NEWS EDITOR – ASHTON JEFFERS
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON NOV 15 2023
Times of conflict make it difficult to balance daily life and the well-being and safety of others inside and outside of the community. Finding solutions to develop empathy, understanding and especially compassion is extremely important. On Thursday, Nov. 2, Center City Network hosted an event at the Radius Center in Downtown San Antonio, discussing the developments and launching of CompassionateUSA.
The event featured several prominent guest speakers in the San Antonio community. It included Mayor Ron Nirenberg from the City of San Antonio; Ann Helmke from the City of San Antonio Faith Liaison; Cary Clack, Editorial Writer and Columnist for the San Antonio Express-News; and Migdalia Garcia, Director of the San Antonio Peace Center and representing Alamo Colleges. The focus of Compassionate USA’s discussion centered on how compassion-centered living can create a better downtown San Antonio and beyond. A light reception for attendees preceded the panel, allowing individuals to establish connections and greet fellow advocates in San Antonio who were interested in this approach to community development by using compassion and various skill sets. Chairing the session was Mario Ochoa, co-founder of Sammis|Ochoa Public Relations and Digital Marketing, who began by discussing what the goals of CompassionateUSA were from the perspective of the panelists. CompassionateUSA is a project centered on acknowledging humanity and compassion in living daily life. The project provides a free video series that introduces viewers to the concepts of compassion and what it means to apply it to a daily routine. There is an additional micro-course included through Coursera that further explores this approach. It provides a toolkit that prompts actiondriven responses to build compassion in an individual’s community. Upon completing the course, individuals receive microcredentials for their work and are informed of further opportunities to share their insight with others in their organization. The San Antonio Peace Center was another key organization heavily involved with advocating for CompassionateUSA.
“Compassion is what makes us human,” stated Mayor Ron Nirenberg when asked why the program specifically focuses on the use of compassion compared to other similar emotions and understandings. “San Antonio already demonstrates itself as a compassionate city,” he stated, claiming that compassion was different from empathy in that it goes beyond being able to imagine oneself in another’s shoes and prompts action as well as taking practice to fully develop compassion not just as another emotion, but as a skill. Alamo Colleges is a key institution in developing the CompassionateUSA curriculum, as demonstrated by Migdala Garcia. It benefits cities in economic terms. Part of compassionate living goes beyond addressing current issues in the community, such as the mental health crisis in the United States. According to the panelists, it costs cities more money when compassionate living is not applied to the solutions dealing with incidents that are related to traumatic experiences for their communities as compared to when it is applied. Furthering this evidence, CompassionateUSA has over 100 partners nationally, emphasizing the idea that co-labor is what drives progress and community-building. Collaboration and developing relationships inside and outside of the community is something this program works to utilize and have others understand as a resource to themselves and other organizations. Compassionate living has resulted in city-wide developments and resolutions. Part of the beginning of CompassionateUSA stemmed from mayors in cities from across the states coming together to discuss what steps to take following the gun violence in Uvalde in May 2022 and other injustices that expand across the nation.
Ann Helmke shared that a major aspect of creating CompassionateUSA was involved heavily with research-based information from several universities within the United States. With compassion in community organizations and jobs, turnover decreases due to deeper relationships with employees as well as with a customer base. Migdalia Garcia shared the act of practicing gratitude and coming together to talk about issues of concern in the community. “Part of practicing compassion and being compassionate people is gratitude and interdependence,” stated Garcia. “We know all of us came together to learn more, share our skills and get energized to say, ‘This is for me. This is for my family. This is for everyone in the community. We know we can make it better.’” Garcia went on to explain how the Peace Center helped navigate the conversations predating CompassionateUSA by identifying the needs of the community and using deep listening in attempts to alleviate the issues of violence in San Antonio. CompassionateUSA became another chapter in the ongoing work of Alamo Colleges and the San Antonio Peace Center.
CompassionateUSA emphasizes its dedication to non-violence. Cary Clack has a history of promoting non-violent approaches in his work around San Antonio, sharing insight into how some individuals push away or ignore feelings of compassion. “How we treat each other reflects how long we can survive,” Clack stated when asked about the importance of nonviolence. He shared that part of the issues individuals see in their community comes from a lack of seeing the problems and not knowing that they are issues. Clack emphasized the need to understand how to relate to one another, and that non-violence isn’t just a strategy for social change, but also a way of life. Compassionate USA is a free program that can be implemented in different classes, training programs and organizations. For more information, visit https:// compassionateusa.org to become involved.