#ShareHumanity - Empathy Action

Incite or Inspire?

The new year continues apace. It is cold, it is dark, and the news swings from sobering to hopeful and straight back again. The new coronavirus variant is – as we all know – virulent. Our front line workers are fighting for all of our lives, and key workers are doing their utmost to ensure that everything – education, food supplies, waste management, etc. runs as near to normal as can be. The rest of us must stay at home, away from family and friends, to keep us all safe.

We don’t know yet for how long.

A year on from the beginning of this pandemic, we are being set a much tougher test. Hospitals are at peak capacity as the new variant – B.1.1.7. – reaches every corner of the world. A race between the vaccine and the virus is picking up pace, and we are tired.

The narrative is far from clear.

When we last faced this level of uncertainty, it was Spring, with blossom, sunshine, and the promise of better things to come.

This time, what is the story? Where is the hope?

In our fast-changing world of extremes, and amid all the loud headlines, when everything feels overwhelming, it is difficult to hold on to a narrative of hope. Saying ‘We can do this,’ can feel like another pressure.

Our words are powerful.

Being a citizen in a world where words contain so much power, we can choose words to incite anger and criticism, to vent our fears or project those fears onto others. Sometimes it feels too easy to quickly apportion blame and offer our critique. It even feels like an act of courage to choose words that show compassion and understanding, that inspire, and that can lift one another up.

Incite or inspire?

During Lockdown #1 we found it powerful to learn how to listen and actively choose to do so. Last week, the words of a five year old were the ones that inspired us. These hopeful words are all around us; we can choose to hear them and share them. Like choosing empathy, we can choose inspiration!

Send us your stories

We’d love to hear the words you have found helpful and inspirational over this last week. Thank you.

Hope is Offensive

At the start of this new year, one of our founders, Ben Solanky, reflects on a week where the world has once again changed and challenged.

People can be angry, Papa but they can still be friends”

The voluntary words offered by a 5 year old when he overhears his father talk about the angry protestors who mobbed and entered Capitol Hill building this week.

Too simple? Too naive?

What challenges me is that I find the hope in these innocent words offends me and my instinctive reaction is to belittle it.

My response is to dismiss this idea. To guard myself against it. To build a barrier. A wall around my heart. Instead I judge my child as ‘sweet’ and ‘innocent’. It seems that it is me who is quick to judge rather than entertain such an offensive idea like friendship to solve our worldly problem of hatred.

And I ask myself why this is.

Is it because, like so many others, I feel that:

‘We’ve been here before… and here we go again’
Somehow the repetitive nature of this hope highlights the gritty reality we are facing. Revisiting hope seems offensive.

‘I used to believe that but…”
Somewhere along the line experience has aided us in building a great big wall to keep hope at bay. We know it’s there, but it’s just hard to get to. The result is to back off, to not engage. Realism makes hope offensive.

‘It’s too painful to allow ourselves to believe this’
Somehow we’ve been too close to hope before and had our hopes extinguished. This has hurt us. Really hurt us. Hurt makes hope offensive.

‘Why is it nice? Why is it innocent? Isn’t it just utterly offensive?’
How can the thought of being friends with your enemies or those you hate be a ‘nice’ thing? Hope is not nice. It’s painful. It’s hard. It’s challenging and sometimes demands a sacrifice from us. Making hope just nice is offensive (and untrue).

In an age where hatred is being tweeted and taught, we also hear that there is another way. To teach love. To be courageous enough to champion difference and to choose the difficult path of empathy. To the extent of finding empathy with and compassion for your enemies.

That’s offensive. That’s radical.

We do not claim to have any answers to a pandemic of hatred but we do hold that teaching empathy and building compassionate people is part of building a peaceful world. We can learn to be friends with one another rather than continuing to fight.

As one of our team said: ‘It’s out of the mouths of babes and children’ that we see a future world that they can thrive in. And as for my son, he reminds me that having the courage to try to see hope is important not just for me, but for all of us.

No one is born hating another person … People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela

Empathy Action is currently looking to increase its empathy programmes. From using our handicrafts to activities and exercises to help students, colleagues, or family members, we have a number of resources we can share. Get in touch if you would like to know more.

Please see below for more resources sharing a message of radical hope.

The story of friendship between CP Ellis and Anne Atwater (Also dramatised in the film: “Best of Enemies“)
Accidental Courtesy documentary of the story of Daryl Davis (also see Daryl’s TED talk “Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies.“)
Friendship from Syria bracelet from Empathy Action’s ethical gift range and use for the basis of programme in your workplace, school or event

Meet the Makers: Florence, Lorna and Mary

Meet the women who hand sew the colourful juggling balls we sell. Our friends at Pursue Kenya run a programme that enables them to meet weekly. Based in the village of Shirotso in Western Kenya, they make the balls from scraps of fabric (Kitenge) donated by local tailors and filled with a local lentil called ndengu.

But it’s not just about what they make.

Each of the women who attends the workshops is a widow. The workshops allow them to discover new skills, forge new friendships, gossip and have fun. Leanne Coggan of Pursue Kenya explains:

Before any of the widows became involved…the majority of them had been ostracised by their communities and were isolated and very low in mood. Many of them had not had someone visit them for years, and felt unloved and worthless, and that their lives lacked purpose or hope.”

Leanne works closely with Florence, Lorna and Mary – she says they are some of her favourite people – and explains that this group of just three craft the juggling balls. The group was originally larger, but health issues have had an impact.

All the widows live below the poverty line and subsistence farming is a way of life for the women. Each day they work their land, tend to livestock, and fetch water and firewood. In addition, they all care for several grandchildren whose parents have left rural life for cities in search of jobs. These extra responsibilities of feeding, educating and meeting their grandchildren’s medical needs are hard to bear. Especially as – being widows who have not brought sons to their families – they occupy the lowest social status in their communities.

These are some of the things the widows have said since joining the workshops:

I had not been hugged for so long. My first hug from Ceciliah (of Pursue Kenya) woke up something in me and now I get hugs all the time!“

People in the community like me because they see I must matter to be visited by white people! I am not lonely and I am so happy because I know I am loved and have friends.“

My life has a purpose now, everything has changed, yesterday I was nobody, today I am a big someone and everyone knows it!“

Mary is the youngest of the three widows. When her husband died, she was blamed for his death and shunned by family and friends. At her lowest point, she considered suicide. But Leanne says that, since being able to generate an income through the sale of the juggling balls, Mary hasn’t stopped smiling and (up until the pandemic) always had a house full of friends. She has been appointed the role of secretary for the wider Pursue group and when asked recently how she felt about Pursue Kenya, she said:

It has given me back my life but even more than it was!“

The impact of Covid-19

Leanne explains that their struggle for food has been heightened. The local market places – where the women both sell and buy food – have been closed. In addition, several of them rely on money sent back from a relative working in the city. The loss of jobs has meant that this money is no longer being received. And the women’s grandchildren are currently receiving no education at all as schools are closed until at least January.

Nor are the widows able to meet up as usual or get their hugs – but they know this will not be forever, and that their lives have already changed for the better.

What better way to start helping others than by learning to juggle this Christmas. Thank you for helping to support these wonderful women, especially in such challenging times. To see the amazing juggling balls, please visit our shop.

Every one of our ethical gifts is made by people whose lives are improved with the purchases you make: they gain an income and a purpose, and they are given the opportunity to come together with others and contribute to their communities in a meaningful way.

Christmas With A Difference

Sandy, our Innovations Manager, knows that this Christmas will be different.

Extended gatherings of family and friends may have to wait until next year, and myriad concerns continue to circulate with the ongoing pandemic.

Yet Christmas is still there on the calendar. Christmas festivities have always been a way to chase away the encroaching darkness and cold. In pared down circumstances, we are all appreciating kindness and celebrating empathy in even greater measure.

This is exactly what has influenced Sandy and her team when thinking about this year’s Empathy Action Christmas Campaign. During a year of social isolation, so many people have found ways to encourage and support friends and family and reached out to help strangers.

During ‘lockdown’ I met neighbours I’d never met during NHS claps, had friends knock on my door and wave to me from the street to lift my spirits. I played cards with my husband and children every day and laughed a lot while we talked about the foibles of homeschooling. Highlighting and thanking those people who lifted, and continue to lift me, is exactly what I need to keep me going.”

The Christmas Campaign is set to be launched on 2 November. Think about someone you are thankful for and whom you’d like to send one of our ethical gifts.

Each of our gifts carries its own story. By thanking your special someone, you will also be offering a hand of support to its maker.

Stay tuned – you can find us on Instagram /Facebook.

#ShopWithEmpathy #GiveWithLove #ForYouBecause

Learning How To Make A Fuss

Before the summer break, as part of our online journal, we featured our amazing volunteer, Vix. Vix was born with hearing loss and, in her brave and brilliant blog, entitled I am Deaf she has been exploring her deafness and its impact upon her life. We loved her latest instalment ‘Learning how to make a Fuss…’ It reminded us all of the importance of raising our voices to change the world, both for ourselves and others.

With Vix’s permission, we have reprinted an extract from her blog post below.

During these interesting times, putting aside my husband’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, home schooling, too many hospital visits to mention, all the mask wearing, temperature taking challenges, zoom call etiquette – I thought – why not add to my stress levels and look for a new job? I currently work part time but needed to increase our income.

For too long I’ve been hiding and not telling people I have a disability and I have actually not been doing myself any favours. I’ve struggled in the past because I’ve not told teachers/lecturers/managers that I need to lipread because it feels like I am drawing attention to myself and I am someone who likes to blend in with the background. I remember one lecturer who faced the whiteboard for almost the whole hour and I hadn’t heard a thing! I’ve sometimes told myself that I don’t need to say anything, but will speak up if I need to further down the line. Then somehow I’ve talked myself out of it as it’s terrifying to speak out in a lecture hall with a hundred other students. It goes against every fibre of my being to stand out and say to everyone, look at me! But I am different from hearing people, I am unique and there’s no one like me.

My deafness is a part of who I am and even when doing something like filling in job application forms, I’ve dithered over whether to put down that I have a disability. Sometimes I’ve ticked the box and sometimes I haven’t. I personally feel it’s almost too extreme to put disability. I’ve wondered about whether it’s possible to change the wording and just put deaf. I don’t see myself as ‘disabled’ but I am deaf. I am perfectly able. In this instance, I ticked the disabled box and explained that I needed to lipread and see people’s faces.

I have to stop worrying about what other people think and I have to get rid of that mindset that I’m making too much fuss. If I’m booked to go on a training course I have to make the trainer aware of my needs and to be honest, it still feels uncomfortable doing it. I always wonder what the other people on the course think and whether they think I’m just making a fuss. I still have to do quite a few zoom calls and will let people know from the beginning but again, I wish I didn’t have to sometimes. I’m used to hiding in the background but, by doing that, I’ve let myself down. I need to tell people so I can make my life easier and it puts me more in control of the situation. I need to stand up for me.

I actually ended up applying for two jobs and had four interviews in total. Two using zoom and two face to face. I ‘made a fuss’ and I explained how to make zoom accessible to me. Both the face to face interviews were outside and, in that environment, we were able to talk without masks. The interviewers were happy to repeat questions and were aware of the impact of background noise on our conversation.

By the way, I got the job and I can’t wait to start!

Thank you so much Vix, for sharing your story with us. Please do follow Vix’s brilliant blog here.

We’d love to hear your stories about empathy both for yourself and others. Please do get in touch!