
Transforming Power
Transforming Power is at the core of every person. It's a jewel, a blazing spark of the divine. It's the true core of every person, the foundation, the center. When that brilliant core shines in its full glory, it reaches out beyond the person to shed that light on everything around it, to connect with everything and everyone.
Unfortunately in every human being that jewel of light gets covered in many layers of crud, (for lack of a better word). Our fears and insecurities, our pain and our defensive walls cover the jewel and dim its brilliance. Our biases and pride prevent that light from shining forth. Our narrow egos tell us that the crud rather than the jewel is who we are.
Transforming Power is the force in the universe which can burn away the crud. This always begins within. I cannot burn away the crud that hides your jewel but I can allow Transforming Power to work within me, burning away layers of fear, prejudice and pain which hide my shining core and let it shine forth in an invitation for you to do the same.
To make learning about Transforming Power easier and to gradually incorporate it in our lives, AVP breaks it down into smaller concepts or baby steps toward burning away the crud that dims our jewel. We learn to have Transforming Power work within ourselves one conversation, one opportunity, one AVP workshop at a time.
Here's how learning Transforming Power is broken down into five smaller, actionable steps and how they impact AVP participants along the way.

Respect for Self
Respect and self-care grow over time. AVP plants seeds of self-awareness and hope where often they have been missing.

Caring for Others
AVP is about people from different backgrounds coming together in compassion and fellowship. We learn to care for one another.

Seek a Non-Violent Solution
Creative conflict resolution workshops offer hands-on ways to build a more peaceful life, to find the calm in what once was a storm.

Think Before Acting
To remove layers of crud from our inner jewel, we build our Transforming Power toolboxes to find new approaches to old problems.

Expect the Best
Learning to believe in good outcomes from ourselves and others shifts thinking away from conflicts and reaches out to that inner jewel in the soul of others.

Transforming Power
Being connected is the true state of being human. AVP is about the personal growth and change that comes with getting in touch with our Transforming Power and shining our light brightly again.
Take a closer look at AVP and Transforming Power
through this collection of videos and personal stories
What is Violence - 1 min
AVP by Bernard Lafayette, AVP founder, Civil Rights leader - 2 min
OJ Simpson's tells Parole Board about AVP - 3 min
AVP in Review - interviews with AVP facilitators - 5 min
Intro to AVP and Transforming Power Concepts - 11 minutes
Alternatives to Violence Project in depth 40 minutes
Giustina, etal conducted a study to evaluate the effect of the Alternatives to Violence Project, a violence reduction program in a Massachusetts state medium-security men’s prison, in reducing anger and leading to more non-violent behavior of the incarcerated men who participated in the program.
Results found that the incarcerated men showed reduced levels of anger after participating in the Basic AVP workshop. It reduced anger further after participation in multiple AVP workshops.
CLICK TO READ STUDY

