Changing the world, child by child

Summary

Roots of Empathy is an evidence-based classroom program which has shown dramatic effect in reducing aggression and violence among elementary school children while raising social/emotional literacy.

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

Roots of Empathy's goal is to build social and emotional literacy, decrease levels of violence and aggression and break intergenerational cycles of abuse and neglect among school children. ROE is expanding internationally with programs across Canada, in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. "Emotions are the first language of the child and the universal language" - Mary Gordon, President/Founder, Roots of Empathy

How will this project solve this problem?

“ROE gave our students an opportunity to interact with a loving, caring, supportive family over the course of the school year… this spark, this light that is empathy is an ember that continues to burn within their hearts. ~ ROE classroom teacher

Potential Long Term Impact

ROE builds empathy in school children with a view to decreasing violence and aggression and breaking intergernational cycles of abuse and neglect. It has reached 213,725 Canadian schoolchildren since 1996 and continues to expand annually.

Project Message

In response to the question “What can Roots of Empathy teach the world? “That people are special in their own way and you don’t have to fight to resolve a conflict”.
- Grade 5 boy with ROE program, Student in ROE classroom

Additional Documentation

This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).

Resources