com.
How did Jams start?
YES! is celebrating its 32nd year of service this year. The first Jam was a World Youth Leadership Jam, co-created in 1999, bringing together 30 people from 20 countries. It came out of YES!’s work on youth leadership for nearly a decade, a growing understanding of ‘yes-and’ improv, Open Space Technology, and the power of co-learning. After several more World Youth Leadership Jams, facilitators began to organize local and regional Jams in their countries. Now teams of Jam alumni organize place-based, sector-based, and identity-based Jams all over the world. In the past four years, Jams have taken place in India, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Morocco, Mexico, Nova Scotia, Toronto, New York City, California, Colorado, North Carolina, Alabama, Vermont, New Mexico, and more, on themes such as Evolving + Emerging Economies, Arts for Social Change, Healing Our Movement Ecosystem, Law and Social Change, and Education Transformation, and with specific communities like the LGBTQ*/Queer Jam, Asian American Jam, Men’s Jam, and Black Diaspora Jam.
YES! is based in California, USA, and each Jam is co-organized by a unique and diverse team of partners. The Toronto Jam grew out of a short program in 2012, which then became 3 and 4 day Jams in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2019. We held our first virtual Toronto Jam in 2021 over 6 days. This is Toronto’s seventh Jam, organized by alumni from previous Jams.
Read more about YES!’s mission, values and approach: https://www.yesworld.org/about-us/
Who’s behind the Toronto Jam 2022?
The Toronto Jam is organized and facilitated by a team:
Organizer
Brigid is passionate about co-creating spaces where people are able to show up, share, challenge, connect, disagree, grow, let the complex remain so, get a bit uncomfortable and feel heard. She began her facilitation journey exploring the connection to our bodies as it relates to our sexual health and care in Vancouver using theater of the oppressed. She has been developing in facilitation ever since, working to create spaces that are creative, dynamic, thriving, engaging and inclusive. Since completing a master in Cultural Studies, she’s worked full time in cultural institutions, trying to make the space a little bit bigger, and a little bit warmer, and a lot less exclusive. This has looked like youth engagement and community work, building programming that supported access, inclusion and involvement for all community members both as cultural producers and within the institution. She works in program design, strategy, organizational transformation and communications — as a consultant, facilitator, strategist and cultural programmer — finding ways to have people connect more efficiently in their work, workplace and teams; from short meetings to long term collaborations and on. She is a queer white (irish/jewish) Montrealer who lived in Toronto but now lives again in Montreal with her partner and two littles (!!) She loves what the Jam makes possible for her and all the softness, vulnerability, love and generosity it reminds, nurtures and invites.
Jeff Carolin (he/him) is a recovering criminal defence lawyer living in Toronto who has been shifting his work in the world towards facilitation, mediation, and restorative and transformative justice. Basically, he loves to sit in circles. Hence being on this jam journey for 10 years. But it’s more than just the circles. For Jeff, attending jams has been a key part of discovering how he can–in this life, with this body, and with his experiences–engage around complex issues of racism, colonialism, inequality, and other forms of systemic oppression, without this work leading to further division, burnout, and in-fighting among people who are trying to build something new together. Seeking common ground while always acknowledging the importance of difference, starting from a place of openness and caring, and tuning in to the body’s knowledge a little more and the analytical mind a little less, have all been practices that he has continued to hone through jam circles–and are practices that he tries to introduce in all facets of his life.
Rehana is a facilitator of systems change experiments in organizations and the building of capacity and cultures for generative dialogue across difference. At Bloom, she accompanies organizations in their evolutionary change processes towards equitable systems change, organizational health, participatory leadership, conflict transformation, playing at work and creating cultures of belonging. She is deeply serious and deeply playful at once, believing in the need for strategies that include creativity & play as ways to open up the fields of possible transformations, and reconnecting our mind, body, heart and spirit. She has a Masters in Education from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education and is a practitioner of Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter, Dialogue for Peaceful Change, Theatre of the Oppressed and InterPlay. Rehana is born and raised in Toronto to East African Indian and Uruguayan parents, and now lives in Montreal with her 9 year old homeschooling daughter. She is a dancer, a whirler, and a student of sacred clowning who loves to wander in the forest and swim in the river on the land she collectively stewards with a wild group of humans seeking to support ourselves and others to heal with nature. She has been jamming since 2013.
A wannabe DJ and skilled facilitator, Kimalee is an experienced social justice and organizational learning consultant, writer, educator and researcher whose work is deeply grounded in, and informed by Black queer feminist thought and practice. She finds joy in writing, getting lost in music, connecting with loved ones and surrendering to the embrace of nature. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Human Rights and Law and her Master’s degree in Legal Studies which focused on field and theoretical research on the coloniality of gender and violence in Grenada. She sits on the Board of Trustees with the Groundswell Community Justice Trust Fund and organizes with the Caribbean Solidarity Network. She works as a Human Rights Representative with Canada’s largest public sector union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). As a traveller, her heart remains deeply connected to water, land, the cosmos and the territories that she has the privilege of experiencing. Grateful to live, love and organize on Turtle Island, she longs for the day when her body and spirit can return to the place where she was born and raised, Grenada.
Berkha (aka Taashi) is a facilitator of organizational and individual change that fosters environments and communities where everyone can feel supported. As a transmasculine queer south asian, most of their work is dedicated to supporting the wellbeing of 2SLGBTQ+ communities, primarily with youth and racialized communities. Taashi is a recovering Executive Director, who is currently spending their days learning how to slow down, rest, and focus on healing and joy.
Francesca lives and works at Romero House, a community of welcome for refugees in Toronto. A practising lawyer until April 2022, Francesca is grateful to Jams for helping her discern a deeper calling: to serve in a community full of joy, tears, dancing, singing, and prayer. Though she is grateful to her years working in community legal clinics, providing free legal services to low-wage workers, she does not miss the adversarial legal system or the isolation she felt in her legal work. She serves on the board of Cycle Toronto and hopes to see cycling become more accessible to people across the city in the next few years. She loves experimenting with alternatives to mainstream models of work, care, love, and justice.
Recent Comments