tEAm news #83 | 22.6.22
We’re still rebooting ourselves and asking this question
What do others (still) think of us?
Here’s a lovely message from the school that we are just about to go back to next week::
“… Empathy Action is such a fantastic initiative and has a long lasting impact for so many of our students who have been fortunate enough to take part in the past.”
Wind back the clock 5 years and she also said this:
MOMENT OF PRAYER (term time) - Mondays 9-9:15: a moment to pause and pray for our work & team. All welcome!
UPDATE: No meeting on 27th and back on 4th JULY (due to The Poverty Trap programme)
Link here (Meeting ID: 708 452 7633 Passcode: empathy)
26-27th June: Wally Hall, Sevenoaks The Poverty Trap (TPT)
28-29th June: Canford School, Wimborne TPT (overnight)
NEW: July (dates TBC): Desperate Journeys (DJ) further trials at our offices
NEW: Late November: TPT Headington School, Oxford (c 12 people needed)
Can you help this fortnight?
This Friday afternoon: loading/unloading van for TPT (meet at office for 2pm)
DJ - July (at office in TW - c mid July)
Help to run it? ‘Story+’ version, we need a few helpers for cast and crew (team size: 4-6). Training provided.
Come and see! would you like to be a participant in it (or know people who might like to be invited)
Remote tasks:
proofreaders! Would you be able to go on a team of reviewers for documents and other materials for us?
Identifying even more Empathy Exercises for us to run with groups.
A brilliant week with 7 consultants with UCL last week, led by Cam looking to devise future campaigns with Refugee Week, Peace Day and International Women’s Day. We learnt loads about digital campaigning, making better sense of data (for SEO) and some really innovative ways to curate content in the digital space.
Simulations are relaunching this week with teams travelling to Walthamstow Hall and Canford school to deliver The Poverty Trap (TPT). We’re trying a bit of new stuff (an empathy exercise during the debrief) and we’re thrilled, if not nervous, to be back after 2.5 years since the last one! More to come in the autumn too!
Not alone! We are jumping for joy as we celebrate our first new regular giver last week! After such a gruelling pandemic we lost people, money, teams, opportunities, operations, structure and more! One thing became clear if we are to go on we can’t do it alone and we need a stronger support base to keep doing the work we feel called to do… it’s a ‘first step’ towards building a collective of ‘empathy angels’!
Congratulations to the Williams Family on the safe arrival of a baby boy on Sunday 19th June! Happy father’s day!
The High Life Climate Justice simulation updates to the videos are about to be undertaken (taking out references to COP26)
Happy Father’s Day! Tunbridge Wells Christian Fellowship bought 60 Harare made animals to use to celebrate the fathers in their congregation. What a beautiful use of these products that are made from many who are abandoned by their parents.
Some photos from the UCL Consultancy week involving Desperate Journeys, Empathy Exercises and campaign planning
This fortnight, we’re sharing our new Syrian cookbook as part of Refugee Week
As an act of empathy, please share or ask others to buy because it is made by the wonderful Muna who is known to some of our team. We know she’s poured a lot into this project (with friends from SWR & Sevenoaks School).
This exercise is for Muna and sharing her lovely recipes! On her behalf, thank you!
What we are watching, listening, reading, attending…
The most important driver of emotion is sound - [Dr Seth Horowitz, Neurologist]
“Please put on your headphones…”
Binaural … Bi-what?! This is an idea (usually starting with this phrase) that our UCL consultants were researching to find an innovative way to curate powerful experiential content over the digital space… and highlighted a bunch of practical ways that could transform how we could use it. Ours minds are ablaze with prospect and possibilities!
Other reads, clips, podcasts, events, films from around the team
The war for Kindness: building empathy in a fractured world - Jamil Zaki
A poem from The Worldwide Tribe about the planes leaving from UK to Rwanda… the words “because cruelty has won” struck accord to show the importance of building ‘a culture of empathy’ not cruelty.
Think you’re attentive? How good really is your attention? (check out this test and spot how many ‘passes’ you can actually detect of these basketball players - we missed a few!)
“Hurt people hurt people” says Lemn Sissay in his excellent book ‘My name is Why’ about care leavers. We co-designed a simulation with Oasis Kyrgyzstan about ‘care leavers’ in 2016. We’re considering afresh how to use this as one of our empathy exercises.
Some good scenes on racist ‘unconscious bias’ in DI Ray - crime show that is currently on ITV catch up.
Ways to help us reboot Empathy Action
Volunteering - watch out for pop up opportunities here in TN and we really need a bunch of regular helpers (eg a few hours or even a half day (or more!) a week as a regular commitment that we can build upon). Give us call to have a chat!
Share the news - please forward, share any social media posts. This really improves our reach.
Introduce us! - please introduce us to any prospective volunteers, customers or clients… we’d value your help in these introductions!
Regular giving - could you spare us the price of a cuppa (£2.50) a week?
As a small org, a little really goes a very long way… and we need a lot of help this year as we try to reboot Empathy Action. We can’t do it alone and this year we’re looking for 100 regular supporters.Via smile.amazon - link beneath to enable amazon to give money to EA
Thank you!
“Keep doing what you guys are doing because you guys are amazing!”