Dialogo de saberes afro centricos y occidentales: hacia la formacion de terapeutas familiares comunitarios.

This participatory action research project examines a collaborative educational process between a group of afrocolombian community leaders and master’s students training in family therapy within communities. This collaboration is founded on an analysis of power, privilege and oppression in the mental health field and promotes the development of skills consistent with an effort to create equity in the relationships developed between community leaders, students and instructors. Specifically, it will address how this afrocolombian community leaders and students co-construct an educational process inspired on their own reflection and praxis around power differentials, equity and collaborative relationships. Participants include 8 to 10 displaced afrocolombian community leaders settled in Cali, 10 family therapy master’s students from Lewis and Clark College, U.S, 5 to 10 master’s students completing a degree in family studies from the Javeriana University, Cali and 3 faculty members from the above mentioned universities. This study will be developed in five phases. Phase one and two involve examining family life within both the larger Colombian social context and the regional and city contexts relative to Cali and afrocolombians with each group of students separately in their own countries. In addition, students and community leaders will begin contact and dialogue through technological means to develop a specific plans for sharing knowledge and skills. another phase involves a two week immersion and face to face collaborative experience between students and community leaders in Cali. Phases three to five evaluate the learning process via focus groups report and other written materials; In addition, papers, conferences and public presentations will be prepared. Results from this study shed light on how to develop more equitable training and educational processes with communities. They also assist in the development of new methodological and pedagogical schemas in working with communities recovering and strengthening their cultural identity and local knowledges from the vantage point of community family therapy