Announcing a New Fellowship Program:

Golden Repair: Sanctuary Space for Reparations Leaders

May through November, 2025 – with Rev. Joanne Braxton, PhD and other specialists

THe Work of Reparations…

…led by Black people in these United States is challenging and at times exhausting. Often, we find ourselves too depleted or distressed to sustain leadership commitments without impairing our own health and effectiveness. Many of us come to the work of repair from a place of our own injury, or from our awareness of having seen systemic harm and injury and been unable to prevent it. We are, in many cases, broken vessels in need of repair.

Kintsugi, or golden repair, is a Japanese art form that repairs broken pottery with gold to make of these broken shards an enduring work of art that is more beautiful and stronger than the original. Our gold comes from restorative and contemplative practices rooted in spiritual traditions.

Golden Repair: Sanctuary Space for Reparations will bring 12 reparations leaders together for a six-month fellowship program. As this is a curated and intimate experience, participants will be selected from those who apply. A stipend of $500 will be awarded to those who complete the program.

Based on the tested model of a rigorous Luce Foundation funded Circle of Care piloted by the Braxton Institute during the COVID-19 pandemic, Golden Repair Fellows will share the fine art of witnessing our own and others’ moral suffering and practice extending compassion to ourselves and others. With the guidance of seasoned practitioners and specialists in trauma-informed leaderships, we will explore together: How do we as committed leaders come to understand the contours of our personal integrity in the context of struggle and trauma? What spiritual disciplines and practices---among them journaling, life writing, sitting meditation, ritual, prayer, and embodied experience---can we employ to increase our capacities for staying grounded and balanced, especially when we are tired or when we are afraid?

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis beginning in Spring 2025. For more details, contact jbraxton@braxtoninstitute.org.

Please add your contact information below to be notified when applications open in early March: