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Publishers including Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury and Usborne have unveiled a raft of activities planned to mark Empathy Day today (8th June 2023).
EmpathyLab, which is behind Empathy Day, says it aims to “inspire children and young people to learn more about empathy, have transformational experiences through stories and put empathy into action”.
Staff at Bloomsbury and Head of Zeus have been encouraged to contact their local schools with information about Empathy Day, with schools incentivised by a free pack of four Bloomsbury books. Pan Macmillan will be holding a company lunch involving interactive sessions with staff trying out some of the “5 Mission Empathy” activities, as are being done in schools and libraries around the UK – including Empathy Walks and Empathy Exchange, which uses question prompts to help people get to know each other better, especially people they don’t know well, and to practise their listening skills.
Usborne is giving away copies of Questions and Answers about Refugees by Katie Daynes and Ashe de Sousa to the first 500 schools to register, and on Empathy Day itself staff will take part in a session led by EmpathyLab co-founder Sarah Mears, as part of the company’s Lunchtime Learning series. It will cover the science of empathy and how books build it and the relevance of the empathy movement to publishers. Quarto will take part in an “Empathy Hour” in which staff will be pairing up randomly and using conversation prompts to build empathy skills.
Nosy Crow will also be donating titles to 20 schools, and Farshore has commissioned a brand new story from Empathy Lab-trained author Lorraine Gregory, Interdimensional Explorers, her new middle-grade book launching on Empathy Day. HarperCollins Children’s has a number of authors involved in the Empathy Live! – a selection of live events taking place on the day – line-up.
Joanna Prior, c.e.o of Pan Macmillan, said: “Pan Macmillan is a keen and proud supporter of EmpathyLabUK and the inspiring work it does to teach and promote empathy in the workplace, in schools and at home. We want empathy to run through our business, underpinning our work and our relationships with our authors, customers, readers and colleagues.
“As one of a group of Empathy Builders in publishing we were delighted to welcome professor Robin Banerjee (head of psychology at University of Sussex) to our offices on Empathy Day for a discussion with Miranda McKearney, the powerhouse founder of EmpathyLabUK and before that of The Reading Agency. Colleagues are taking part in some of the activities promoted by EmpathyLabUK and our authors Chris Riddell, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Rob Biddulph took part in Empathy Day Live! on the day. We so admire the great work that Miranda and her team are doing and we are delighted to support them in their drive to make Empathy Day a major force for good.”