tEAm news #81 | 25.5.22
When forming Empathy Action we recall looking at the inspiring compassionate acts through three elements: understanding through perspective, a personal invitation to react with carefully curated opportunities and finally solidarity in being together. These still underpin our work today when planning each event or programme.
It’s precious to remember, as things re-start, the passion that was gifted to us to get us this far.
Thanks for being part of this and greater things to inspire even more compassionate action are a-comin’!
Dates
MOMENT OF PRAYER - Mondays 9-9:15: a moment to pause, light a candle and pray for our work & team. All welcome!
Link here (Meeting ID: 708 452 7633 Passcode: empathy) - NOTE: no meeting on Mon 30th May for half term.7th June: Service & Partnership Conference (presenting)
14th June: 2 room version DJ at Office (for UCL students)
13-17th June: UCL Consultancy Challenge (Cam & Ben leading) - more on this beneath.
20th June: World Refugee Day (Refugee week: 15-20th June)
26-27th June: Wally Hall, Sevenoaks The Poverty Trap (TPT) day programme (also 0.5 day of Empathy Exercises)
28-29th June: Canford School, Wimborne TPT (overnight)
SIGN UP SHEET to indicate your availability - We are using a new Sign Up Sheet (with different tabs) for volunteers wanting to help out. Please indicate your availability.
To come
(yet to be confirmed events!)
Our ‘Empathy Experiment’ sessions will be returning with guests!
TPT in Tunbridge Wells for Friends & family - practice and recruiting event
Empathy Exercises practice for Wally Hall/Sevenoaks School for team & friends & family (TBC c late May/early June)
St Johns Primary School: Empathy Exercises (TBC)
TPT: Activate Learning (TBC c Sept)
Sevenoaks School, TPT for Year 8s (TBC Autumn)
Peace Day (21st Sept) Handicrafts campaign
Climate Justice Week (Nov, TBC)
Thought Leadership:
Empathy Action at Service & Partnerships Conference June 2022
Paul and Heather will be flying the Empathy Action flag at the Service & Partnership conference straight after half term with a particular focus on The High Life Climate Justice workshop.
Paul will be on a panel on Environmental Sustainability Education chaired by Ana Romero (Head of Sustainability) of Wellington College.
Photo Credit: B Sarmento (Intern)
Other Updates
Great to have Desperate Journeys (the new 2 Room version) trialled last week in the ‘story’ format (check out some of Janet’s photos and video reflections from Arthur & Zephyr beneath) at the Barn last Friday (thanks Harry for letting us use this!).
(We’d love a more central location again - if you have ideas and the ability to introduce us or pave the way to find a more central location to set this up and keep us for a while - we’d love to hear from you.)
It was a very powerful experience with many aspects that were moving. For me, I found the final part of the experience where the family were separated, with the son moving on while his family had to remain at the camp, particularly moving. I also found listening to Trevor speaking at the end about what he had been through really brought the whole experience to life and brought the objective of the experience to the fore.
- Participant, Desperate Journeys
Sadly Sevenoaks School have cancelled their showing of Eli & the Golem with Strange Face meaning our accompanying workshop will not be happening this summer. Gutted, but we were delighted that Strange Face founder Russell Dean and his daughter Juno made it to Friday’s Desperate Journeys and there’s more to come with this partnership! He shared that his daughter “was really animated in the car on the way home. It really made her think.”
Arthur & Zephyr (our Duke of Edinburgh students) are meeting with the Head of St Johns Primary school (today) to request whether they can run an inter-year (Y4, 5&6) footy tournament as a fundraiser for us. Go Arthur & Zephyr!
Photo Credit: J Crisp & B Solanky
Duke of Edinburgh students Arthur and Zephyr give their impressions of Desperate Journeys 2 room version from last Friday.
What we are watching, listening, reading, attending…
Featuring this week some of the materials in The Poverty Trap that we’ve been looking in to updating about the preying/exploiting the vulnerable:
The slave trade can still be evidenced in this article with people being sold in some cases for $400 (includes an uncomfortable watching of a live auction in Libya by smugglers). In addition, slavery is also exists in the supply chain as observed here for the fashion industry.
Organ trafficking through the sale of kidneys in the Philippines and the use of facebook to drive sales
Other reads, clips, podcasts, events, films from around the team
The Ungrateful Refugee - Dina Nayeri (recommended to us from some of the Walking with Amal friends)
We stumbled upon Australian psychologist Dr Rachel Hannam’s work on empathy and found this Cultivating Empathy Podcast which featured her speaking on the practicing of empathy. She does a really helpful piece on things that she coins as '“empathy killers” (eg things that get in the way of empathising). A superb set of insights.
A great spot by Fran: Dynamic Care in Action - a balanced way to think about how we can use practice to help ourselves and each other
Wow! What compassion, curiosity and a strong dose of withholding judgement (they must be well versed in practicing empathy!) together with the act of reaching out can do towards one of the most hated family members on the earth in this podcast with Nadia Bolz-Weber and Megan Phelps-Roper (formerly from Westboro Baptist Church).
A thought provoking piece from a Syrian American advisor following his niece’s graduation (his niece is one of our friends from the World Humanitairan Summit days in 2016).
NEW: EMPATHY EXERCISES (a fortnightly thing!)
Over the past 2 years we’ve been researching exercises that help stretch the empathy muscle. The idea is ‘your’ empathy is a muscle that can be flexed and practiced.
Some of you have asked to know more about this new programme (it’s really more a repackaging of what we were doing). Here in Team News we will share these exercises for you to do… if you have any ideas or suggestions or reactions, please let us know as this type of intelligence is really helpful!
This one is one we tried and curated at Brentwood School last year in “A Day of Empathy” - it received a great reception with an adapted set of questions that Heather P & Ali C (who also ran this in Yangon) put together including “have you ever had a crush on a teacher?”. We’ll share another exercise next time!
Can you help us this fortnight?
Research needed to obtain some fresh narratives for The Poverty Trap. Here’s a description and list of what we need.
Help needed to take the Desperate Journeys’ set down at the Barn (Penshurst). We need many hands to help make this light work!
Date: Friday 27th May (from 10am), bring a packed lunch!
Ways to support Empathy Action
Volunteering - we need regulars (help keeping the whole thing going and planning some future work) and irregulars (help deliver our programmes as and when these occur).
Share the news - please forward, share any social media posts
Introduce us - please introduce us to any prospective volunteers, customers or clients… we’d value your help in these introductions.
Regular giving - can you spare us the price of a cuppa (£2.50) a week? A little goes a really long way… we need a lot of help from our friends this year as we try to reboot Empathy Action.
Via smile.amazon - link beneath
Thank you!