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E-mailThe astounding support in less than two months resulted in Bridging the Empathy Gap - Yes We Can! on Ideas for Change in America receiving 8000 votes and ending in 15th place, 1300 short of being in the Top 10 Ideas to be presented to the Obama Administration.
Although our proposal did not make it to be presented, Jori, Kathleen, Sylvia, and I continued to meet as a team. We imagined many more people who are aligned with the idea of empathy as a viable way of nonviolent action for effective change, than just those 8000 who voted for us. We began to discuss ideas of how to get empathic skills not only into the hands of officials, but actually all people. We came up with an idea for training and creating Empathy Corps that could be utilized in communities all over the world.
On one of our calls I presented an International Day of Empathic Action as a means to get Empathy Corps going in communities. As we continued to discuss IDEA, it became clear what we were spearheading was much bigger than simply implementing corps trainings. Really, IDEA has the potential to have available a skilled person in empathic listening/connecting in all regions of the world so that we may see all beings integrate suffering to become free, fully alive, and resolve conflict peacefully.
We discussed many dates to launch IDEA. The first was Sept. 11. We imagined the suffering, separation, and confusion of 9/11 could be transformed into empowered empathic action for reconciliation and healing. The date we settled on, October 2 arose to us an auspicious day as it is the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi, a man's whose message was a life of empathic action for effective change.
Oct. 2 was inagurated in 2007 by the United Nations as an International Day for Nonviolence. We imagine Gandhi would delight in a world-wide day of Empathic Action as it could be seen as Direct Action in Love, a tenent of nonviolence he developed and utilized for immense social change in his country.
Adding to the sweetness of our choice of Oct. 2 is that it is only four days out from Oct.6, the birth date of Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Jori, Kathleen, Sylvia, and I have found Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to be a practical, powerful way to build bridges of empathy. We have not only integrated NVC into our work, but truly in our way of life.
I hope that in some way IDEA honors Marshall Rosenberg, as he has offered an untrackable number of humans empathic connection, and his work of NVC has reached out in immeasurable ways to provide effective peaceable change throughout the world. I hope that IDEA honors the Center for Nonviolent Communication's vision where all people are getting their needs met and resolving their conflicts peacefully.
The Bridging the Empathy Gap team is focused on organizing IDEA and remains open to the possibilities that the original proposal may open up. We are committed to seeing a world where everyone matters, all needs are met, and worldwide life-serving systems are created in economics, education, justice, healthcare, and peace-keeping.
Thank you for participating in the International Day for Empathic Action.
Peace All Ways,
Catherine Cadden
