Scholarship Application: Grief, Risk & Grace

About the Series 
"Those who risk their lives to protect marine mammals, and those who risk jail to stop paying taxes for weapons, and those who risk their jobs to 'blow the whistle' on corruption and deception — they also draw on vaster powers of life. Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world." - Joanna Macy

"Relinquish an inch of your privilege so that an entire people (Palestinians) doesn't have to lose everything"! – Francesca Albanese

 

 

How do you face these challenging times of fascism, militarism, livestreamed genocides, overt racism, blatant propaganda, double-standard laws, accelerated rate of ecocide, potential nuclear war, etc.?

How do you overcome a by-design sense of paralysis and barriers to disentangle from the system of oppression?

While it may have been hiding under “rule of law” or “free market”, colonialism and supremacy function as the scaffolding of the industrial capitalist world. This series is an invitation to decolonize our mind, body, and heart. We will deepen our conscious and unconscious awareness of the systemic patterns of power. We will be working on how to avoid replicating tools of the dominant system, moving away from performative action and care, and centering underrepresented voices.

Together, we aim to sustain discomfort and uncertainty, bolster courage and compassion, strengthen our solidarity and our contribution to collective liberation. 

This course is designed to be experimental and experiential, unlearning institutionalized knowledge and recognizing different forms of knowing and being.

A five-week experimental and experiential journey

Week#1: Political Awareness: anchor our journey in justice, healing, and mutual care

Week#2: Social Awareness: identify our entanglement within the system of harm

Week#3: Decolonize Grief: extend our circle of empathy

Week#4: Reconnect with Wide Community & Ancestral Wisdom: learn, unlearn, and embody new paradigms

Week#5: Go Forth: orient our actions towards finding/building community and collaborative actions

Zeinab Benchakroun is a somatic coach and facilitator of Good Grief Network and the Work That Reconnects. After more than two decades working in different fields, including social justice and climate activism, she transitioned to supporting people and organizations seeking agency, courage, resilience, and transformation. Focused on how the ecological collapse is braided with colonialism, patriarchy, and oppression, she is committed to bridging her attention and energy between the current injustices and the seeds for a regenerative life. She is a Moroccan woman Muslim animist, and a mother of three children.

At present, Aparna Bakhle (she/her) works as an independent researcher and freelance consultant around decolonizing care, nurturing coherence and attuning to presence through climate collapse. She holds a BFA in Film (Emerson College) and an MA in Engaged Ecology (Schumacher College, UK). She has trained as a F.L.O.W. Facilitator with Good Grief Network and in Conflict Transformation with The Whole Partnership. Aparna is also the mother of two daughters who inspire her commitment to supporting just transitions towards regenerative futures for the more than human as well as humans

 

Timing & Logistics

Please read the following section carefully to avoid confusion about meeting times and time zones. Good Grief Network does not offer program refunds, so please check that the timing of this group works with your schedule.

 

The reference/anchor time** for this meeting is Eastern Time Zone in United States: 
 

This group will meet for 5 Thursdays

30 April - 28 May 2026

12:00pm - 2:00pm ET / 9:00 - 11:00am PT

[check your time zone]***

 

Scholarships

Minimum $50 USD admin fee required for all applications. If you wish to waive the admin fee, please indicate this at the end of your application. Admin fee waive requests will not impact your application consideration.

100% Scholarship: $50 USD Admin Fee
50% Scholarship: $125.00 USD Fee

 

Time Commitment

We prioritize small groups, so spots are limited. Please only sign up for this group if you are able to attend the full two hours of all 5 meetings (barring unexpected circumstances, of course).

Accessibility

Each session will be hosted on Zoom. Access and familiarity with the Zoom platform is recommended.

This program will be hosted in English. We would like to be able to offer the program in other languages, but are still a very small nonprofit organization and do not have that capacity at this time.

Please let us know if you have any accessibility needs the facilitator team should be aware of.

Final Notes

• Get to know your facilitators by exploring their bios on our facilitation directory. 

• GGN does not offer refunds for our program, even in the case of time-zone mix-ups. Please read our refund policy below before applying for a group. 

Scholarships Cont.

We do not want finances to be an obstacle to participation, so if you are experiencing financial limitations, we encourage you to apply for a scholarship.

Please submit this form at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program. Applications recieved afterwards are not guarenteed to be considered for your preferred selection.  

All scholarship requests can expect a response at least 3 days prior to start of your program. We are a small team and appreciate your patience in awaiting your response, however, feel free to gently nudge us if you have not heard back via hello@goodgriefnetwork.org by that time (or check your spam folder).

GGN Refund Policy

We are unable to offer refunds for this series.

GGN offers a small group experience, which means that spots in our programs are limited and coveted. Because this fellowship involves progressive step-work and intimate trust-building, we are unable to fill the spots of participants who withdraw last minute or in the middle of the program. We ask you to please practice discernment and mutual care by being intentional with your registration upon acceptance.

This includes time zone mix ups. Before continuing, please TRIPLE check your availability and the time zone of this offering.