Capacitar

A Spanish word meaning to empower, to encourage, to bring each other to life.

Capacitar's Vision

Healing Ourselves, Healing Our World

Capacitar's Mission

Capacitar - meaning to empower, to encourage, to bring each other to life, is an international network of empowerment and solidarity connecting people from grassroots groups. Capacitar believes that through nurturing, listening and responding to the deeper wisdom of body and spirit, people can heal and transform themselves, their families and communities. Using popular education methods which recognize that people are subjects of their own experiences, Capacitar uses simple practices of healing, team-building and self-development to awaken people to their own source of strength and wisdom so they can reach out to heal injustice and create a more peaceful world.

Where Capacitar Works

Capcitar has offered programs in fifteen states of the United States: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the territory of Puerto Rico. Internationally, Capacitar has offered programs in Mexico (Chiapas, Tobasco, Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez); in Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) in the Caribbean (Belize, Dominican Republic and Haiti); and in South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Peru). Trainings are also being offered in East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. Future trainings will include work in conflict zones of Indonesia, Ireland, Sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and different regions of South Africa).

Capacitar Practices

Capacitar body-mind-spirit practices include:

• Tai Chi meditation and body movement
• Visualization and breathing exercises
• Active listening and simple psychotherapeutic methods
• Acupressure for alleviating pain and stress-related problems
• Polarity, simple seated massage and hand massage
• Work with the energy system and the chakras

How Capacitar Works

Capacitar:

• Responds to the needs identified by communities and works through established groups and in concert with other economic and social development efforts.
• Gives workshops which model alternative uses of power, as well as sensitivity to culture and traditions.
• Trains leaders who will in turn, train others, thus multiplying the effect.
• Connects people from grassroots organizations through an international network of solidarity, building relationships of cultural and personal understanding.

To learn more visit the Capacitar web site at www.capacitar.org

Updated Jan. 2008