Remembering Humanity
#7 | 15/12/22
This week the news broke of 4 lives lost on the English channel of people seeking sanctuary.
Empathy Action Director, was invited on to a BBC Radio show to offer a comment - you can listen here.
5 things to remember
The headlines and statistics will scare you… and the way these stories are constructed and conveyed can make you feel angry toward people coming across here. These will be powerful emotions. Take a moment to remember the humanity of this situation and these 5 things to remember.
No human is illegal. Even Ben & Jerry’s say so.
People wanting a place to be safe and have a chance of a life is no different to what we all wish for. People are people just like you.
This is indeed very scary. Being scared is a natural response to disaster. These are big & complex issues, but be mindful of how your fear can be manipulated through narratives such as rhetoric of “we’re full”, “we’ve got enough of our own problems” and more. Arrest these fear-manipulating reductive narratives and turn them towards understanding and learning more about the complex issues and especially towards the people. If you are scared, practice more listening.
If it were you and you were in the same place, you would wish that another person would be kind and friendly. This needs a compassionate generation to be grown and fostered. Teach empathy, teach compassion, lead with kindness and celebrate the good that we can do. Good people will come to help through good leaders - and these leaders are grown today.
The biggest driver of global displacement is insecurity through war, political instability, disasters and climate change. If you want to know what to do - lobby for peace, safe routes, disaster risk reduction and climate justice. And volunteers are always wanted by charities, NGOs on the frontline of these issues.
If you want help, but don’t know what to do. This is a great starting point… take a moment to get smart about what you can do: share money, gift time, lend voice or choose to empathise. Get in touch with us, too, we always need volunteers & supporters.
We’ll be back with updates next year as we look to running more immersive workshops (and designing new ones!), running campaigns using our wonderful products and more.
But more on this next year and on behalf of all of us here at Empathy Action, we wish our readers a very merry Christmas!
The Empathy Store:
3 bundles
Island of All Together
Powerful perspective taking conversations captured beautifully here. Let us know what you think.
What we are watching, listening, reading, attending…
“Where are you really from?” a powerful and thought-provoking spoken word from Riz Ahmed.
Other reads, clips, podcasts, events, films from around the team
Meet the 10 change-makers of Britain this past year
Dance for Change (a great short film)
Falling Upwards - Richard Rohr
A festive playlist from around the team
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!