About moments
Crafting connection
“it’s not about events that we run but ‘the moments’ we invite others to feel”.
The empathy moment in our events are a way to humanise quite large, complex issues like poverty, displacement and climate justice into a person. Or simply put: an issue becomes a person who shares a moment in their life together with people who listen deeply to reinvigorate & inspire compassion to those complex issues.
This week we pay tribute to a previous empathy moment (during a Poverty Trap at a school) shared by a father, together with his wife, who lost their son during an earthquake in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The Poverty Trap (TPT) in Tunbridge Wells open to the public on
Weds 12th Oct: 1915 (for) 1930 - 2130 (click for more info/book)
Sat 15th Oct: 1915 (for) 1930 - 2130 (click for more info/book)
Desperate Journeys (DJ) in Tunbridge Wells open to the public on
Sat 5th Nov: 1030 - 1200 & 1430 - 1600 (click for more info/book)
Sun 6th Nov: 2000 - 2130 (click for more info/book)
Mon 7th Nov: 2000 - 2130 (click for more info/book)
23rd Nov: TPT for a 100+ Y9s Headington School, Oxford (c 12 people needed)
1st Dec: DJ (new ‘stage’ version) - get in touch if you would like to help
Harry Wooldridge with paralympian Anne Wafula-Strike at London 2012 Paralympics
In memoriam: Harry Wooldridge
Harry Wooldridge of West Peckham following the loss of his son Frederick in the Haiti earthquake (2010) got behind historic efforts to bring Paralympians from Haiti, including a survivor of the disaster that claimed his son, to compete in London 2012 games.
He choose to share his motivation for getting behind the efforts to 150 Sevenoaks school students during a Poverty Trap debrief. He shared with us later, that Fred would have like what we aspired to do here to help build compassionate communities, liked schools such as Sevenoaks. He later attended the opening of Desperate Journeys (with a bad knee) in 2018 and continued to be a passionate supporter of ours over the years.
Thank you for sharing with the students and being willing to help others choose compassion and empathy for others.
Big focus on delivering next week’s Poverty Trap and only a few weeks later Desperate Journeys. We have local schools booking up sessions (Tonbridge Girls Grammar, Hilden Grange and Imberhorne coming). Lots of spaces still available for the public events (see dates above) - please help get the word out and invite people along. Thanks!
It’s Black History Month - we’d love to learn more about activities, programmes, events, films, music and exercises that help bring understanding for future programme development. Do you know any?
Disgusting!
This week’s empathy exercise is a risqué one! Take it or leave it but one thing is the disgust you may feel will help you understand some fairly complex issues and possibly even some unconscious bias.
It’s designed by a friend, Dr Marika Rose from Winchester University for students on a module she teaches. It’s particularly apt in light of some of the attitudes towards women and how these can play out in the recent morality police attacks on Mahsa Amini in Iran.
Marika says: “The goal of the game is to get people thinking about bodily fluids and the way that disgust functions within particular systems of gender, sexuality and society”
Here it is and if you play it tell us how it goes!
What we are watching, listening, reading, attending…
ThoughtBox are running An immersive 30 day adventure. Exploring Ourselves, Society and The Natural World with downloadable resources for teachers. More here
Other reads, clips, podcasts, events, films from around the team
Tackling domestic abuse conference and training. Two local councils have teamed up to raise the profile of Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) local event on 25.11.22 (0930-1300, Salomons Estate, Tunbridge Wells). More about the local council and VAWG here.
Empathy on the Internet? - fascinating article on an award to 2 groups looking to develop empathy on the internet
We attended to powerful launch of “We Are Antartica” film by Reboot the Future & Earthrise Studios - to be used ahead of the COP27 as a tool to ignite action. Most powerfully was the continual pronoun reference to it being a “her” - if you want to know why… dig deeper here
Eve says, “…I love listening to [the Wonderspace podcast] as I eat my breakfast. It's a wonderful way to be reminded of the countless people around the globe doing amazingly wonderful things.”
Short notice alert! Tonight at The Assembly Hall (Tunbridge Wells) is George the Poet - if you can, get along.
6 ways to help us…
Volunteer - we really need a bunch of regular helpers (eg a few hours or more(!) a week or for our immersive workshops from time to time).
Share the news! - please forward, share any social media posts. Ta!
Spread the word! - we’d value an intro… to any potential vols, customers or even clients! Word of mouth is the best!
Become an Empathy Angel - this year we are looking for 100 ‘Empathy Angels’ to help invest into us as we reboot empathy action to build a ‘Culture of Empathy’. Could you spare us the price of a cuppa (£2.50) a week… We can’t and don’t want to do this alone!
Host a coffee morning with a table of our handicrafts to sell and invite interested people to learn more and enjoy a cuppa
Via smile.amazon - link here to enable amazon to give money to EA
Thank you!