“Truly inspiring for my boy”
#5 | 16/11/22
5 Quotes from the recent Desperate Journeys
“truly inspiring for my boy” - parent of student
“It helped them (our students) to empathise and feel the sadness, anger and lack of control that refugees face.” - teacher
“I’m so thankful that you could share your experience and story’s with us, even though we at the beginning were a little bit smiley but by the end we felt sympathy and love.” - participant
"the best piece of theatre that I’ve ever seen” - participant
A big thank you to our sponsors, Tunbridge Wells Christian Fellowship for allowing us to use their premises in Tunbridge Wells for these immersive workshops and to all our volunteers who helped set up/pack down/deliver these pieces.
Thanks for believing in our vision to inspire compassionate action and building a culture of empathy!
Christmas on
The Empathy Store
Over the coming month we’ll be introducing Christmas ‘bundles’ on The Empathy Store - please stay tuned for new items, lines and exclusives!
Previously we’ve ran a “build longer tables at Christmas” and featured some great ‘Table Builders’ such as Kate, Alice, or Jem.
NEW: Desperate Journeys will be trialed in a set-less, ‘stage’ version in 2 locations over the next 6 weeks which will complete bringing it into 4 new lighter and adaptable formats(!), these will be: JOURNEY (as delivered recently in 3 tents), LITE (as trialed at our offices in July in 2 adjacent rooms), STORY (modified to fit the space we visit) and STAGE (with seated participants). Each one will be ‘tried and tested’ before the end of the year and ready to take elsewhere.
NEW ‘Empathy Exercises’ - will be rolled out to our local Beavers, hopefully, before Christmas with Heather & Ben looking to trial the programmes used at schools in the past but with a greater focus on training and flexing the ‘empathy’ muscle and using gifts from the Empathy Store.
The ‘Empathy Consultancy’ is a new angle we are looking to explore over the coming year - to bring all our expertise as experience and immersive-makers to use with other groups. We are having some great early conversations with a few charities and others. More to follow.
“Do you care enough to be a … ?”
Empathy in Recruitment
New Zealand Police Force took an interesting line on their tactics for recruiting. Looking to identify what characters (and characteristics) they want to build their police force upon.
Looking at empathy, compassion and recruiting to character is something that is often omitted from the job application process. People don’t often ask “Are you a good parent, child, neighbour?” or alongside skills ask “what characteristics would you like your colleagues to remember you by?”
Dr Brian Klass, UCL, says this sway in tactics is looking to character & values rather than the popularisation and power of the police which has been used in previously.
Have a look at NZ Police advert beneath (and in stark contrast take a look here at how Doraville police, in Georgia look to attract people):
Dig Deeper
There were a few more in this NZ series:
(Also check out Ernest Shackleton who wrote this want ad (as told by Simon Sinek) for a perilous voyage and trying to attract the right person.)
What we are watching, listening, reading, attending…
Last issue of The Empathy Collective we reported on the growing unrest in Iran, this week reports were flying around about 15,000 people facing a potential death sentence. The director, Ben, has drafted a letter to our local MP, especially ahead of next week’s England v Iran World Cup game. Feel free to use and modify for your own MP.
Other reads, clips, podcasts, events, films from around the team
As COP27 continues into it’s second week you can find a great summary of Climate Justice - the issues that we focus on in The High Life immersive workshop from Earthrise studios here (made last year)
“Oh FFS: A guide to climate change acronyms. Your jargon-busting climate glossary.” By the New Humanitarian
“To much has been given much is expected” as Dolly Parton likes to quote as her guiding ethos … it was cool to hear of her generous spirit here!
We’ve been looking into ‘The Rice Theory of Culture’ coined by Thomas Talhelm especially when looking at empathy and systemic change.
A pretty cool spot by Eve: The plumber-led support network keeping people warm this winter
“A Force for Good: Co-operating Across Borders in an Age of Authoritarians” Christian Aid annual lecture (free) on Tuesday 22nd Nov in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London 6.30-9pm
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!