Task force meets March 25

SANDPOINT — The Bonner County Human Rights Task Force will hosts a meeting later this month at the Forrest M. Bird Charter School, in Sandpoint, for its membership, as well as a discussion and training open to the community.

The meeting is planned for Saturday, March 25.

From 2 to 2:45 p.m., the focus will be on what the task force is doing and planning for the near future. Specifically, there will be opportunities presented about how members can become more involved in these activities. The task force has responded to requests from the community to become more active — help and support is needed.

From 3 to 4:30 p.m., there will be a presentation on “Building Values Bridges — Looking for Common Ground,” a hands-on training with concrete ideas of how to build common ground with others of differing views. The presenters will be Gabriel Burns, president of the Sandpoint High School Human Rights Club, and Juli Stratton, director of the North Idaho Pride Alliance.

Burns will have just returned from a training in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Quakers, on grassroots organizing and legislative advocacy. Stratton will offer guidance and insight about how to have constructive and respectful discussions with friends, neighbors, associates and acquaintances who hold differing and conflicting viewpoints.

The task force hopes this will be an opportunity to help bring the community together to experience civil discourse — believing that we need to be speaking to, rather than about those with whom we disagree.