I’m late to the game, but glad I came upon this recently via Facebook. It was actually an old (very old, from 2012) Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign short video to support the “Empathy Deficit Stand in My Shoes” project.
Then when I went to make a small contribution, learned it was over. Way over via Kickstarter but just revving up in the world via the Stand in My Shoes team. Very cool.
I visited the website to see how the project was going, and when – of course – the movie would be out: Stand In My Shoes.com. Quoted from the website:
“Empathy is at the heart of human connection. It’s the glue that keeps us together. And scientists have confirmed it’s in decline, with the steepest drop off occurring in the past 10 years. With it in short supply, what will become of us as a species?”
- Give 10 million children empathy training via the movie and outreach activities.
- Transform 10,000 corporate cultures worldwide via corporate empathy training and legislative change.
- Create an empathy index as a measure of a nation’s prosperity for the 2015 Global Agenda.
- Make an empathic way of being a lifestyle choice for everyone.
The neuroscientists Antonio and Hanna Damasio have shown that patients with damage to the ventromedial part of the MPC – the section closely associated with self-awareness – typically have great trouble learning from previous emotional experiences or making decisions, seeing equal merit in every course of action.
Such patients also show less of a change in their heartbeat and other autonomic responses when shown distressing images. In this respect, their response mirrors that of sociopaths who may have suffered no medical trauma.
Quoted from the Stand in My Shoes website:
“Our primary goal is the erase the Empathy Deficit & ignite a Global Empathy Revolution by 2025.”
What amazing, caring, beautiful people. I signed-up to receive email updates and liked the Facebook Page.
Those with cash can contribute much more, I’ll give my support in spirit, and try to think of ways I can be more empathetic towards others.
Cheers.