How to Activate Empathy in Children : Ashoka Changemakers Twitter Chat Explores

Ashoka Changemakers, the online community for social entrepreneurs and changemakers organized a Twitter based chat on ‘Activating Empathy’ on March 20, 2012. This online discussion was part of Ashoka Changemakers latest collaborative competition titled Activating Empathy: Transforming Schools to Teach What Matters. This competition seeks to spark greater collaboration among efforts such as those that encourage social and emotional development, address bullying in ways that advance understanding of others’ perspectives, promote community diversity and respect for differences, or champion children as real-world problem-solvers. The deadline for entering into the Activating Empathy competition is 30th March 2012. 

Empathy is more than just awareness and concern. It is about cultural sensitivity and conflict resolution. It’s about the ability to communicate effectively and understand the motivations of others. Empathy is about standing up, not standing by, uncovering what’s below the surface through active listening and putting words into action. This is why Ashoka launched a global initiative to ensure that children master empathy, enabling them to be effective citizens, leaders and trailblazersdf

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Vallabh Rao is from Bangalore, India. As a freelance consultant he helps social and green enterprises to communicate and market themselves better. Previously he has worked with media platform YourStory.in and social enterprise enabler Ashoka in India and Digital Divide Data in Cambodia.