Schedule:

Tuition: $15 before Sept. 19, $20 after

Enrollment: 10 min./30 max.

More people are more afraid to speak in public than they are of dying. And yet, community dialogue and public policy are shaped by those who have the courage to speak. Understand how your voice can shape these conversations and why it’s important to our community discourse and governance. Learn how local media operates and why your opinion is important in upholding or deconstructing popular beliefs, public narratives, and deeply-held assumptions. Government, too, needs your input in order to function the way it should. But what keeps people from participating in the conversation? The belief that we don’t have much to contribute? The perception that someone else will step up to the plate? The reality is that each of us has a lived experience that is unique and powerful. We will examine how to override the internal systems that hold us back and understand the platforms we have for engagement so our voices can have the maximum impact and power.

Maria Luisa Cesar is the founder of Greater Good, a communications consulting firm rooted in storytelling. She has worked in the office of Mayor Ron Nirenberg as a senior policy advisor and deputy communications director. Cesar began her professional career as a journalist for the San Antonio Express-News. She’s an alumna of the New Leaders Council, a nonprofit organization that works to recruit, train and promote young progressive leaders, and is a volunteer at OWL Radio, where she reads newspapers to the visually impaired. Maria Luisa was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and received a B.A. in print journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.

Register here.