ARTO Concerns from Feb 2005 ARID Meeting

ARTO Concerns: Michael and Jesse have joined us to talk about resources for ARTO, and how to address issues the program is facing. These concerns include:

-“One size fits all” mentality – same exercises used repeatedly, need for multi-level trainings
-Very white-centric – use PoC participants in tokenizing ways, not providing room for PoC identity development
-Contributing to reactionary AR culture
-Lack of clarity as to how trainings are managed, most effective ways to do that
-Trainers expect people to quickly catch up to tehir level
-No clearly defined role for adult trainers/mentors
-Pressure on younger trainers who are still going through intense identity development themselves
-Need to track each trainer-organizer and ensure their personal development and skillbuilding
-ARTO program needs more identity development components, not just structural analysis

There is definitely a need/desire to have a second meeting of ARTO folks, which can be used to evaluate/restructure the program as necessary. (Perhaps we can bring together regional reps and ARID/TT reps only, to make it more affordable.) ARTO members saw this issues coming, and we need resources to help address them (i.e. funding to support solid apprenticeship program). These issues are also present in the Jubilee program. The importance of ARTO’s work is evident – look at the turnout for ARADDC’s! Bill Sinkford is paying great attention to issues in AR work and is concerned about Youth of Color – we need to pay attention to the big youth ministry conversation happening; if ARID, TT and ARTO engage with it we could get a lot of resources/support! We will have an in-depth meeting about the ARTO program on Wednesday, March 23rd at 4 pm. Mimi will invite local ARTO people, Betty Jeanne will invite staff.