Love and Compassion are Necessities
Dear friend of compassion,
Seven new cities have affirmed the Charter in the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. We have initiated conversations with S’aana, Yemen on becoming a compassionate city and we are continuing to build significant task forces in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. We are spawning a youth ambassador program and all of this since I wrote you earlier this fall. As was the case with the previous letter, this one is being sent to those of you who have generously contributed to our work in the last year. In the midst of our polarized world, you helped amplify the voice for compassion in 2016. Thank you so much for all you do, and especially for your support of the work of The Charter for Compassion International.
This year we have been actively growing—with 101 cities and communities now declaring themselves as Compassionate Cities, and dozens more signing up to work toward that goal bringing us to a total of 400 in the movement. As Karen Armstrong has said, "a compassionate city is an uncomfortable city," and we continue to work with these communities on their compassionate action plans. The call to stand up for neighbors and bind communities together is an ongoing journey, and when you support the Charter you are making sure we can help every day. Our aim is to join hands with other cities worldwide to seek unity instead of division.
I think about the tremendous response we had to a Charter "After the Election" webinar—over 550 registrations in under 36 hours—following the U.S. election this fall. We heard from Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, president of the Charter’s Board and Global Compassion Council, Hereditary Lakota Chief Phil Lane Jr., MoveOn co-founder Joan Blades, environmental author Kathleen Dean Moore, and #CompassionateConvos co-founder Marie Roker-Jones, among others.
We have launched two tremendous new sectors this year—Women and Girls and Social Justice. Women and Girls is coordinated by longtime Charter activist Sande Hart. The Women and Girls sector’s vision is to provide the space to amplify the voices and efforts of women and girls to use their strength, expertise and drive initiatives globally. The Social Justice sector is focused on fostering conversation—even difficult conversation—about issues of equality and equity for all people, and providing resources for individuals and communities engaged in social justice issues. Michael Burks is the coordinator of this team.
Your donations support a very small staff—a director, a part-time administrator, and a few hours of additional professional support. This year we have been able to strengthen our core infrastructure—improving the technical support for our website, transitioning to a new audio and video platform to host conference calls and webinars, and setting the stage for new collaborative products in 2017. We need to add more staff to create a growing international movement that is now occurring in over 50 countries.
We are very dependent on the kind of support that you give. We are deeply grateful for it, and so are the individuals we touch every day. I get a lot of email—hundreds of messages every day—from people who are looking to make a connection, have a need, or are interested in taking specific steps to advance compassion in their community. Many of these requests are coming from Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries and we can’t act quickly to help meet their needs.
I am grateful to have the opportunity to share your message of hope with them, and give them tools, introduce them to like-minded people in their neighborhood, and advance the cause of compassion across the globe.
You know compassion is a force that changes lives. I know that we rely on your support to put that luminous force to work. Thank you for acting on your commitment with a gift today and conclude 2016 with a message of hope.
With much appreciation,
Marilyn
Marilyn Turkovich, Director
The Charter for Compassion International
