Richard Moore and Ursula Moore from the Irish charity Children in Crossfire join Art Linton, Kitty Graham, and Brendan Ozawa-de Silva at Emory to explore what role introducing empathy into education can play in ending the injustice of poverty and improving the lives of students. Despite being shot and blinded by a British soldier at age 10, Richard Moore has gone on to lead a successful life, first running two pubs in his hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland, and then starting the charity Children in Crossfire to provide children in poverty with the chance to choose the life they would like to lead. In addition to supporting early education (pre-K / pre-primary), housing, and nutrition in Tanzania and Ethiopia, Children in Crossfire run an education program for teachers and children in Ireland, called "Educating the Heart," to educate children in Ireland and the UK about the reality of global poverty and create the motivation to do something about it. In the second half of the podcast, Richard and Ursula make the case that education needs to instill values like empathy and compassion from an early age, rather than solely focusing on competition and academic success. Failure should be reframed as a learning opportunity rather than a source of shame and a stain on one's identity. Richard argues that the difficulties of depression and anxiety faced by children and young people today are a direct result of an education system and society that is based on competition and a limited conception of success, rather than more fundamental values. Joining midway through the show, Kitty shares her own experience of learning about compassion, meditation and interdependence as a six-year-old child through an early pilot of what later became Emory's SEE Learning program, and what an impact it made on her life. Richard concludes by sharing his vision for a future initiative centered on forgiveness, drawing from his personal experience of forgiving Charles, the soldier who shot him, but who later became a friend. He believes forgiveness can help people overcome anger, hatred, and bitterness, and he hopes to develop a program exploring forgiveness for education settings.
For more information on Children in Crossfire, visit their webpage at: https://www.childrenincrossfire.org/