I’m pleased to announce to Daily Kos readers that Building a Culture of Empathy is hosting an Empathy Summit across a wide variety of interests from professional empathy trainers.
This will be a Zoom video event that will bring together over 24 empathy trainers from around the world that are using empathy as the foundation of their practice. This free educational event is open to the general public.
For a bit of background on empathy circles see my previous Daily Kos diaries in this series, Building a Culture of Empathy, #1 and #2.
This is a unique opportunity to learn about how empathy is being applied in the real world across a wide variety of interests from professional empathy trainers. Each speaker will give a 10 minute talk about their work, organization, and how they teach empathy.
The Summit will held on Saturdays, September 2 & 9, 2023, starting at 10:00 AM PT. And the presentation part of the summit will take a little over two hours. The reason for two dates is the overwhelming number of requests from trainers who wanted to speak.
Following the presentation the assembly will divide up into breakout rooms where we conduct an empathy circle with the topic being what we learned at the presentation or what ever is on our mind.
As a facilitator trainee I will be volunteering to lead one of the breakout rooms in the second half of the Summit. I enjoy meeting new people from around the world in a structured open environment that the empathy circle practice provides. It is amazing how close a group of total strangers can become in just one circle experience.
Last year I started training to be an Empathy Circle Facilitator as chronicled in a series of six articles for Daily Kos Street Prophets: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6. These pieces documented my growth, challenges, and learning experiences as I ventured into the world of empathetic communication.
If you are interested in attending, I recommend you take a look at the registration page. It has all the information you need if you are new to empathy circles and want to attend the breakout sessions after the speakers' presentations.
Lastly, below is a video of the July 1, 2023 empathy summit: Mutual Empathy, Listening and Dialogue to Improve Relationships.
Thank You,
Jonathan Gordon