125: Empathy Week with Ed Kirwan
The world needs more Empathy– but teaching it is not enough
Empathy Week 2020 is an invitation for 200,000 young people to put empathy into action and create a better world. Together, we are building the #EmpathyGeneration.
Ed Kirwan is an educator, filmmaker and photographer who works to challenge the status quo of social issues and lead people into tangible action. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Bath and worked as a research scientist for a year before he moved into secondary education where he taught science in North London. In the 2 years since, Ed finished a Masters degree in ‘Leadership’ from UCL:IOE before going on to highlight the issue of homelessness in the UK., educating the general public on ways they can help through powerful visual storytelling. Ed now runs a community that brings homelessness organisations together in the UK, acting as a key networker for the sector and between grassroots organisations and larger national charities. In addition to his work around homelessness, during the past two years, Ed has volunteered and worked in Uganda and India on international development projects and also documented the Homeless World Cup in Mexico in 2018 and Cardiff in 2019.
It is ultimately his experiences in the classroom, at the Homeless World Cup and working alongside Slum Soccer in India that led Ed to create Empathy Week 2020. A free secondary school resource, it invites young people to put empathy into action and create a better world by empowering them to make change in their own communities. Ed believes teaching empathy alone is not enough and that students need to be given the freedom, time and space to develop the leadership and empathic skills that are so vital in everyone’s career and life. As a dedicated basketball player, he also recognises the importance of sport in character development and has therefore focused on the theme of ‘Sporting Change’ for this year’s Empathy Week.
Ed now continues to work on Empathy Week, enabling its impact to spread across the UK as well as continuing to grow his own production company Both Buckets, which has a long term goal of showing that businesses can exist earning a profit whilst ‘doing good’ at the same time – fulfilling a life of filling both buckets.
Instagram – @empathyweek
Facebook – @empathyweek
Twitter – @TheEmpathyWeek
Twitter/Instagram/Facebook – @edkirwan
Show Sponsor
The National Association for Primary Education speaks for young children and all who live and work with them. This includes parents, teachers, governors and all those interested in primary education. NAPE is a non-political charity and works tirelessly to support teachers in the classroom as expressed in their ‘Value of Membership’ Document. NAPE leads the Primary Umbrella Group of thirty primary subject associations and unions and gives teachers and schools a voice at governmental level at consultative meetings with ministers for schools.
For full details of how they can support you please visit their website at nape.org.uk