Young people are growing up in a polarised society and amidst major world concerns, from war to climate change. Every child deserves the chance to be surrounded by empathetic adults, and to develop the crucial life skill of empathy.
We believe empathy is a beacon of hope in a divided world. We are the first organisation to build children’s empathy and social activism through a systematic use of high-quality literature. Our strategy is based on scientific evidence showing that empathy is learnable and that books are a powerful tool to build it.
Our mission is to raise an empathy-educated generation, inspired to build a better world for everyone. By 2026 we aim to benefit 1 million children, helping them learn more about empathy and develop their empathy skills.
Imagine every single child knowing what empathy is, and isn’t, and why it matters. Being skilled at putting themselves in others’ shoes, able to articulate and share their feelings. Being wonderful listeners, inspired to put empathy into action. Imagine the world being run by such a generation, with empathy a priority in their decision making and leadership! We dream of that world.
Sonia Thompson, headteacher, St.Matthew’s Primary School
Miranda McKearny OBE on our first steps
“In 2014 l really thought I was retiring from The Reading Agency, the charity I’d previously founded.” But the scientific research I’d seen building, about reading’s effect on real life empathy, kept poking at me. With my four fellow founders we held a big Think-In at the Royal Festival Hall asking whether society and the education system was making the most of this link. We envisaged a systemic change in which the books and book-talk happening in schools, libraries & homes could be used more deliberately to the transformative life skill of empathy.The Think-In feedback was that harnessing stories’ power to develop empathy was a sound idea, and much needed. And so EmpathyLab began”
