Five finds of the fortnight: Edition 23

Help us keep the Living Bridges project going in 2022 (Plus Living Bridges conversations!)

December 17, 2021

Hello everyone,

For the past few months, I’ve been working on the Living Bridges team, and a couple of weeks ago, formally entered into an agreement to co-hold this project with enCOMPASSion.I’m excited about the work we will do together to bring more NVC to the world of social change!

Living Bridges is a collaborative platform created by enCOMPASSion Foundation and Connext Coaching, to foster and develop empathic, informed and skilled development practitioners, citizens and peacebuilders from diverse social and cultural backgrounds—from across India and the world.

Support the Living Bridges project (other currencies) by purchasing Living Bridges learning resources

What is the Living Bridges project?

Founded in October 2020, in the last 13 months the Living Bridges has been able to reach out to and serve 780+ participants through 56 intense and experiential weekly small-group workshops. These workshops have brought together participants from 44 countries and trainers from 37 countries to collaboratively explore, learn about, and develop skills for:

  • Practicing empathy and collaboration in an increasingly polarized world

  • Building bridges across people and communities for creating sustainable human systems

  • Actively living nonviolence, compassion and peace in day-to-day situations, and

  • Seeding an inclusive future that works for everyone

Our workshops are highly subsidized. In addition, to reach out to the grassroots practitioners from local communities with limited means, Living Bridges has provided scholarships (more than 50% of the cost) to about 350 of its participants. The workshops are also offered with Hindi translation and the training material translated in Hindi to overcome the language divide.

From the money raised from these workshops, we have contributed to grassroots initiatives, including:

  • Community development in urban slums in NOIDA

  • Winter blankets relief for Delhi’s urban poor, and 

  • Towards supporting sex workers during the second wave.

Support this initiative!

Having developed and tested a working model for our mission, we are entering the 2nd phase of our journey, the Living Bridges 2.0 —and need your support and contribution!

During the next year, we aim to: 

  • Develop and mentor a cadre of 50 to 100, “Living Bridges Changemakers” from amongst the participants of our workshops who can make a difference in their communities

  • Support and handhold the grassroots community projects which they would undertake individually

  • Refine and develop more training material, self-assessment tools etc. 

  • Continue to provide scholarships/ freeships to remain inclusive, and

  • Support the community projects undertaken by the Living Bridges

No amount is too small or too big. We welcome any and all contributions towards meeting our goals. Please follow the links below to contribute.

You can also help by spreading the word!

Support the Living Bridges project (other currencies) by purchasing Living Bridges learning resources

Please help us get the word out by:

  1. Making a contribution to our project (no amount is too big or too small!)

  2. Sharing information about our fundraiser on social media by sharing our Instagram and Facebook posts with a personalized note

  3. Creating a mini fundraiser of your own!

  4. Committing to a monthly contribution to us (respond to this email to know more about this)

  5. Telling your friends about this fundraiser

The Living Bridges conversations

As a part of our fundraiser, we’re hosting conversations on the relevance of empathy, compassion and collaboration in social change.

We spoke to NVC trainer, mediator and author John Kinyon on connecting across differences:

…and more coming up!

At noon today (Friday, 17 December), we will premiere our conversation with Duke Duchscherer, NVC trainer and restorative dialogue facilitator, on the power of dialogue in healing and reconciliation. Watch to hear Duke speak of his own experiences, and share a powerful story of how deep connection can inspire forgiveness.

You can watch the video on Youtube (set a reminder to receive a notification), or sign up for our Facebook event to join our watch party!

We’ll be sharing more videos and learning material through the week!

Please contribute to our fundraiser and spread the word—every bit of support takes us closer to the goal (links below).

Warm regards,

Ranjitha

Support the Living Bridges project (other currencies) by purchasing Living Bridges learning resources