We’re walking a marathon for ‘a mile’
Building a culture of empathy means a lot to four of our current Duke of Edinburgh students who have sought to walk more than just a mile to help others empathise.
We invited Josh to share a bit more.
We’ve been meeting weekly since October last year. We’re only supposed to do 12 hours, but we chose to do a bit more. Our tasks include preparing equipment for simulations and organising stock for the Empathy Store.
We took part in an immersive workshops last autumn and had a dose of ‘walking a mile’ in another’s shoes with Desperate Journeys. We now want to help other’s to have a similar insight… and particularly groups that may struggle to have funds to bring a workshop to their school or group.
We’re doing this because:
“I chose to work with Empathy Action as I think it's easy to view issues as a big picture. It has definitely allowed me to understand today's issues on a much more personal scale and I admire Empathy Action’s attempts to make things better.”
Kitt Smith
“I chose to work with EA because I believe the cause is not given the attention it deserves.”
Leo Townend
“I was inspired about how Empathy Action helped people when I was younger. Once I was offered this opportunity I couldn’t turn it down!”
Alex Alderson
“I wanted to help EA because I believe in the importance of teaching people about the truths of these important issues, and hope I can aid that further.”
Josh Solanky
Our idea was something challenging and simple
We met and had a few ideas like paddle boarding or the 3 peaks challenge but landed on the idea of somehow walking the equivalent of a marathon. We also wanted to set ourselves a challenge for fundraising and really wanted as many people to take part in one of the immersive workshop to allow a small sense of empathy for those in the margins and who are marginalised. Empathy is a great teacher to allow us to think what if it were me in this situation … and what I want another to do for me. Our goal is to sponsor a workshop through walking a marathon between Eastbourne and Brighton. Our goal is £1500 between us. We’ve enlisted a few of our friends and there’s 11 of us now!
We’ve been planning this for a couple of months. The route is established and we’ve even put a risk assessment together!
Our hope is to help build even more micro cultures of empathy
We believe these small steps can really help build a more compassionate world… and in a growing age of financial challenges for schools, we want to say “we can help, we want to help… We’ll walk a marathon to help you walk the empathy mile.”
Wanna help us?
If you want to support us (we’d love you too!) you can donate here, all support is welcome. Or please share with like minded people.
Thank you - from Josh, Alex, Leo & Kitt
