Photo by Merida McCarthy
As they say, a picture can represent a thousand words. The picture above in the masthead was an impromptu gathering of Charter people at the 2023 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. It was taken at our display area and there are representatives from our staff, board, sector leads and individuals from Compassionate cities: Cape Town, South Africa, Fayetteville, USA and Utrecht in the Netherlands.
The Charter for Compassion participates and helps in non-monetary sponsorship of the yearly Encuentro Mundial de Valores (Human Values) conference in Monterey, Mexico, and the bi-annual Parliament of World Religions. In addition, each year we hold the 40-Days of Peace celebration in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. bringing together, each day, unique programing on peace and non-violence. We are able to do this with the help of the MLK Days of Service and the Compassion Games.
The Charter has also, with the help of several of our partners, especially URI (the United Religions Initiatives), Golden Rule Day on April 5. We celebrate with programming around the world virtually. In addition, we collaborate with ServiceSpace in offering Compassion Days each year, and then there are in-person and virtual celebrations honoring extraordinary people with the Karen Armstrong Humanitarian Awards. Finally, we join others groups around the world in recognizing the UN sponsored World Interfaith Harmony Week.
We do all of this in hopes of:
- Imaging a shared vision that encompasses not what we’re against but what we are for. Without a vision, the people perish.
- Aligning our strategies and organizing approaches with a positive, common sense vision that inspires us.
- Exploring the substance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations to see how individuals and communities can assure their implementation and success locally and globally.
- Protecting the rights of all children, especially girls, and assuring accessibility to free education.
- Considering holding Living Room conversations to engage in difficult subjects in a constructive way. Learning how to center arguments on topics not on commenters.
- Remembering that language matters. Being thoughtful about how words may affect the communities in which we are addressing.
- Regarding common humanity with respect, curiosity and appreciation. Learn from differences.
