Empathy Workshop 2018 was held at a beautiful and peaceful space at Gairidhara. Many thanks to Accountability Lab for providing us the space and facilities. The workshop was successfully held with 22 participants including 7 children. There was separate engagements for adults and children. Basically the event focused on actionable practices of Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence which could be an important tools for seeding the culture of Empathy in home, schools, workplace and community. Overall the feedback from participants were so positive and they are also interested for upcoming events. It was a great experience to have people from mixed backgrounds. We are looking forward for organizing more such events in coming future. Any one who is interested can join.  

The U.S embassy's  Book Bus conducted the 3rd edition of Innovation in education fair from 16th Aug 2018 to 25th Aug 2018. Different workshops were held on the theme of STEAM Education, Arts Education, Visual arts, Outdoor learning, Emotional Intelligence, and many other innovations in education. We also participated as an observer where we observed some of the workshops that were relevant to our work. At the exhibition day 25th Aug, we setup a stall in the hall along with other organizations like Karkhana, Sunsar Maya, The Asia Foundation, Canopy Nepal etc. We displayed our work and spoke to the participants who were interested to know about us and our work. The participation was good though it was raining during the day. It felt great to be appreciated by the participation for the kind of work we are doing on the theme of Empathy. Over all the Fair was a good experience and a platform for us to reach out to teachers, students and parents and give them the sense of Empathy and its importance in school. workplace and community at large. 

Toast master is a platform for individuals to develop their communication and leadership skills. The team of Kehi Garoun actively participated in one of the club's meeting organised by Kathmandu Toast Masters. It was very nice to watch how people were learning to speak in public and develop their communication skills. Also leaders were in the process of learning while they were the one who were hosting the event. It was an open where we would be judged in our skills from different angels like, body language, grammar, throw of voice etc, but still the group would be so open to that. The meeting was fun too because it had that sense of humor too.  The meeting was worth attending. ​

Being a facilitator, when we see children changing their behaviors towards empathy is a beautiful feeling. Identifying own problem, exploring and interacting with others to better understand the situation, finding solutions with validating other’s views, and coordinating well to execute the solutions is what students go through. As a result we have experienced that even a reserved and afraid child has become ready to initiate conversation in our sessions.
 
There are more important things that we have seen through students that we have worked with on E-DFC. They are as follows:-

1. Seeing from others’ perspectives
2. Validating others’ world view, exploring and debating
3. Sense of acceptance
4. Understanding problems from multiple perspectives
5. Designing user centric solutions
6. Self-awareness
7. Collaborative direction/space, not compelled by ego
8. Project planning and execution
9. Initiating conversations
10. Sense of appreciation
11. Sense of confidence
12. Iterative learning
13. Acting out of personal courage
14. Creativity, expressed creativity
15. Self-initial research
16. Social ease/gender

"...the research evidence keeps piling up, and it points strongly to the conclusion that a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change and learning."  Carl Rogers
An empathy circle is a space to explore on the theme of empathy. The objective of this circle is to cultivate a culture of empathy within the community.  It tends to nurture and deepen empathy with ourselves and others. Deeper empathy has many benefits Such as:-

1. It fosters learning, connection, social change, supports sustainable collaborative action, transforms conflict, it fosters resilience, as well as builds trust and heals.
2. It helps to deepen our empathic listening skills.
3. We will be able to find more clarity and deeper understanding of our feelings and needs.
4. We will be able to explore and share with openness and curiosity.

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1. To understand a complex world (full here)
“The ability to understand what someone is feeling” – that’s the textbook definition of empathy.  But when put into practice, empathy means a whole lot more.  It means the ability to grasp the many sides of today’s complex problems and the capacity to collaborate with others to solve them; it means being as good at listening to the ideas of others as articulating your own; it means being able to lead a team one day, and participate as a team member the next...What’s more important is that you can take the perspective of others – whether you’re designing a new technology, or negotiating, or anticipating the uncertain. Indeed, how well we do — whether in the classroom or the boardroom — depends more than ever on how well we forge and navigate relationships. In this way, empathy is the new literacy: essential for us to communicate, collaborate, and lead."

2. To design solutions to problems (full here)
"The core principles of design thinking are to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Teaching design thinking can be a powerful way of teaching students empathy in that it teaches them how to solve another person’s problems by providing creative and innovative solutions that relate to his or her needs...Empathy is the first step in design thinking because it is a skill that allows us to understand and share the same feelings that others feel. Through empathy, we are able to put ourselves in other people's shoes and connect with how they might be feeling about their problem, circumstance, or situation. Some questions to consider:

Experiencing moments of connection, disconnection and self realization Kehi Garoun held the 6th “Mindfulness” Retreat in Boudha,Kathmandu this weekend. The theme of the retreat was to explore the potential of the change that ripples from self to into the world which was so visible among 24 participants, the space and people around. There were 4 adorable kids as well, who made the retreat more play full and alive. We used the tools of mindfulness and interaction which somehow made an impact to every individual. The desire of the change from within which would ripple out through relationships and to the world seems possible now after having this retreat done. And there is more hope that things would fall in place and the world would be a better place, as we start to see ourselves and others as humans.  

"Can we see the world through others' eyes or others' point of view?" question arises in the empathy session this Friday. Everyone engaged with their own thoughts. Everyone shared their point of view while thinking about other people like what they see, hear, feel and think in a certain situation. The session is held in Kanya Mandir HS School with 17 participants.

This winter KG organized a winter camp for government school students. There were 8 participants form Shanti Sikshya secondary school. The camp was 3 days long which included activities on Emotional Intelligence and Design For Change. Emotional Intelligence was a completely new topic for them. Everyone participated in the entire 3 days of winter camp with a lot of interest and enthusiasm. According to them, at first, they thought the camp will be boring with some teaching and writing activities. They had not expected this kind of session. After completing the camp everyone was happy to learn new things. Everyone shared how they were unaware of simple daily activities which could affect them as well as others. They found the sessions completely new, interesting, and fruitful.

“I will definitely be aware of what I am going to do and how I am talking to others. I find it really important to know how a small thing can affect others without the intention to hurt them” said Nishan Rai.

Design for change framework helped the students to solve their problems at Shanti Sikshya Secondary School. After completing the FIDS session they have improved their learning . while doing this framework students had listed  all problems that they have been facing in their school everyday. After it, they chose the important problems by voting. Once it is done, they  imagined the various solutions and listed the plan to solve it . Finally they solved their problems with the help of design for change project.


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Students of Kankeshwori Lower Secondary School have done design for change project, while doing this project students were very much excited. They  had listed the problems that bothered them and list out the plan to solve it . when they solved it they were happy for their efforts. 

Students of Shanti Sikshya Secondary School ​ were happy in doing design for change project. With the help of this projects they were able to solve their  problems  in school. They have chosen the toilet cleanliness projects which is most import problem to them. Support of teacher, school admin and students were able to solve it with good effort.

Kehi Garoun has started a new program ‘Education venture’ with the vision of improving the educational system. We are looking to work with schools as a consultant or as a part of school management itself.
Our education vision is to inspire the education community through the merits of the culture of self-learning.

• We envision a self-learning culture where teachers and students are curious and internally motivated to undertake self-initiatives to learn.
• We want to instill the values of individual responsibility and global citizenship in our students. 
• We aim to prepare students for life-long learning, a value that has shaped liberate-arts education.
• We will serve as an ‘R&D Lab’ to study and provide services that aim to improve education that is accessible to students of modest economic backgrounds from all over the country.

Our venture is based on three pillars:

1. Curriculum that reaches beyond the walls of the classroom: To supplement the academic curriculum, we will design activities where students can use their energy and curiosity to undertake Project-Based Learning, on topics that are relevant to them as global citizens. Based on the past 10 years of KG's volunteering experience with college students, we have found that “learning-by-doing” has a lasting impact. 
2. Guidance counseling that provides the skills needed for self-direction:  To promote individual responsibility and ownership in one’s education, we will provide guidance resources and in-person counseling sessions, starting from the Induction Week where students carry out their goal-setting exercises.  Based on the our experience through  Kehi Garoun's “Insight” guidance counseling program, that has reached over 12 schools in Kathmandu, we have found effective ways of engaging students in finding out “what they, with all their heart, love to do”. Their studies then become a source of joy and excitement.
3. Management that is rigorous in following the Standard Operating procedure: In order to manage administration, admissions and teachers’ careers (recruitment, evaluation and training), we will develop and implement standard operating procedures.  Based on our experience from Kehi Garoun's Giving program, that scaled up from helping 40 students a year to over 2000 a year, we have learnt the value of putting rigorous management processes in place. 

INSIGHT - Discovering Clarity, a program running under KG organized a Guidance Counseling session to the SLC appeared students. Various leading newspapers such as The Himalayan Times, Karobar, Arthik Dainik etc. talked about the event.