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Empathy Day returns in June with Coelho, Wilson and Cowell
Empathy Day 2023, to be held on 8th June, will star authors and illustrators including Cressida Cowell, Chris Riddell and Jacqueline Wilson, modelling "empathy-boosting Mission Empathy activities".
To launch the Empathy Day Live! online festival, Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho will lead a national assembly featuring an exclusive Empathy Day poem.
Children will be encouraged to complete five inspiring Mission Empathy Challenge activities in class or at home. Leading authors and illustrators will model and celebrate these same five activities at the online festival, with bitesize films streaming into classrooms, assemblies, libraries or homes.
Activities kick off at 9am with Coelho’s assembly, before an array of authors and illustrators, including AM Dassu, SF Said and Maisie Chan, share how they will be putting empathy into action.
In 2022, 402,000 children took part in Empathy Day. This year, 47 children’s publishers are pledging concrete support. Partners such as Twinkl, Scottish Book Trust, The Week Junior, Authorfy and the National Literacy Trust are also increasing their involvement.
The organiser, social enterprise EmpathyLab, aims to involve one million children a year by 2026, acting as a focal point for "celebrating empathy’s power to build a kinder, less divided world".
A new empathy handbook for 7-12-year-olds will be published on 18th May, written by Rashmi Sirdeshpande, in collaboration with EmpathyLab. We’ve Got This!, illustrated by Juliana Eigner, will be published by Words & Pictures, with all royalties supporting EmpathyLab’s work.
A live event at Manchester Velodrome will be hosted on Empathy Day itself, with 1,000 children playing "empathy-boosting" games with Rob Biddulph, Sophy Henn and Rashmi Sirdeshpande.
Founder Miranda McKearney said: "Empathy is a force for change and we badly need that change. Empathy Day gives us all practical ways to support young people and develop everyone’s empathy skills and understanding."
