Welcome to the “Towards a Decolonial, Anti-racist and Feminist Public Engagement” online course!

We’re excited to have you join this learning journey. This course is designed to provide you with the knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively carry out our Public Engagement using anti-racist, feminist and practices.

This is a self-paced course, meaning you can complete it at your convenience. To reinforce your learning, you’ll engage with interactive exercises, case studies, and quizzes throughout the modules.

This course is divided into three modules and the content of the modules is based on a six-month research project by the Inter-Council Network on decolonial, anti-racist, and feminist approaches to public engagement. The research was done in collaboration with participants from Canada, South America, and Africa. The modules are part of ICN’s broader public engagement and global citizenship work. They complement this body of work that outlines a theory of change for public engagement and good practices in public engagement.

We acknowledge that people are on different learning curves and that before starting this course, some material to review beforehand would be helpful in providing context. These resources will be available throughout the course.

Who is this course ideal for?

While we’re hoping anyone who has interest in engaging communities will take this course, this course is especially designed for a wide range of individuals involved in public engagement, international cooperation, education, and advocacy work such as:

• Public engagement practitioners in NGOs, community organizations, and academic institutions
• Educators and curriculum developers working in global citizenship or social justice education
• Funders, policymakers, and leaders in development or social change sectors
• Artists, activists, and cultural workers engaging with global justice narratives
• Students, youth and emerging professionals interested in ethical and inclusive engagement practices

Whether you are new to these concepts or looking to deepen your understanding, this course provides an accessible and critical space for reflection and learning.

What are these modules intended for?

The “Towards a Decolonial, Anti-Racist and Feminist Public Engagement” course is designed to transform how individuals and institutions approach public engagement. Through three carefully structured modules, this course aims to:

• Equip learners with practical tools and critical frameworks to recognize and challenge colonial, patriarchal, and racist logics in public engagement strategies.
• Strengthen the capacity of participants to design and implement inclusive, just, and community-rooted engagement practices.
• Offer reflective exercises, real-world case studies, and interactive content that encourage ethical and transformative dialogue between global communities.

This course is not just about acquiring new knowledge, it’s about rethinking and reshaping how public engagement is done, particularly in contexts where power imbalances have historically silenced certain voices.

Why is this work important?

Understanding public engagement through decolonial, feminist, and anti-racist lenses is essential because:

• Traditional public engagement methods often replicate systemic inequalities, privileging dominant narratives while marginalizing perspectives from the Global South, Indigenous communities, and racialized groups.
• Decolonial and feminist frameworks help center lived experience, relationality, and care, fostering more authentic, reciprocal engagement that does not extract or tokenize.
• Anti-racist public engagement ensures that equity is not an afterthought but a foundational principle, making visible the impacts of systemic racism in development and education spaces.
• This approach acknowledges historical and present-day injustices while moving toward transformative, solidarity-based practices rooted in mutual respect, humility, and shared responsibility.

Ultimately, these modules aim to support a shift from performative engagement to meaningful, justice-oriented action that aligns with the values of global citizenship and collective liberation.

Course objectives:

• Build a shared understanding amongst participants on what anti-racism, feminism and decolonization approaches to public engagement look like in practice
• Understand how to assess core power dynamics at the heart of each public engagement
• Know how to contextualize your audience and build mechanisms to ensure equitable public engagement.

Introduction

In an effort to decolonize training and to walk the talk, so to speak, we want to include you in the process of identifying the goals for these modules. This is a private individual reflection exercise to be done before you start. You will have the opportunity to review whether they achieved their goals during the modules.