Report from the Charter Call- Compassionate Cities/Communities, July 27, 2016

Agenda

• Welcome and Introductions: Marilyn Turkovich
• Presentations: Philip Bane and Liz Enbysk from Smart Cities Councils, Stephanie Barnett from Compassionate Louisville and Lesa Walker from Compassionate Austin
• Announcements: David Breaux and Sande Hart
• Wrap Up/Closing: Marilyn Turkovich

Contact Email Addresses for the Speakers

• Marilyn Turkovich:
• Philip Bane:
• Liz Enbysk:
• Stephanie Barnett:
• Lesa Walker:
• David Breaux:
• Sande Hart:

IMPORTANT TIME-SENSITIVE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR THE HEALTH LEADERSHIP SCHOOL

Applications for the October 9-16, 2016 Health Leadership School in Louisville, Kentucky are available on-line here. The deadline is posted as August 1st. HOWEVER, if you are interested and miss this deadline, please email Stephanie Barnett right away at . She would like to try to accommodate applicants. Also, please contact her to make arrangements to sponsor a candidate or if you have additional questions. Read the call notes below to find out more details about the Healthcare Leadership School (in the background information and presentation by Stephanie Barnett).

Background Information for the Call

Philip Bane and Liz Enbysk of the Smart Cities Council’s Compassionate Cities Campaign

Smart Cities is one of the Charter’s newest partners and we are hoping that the technology they introduce is something that many of our cities will be able to use to benefit vulnerable citizens.

Message from Philip and Liz

Homelessness continues to be a challenge around the world. Yet there are a number of smart technologies that already exist in most cities – from data analytics to social media to smartphones and Wi-Fi -- that are being used today to reduce suffering among vulnerable populations, including the homeless. In our presentation we will highlight some of them, with a focus on approaches that can be replicated elsewhere.

None of the technologies can "solve" homelessness, of course. But they do demonstrate how governments, nonprofits and ordinary citizens can make a positive difference in a homeless person's life when technology and compassion intersect.

Stephanie Barnett from the Compassionate Louisville Healthcare Constellation

Stephanie Barnett from the Compassionate Louisville Healthcare Constellation is sharing information about a unique experience that is being planned in Louisville in the fall. Hopefully her message will be something you can share with your own local mailing lists.

Message from Stephanie about the Health Leadership School this October, 2016

For the last four years, our Compassionate Louisville Healthcare Constellation has been working tirelessly to explore what’s possible when the value of Compassion becomes the driving force for all of our city’s healthcare experiences. We have hosted programs and community gatherings to activate the passions of more than 500 healthcare executives, health professionals, medical educators, students and other community leaders. Nearly a dozen active projects are now underway to support the expansion of our Constellation work – with particular focus on efforts designed to elevate the physical/emotional health and professional satisfaction of front-line healthcare professionals in our city. As such, we have placed a high priority in listening to the needs and aspirations of the next generation of health professionals.

Early in our evolution, our dear friend, Dr. Robin Youngson (founder of Hearts in Healthcare and a member of the Charter for Compassion’s Global Compassion Council), introduced us to the inspiring young leaders at Humans of Health. Their Healthcare Leadership Schools (HLS) serve as an international platform for developing personal leadership for students and young professionals from all disciplines within the healthcare system. To date, hundreds of young professionals have found their way to four HLS events held in the Netherlands, South Africa and Portugal. Our Compassionate City of Louisville is delighted to be hosting North America’s first HLS offering from October 9-16, 2016.

The week-long experience will be filled with interactive lectures, group collaborations, reflective exercises and physical activities that expand participants’ potential for personal growth and resilience, their awareness of holistic health and the leadership strengths and supportive connections required to emerge as effective leaders and catalysts for the change they desire for healthcare in their communities and globally. The curriculum is rich and relevant to the realities facing young professionals and the content will be delivered by peers, seasoned teachers, and wisdom practitioners. For a glimpse of the

impact HLS has had on past participants, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTUpRXsyiAU.

HLS-2016 is limited to only 64 participants. We wanted to extend invitations to our sister Compassionate Cities and encourage you to sponsor a student or young health professional from your community. The all-inclusive tuition (room, board, meals and training materials) is $500 USD for students (any health/wellness related discipline) and $650 USD for practicing healthcare professionals. Applications are available on-line here. The posted deadline for applications is August 1st. HOWEVER, if you are interested and miss this deadline, please email me as soon as possible at . I would like to try to accommodate applicants. Also, please contact me to make arrangements to sponsor a candidate or if you have additional questions.

We are confident that HLS 2016 will produce a new class of compassion leaders for our communities and our Compassionate Cities movement. If you yearn for a shift to more and more compassionate health, please promote this program to your most promising healthcare leaders!

Lesa Walker from the Compassionate Austin Movement

Lesa Walker is Founder of the Compassionate Austin Movement and is sharing information about Austin’s newly launched “Neighborhood Compassion Watch”. We hope cities will replicate this model. Here’s the website link for more information: https://compassionateatx.wordpress.com/neighborhood-compassion-watch/.

Welcome and Introductions

Marilyn Turkovich: Hello everyone. This is Marilyn Turkovich from the Charter for Compassion International. I’m really glad for this call today. We have a number of presenters. This is one of our normal calls every 5-6 weeks for the Compassionate Cities and Communities. It’s wonderful to see people involved. As you look at the newsletters, we are trying to let people know some of the things that are happening with cities. The US Conference of Mayors happened just last month in Indianapolis. The Dalai Lama was there. Mayor Fischer said that the Compassionate Cities campaign is the most important movement of our time to help us solve the problems in our communities. Today, we have some presenters to share tools to help us do that. I’m going to let the speakers introduce themselves.

First we have Philip Bane and Liz Enbysk with the Smart Cities Council. They work with compassionate communities and technology.

Presentations

Philip Bane from the Smart Cities Council: Good morning. I’m the Managing Director and Liz is the Compassionate Cities Editor. We are putting together a program called “Compassionate Cities” for the Smart Cities Council.

The Smart Cities Council is a “for profit” company. We believe you can do well AND do good. Liz and I have been associated with the Council for a number of years. The Council launched about 4 years ago. We focus on how to use technology to make cities workable, livable, and sustainable. Liz and I conceived of this compassionate cities program- we wanted to educate cities and companies and those that develop technology that we can use technology to reduce suffering. The key goal is to alleviate suffering. Suffering can be simple, e.g. traffic jams, to basic suffering, e.g. hunger, homelessness, to systematic, e.g. inequality, poverty, degrading our eco-systems and environment. We very much see this as an effort to reduce suffering. The Council focuses on success stories, success in mitigating environmental damage, improving education, economics. In India, we set up a Council about a year ago. We spent a while educating about success stories. When you share stories about what cities are capable of, then it shows other cities that it is possible. We can alleviate suffering through the use of technology. We give people case studies so they can use them.

Liz Enbysk from the Smart Cities Council: Hello everyone. Thanks for being here. I’m excited to share some of our stories. My background is journalism. Stories about real people hit home for me. This is the best job I’ve had. I can see that this mission is great. I think we take for granted Internet access. We urge cities to close the digital divide- e.g. offer city-wide Wi-Fi. There was a man in Boise who lost his job and house and ended up in a homeless shelter. He spent days at the Boise library where they had free Internet. He decided he would teach himself how to code video games. He did and eventually, he made enough money to move out of the shelter. Today he is winning awards for his games and runs a company. Free Wi-Fi can be a life-changer for some people.

Another example is from Dallas. Their library has an initiative to engage the homeless and make the community aware via have coffee hours, programs, etc. They do a regular podcast hosted by a homeless man. He’ll have guests on the show representing social service agencies/directors, etc. and helps make the Dallas community aware of the homeless and what they can do to help.

Another story: Our Company has a number of partners. One is Cisco. One of the largest homeless populations is the refugees in Europe and the Middle East. Camps are filled with homeless individuals. Cisco has tactical operations teams they send out after disasters. They have been on the ground in Germany and in the camps in setting up Wi-Fi and charging stations so refugees can keep in touch with their families and help set up their new lives where they are living. They have also set up an emergency medical facility, providing video medical consultations and real-time translations.

These are some examples of connectivity. Later I’ll talk about social media.

Philip: As we all know, technology is only as good as the people who control it. There are concerns about privacy. Here are a couple of examples where data alleviates suffering. In New York, there is a “You Can Van.” It is a truck van that has been outfitted it with counsellors, etc. to help people who are about to be evicted. They are trying to prevent eviction. They are using mapping technology integrated with court-based data to identify “hot zones” for people being evicted. They drive the van into those neighborhoods and help people find alternative housing. The whole idea is to prevent something from getting worse. Another example is the use of court data and other city data to identify people who might become homeless, and then send an alert to a social worker who can find the person and prevent them from eviction or help find them a home. This is another type of eviction prevention service. So far, this use of technology has prevented 65 families from becoming homeless. These efforts combine the idea of mining available data and actually providing services to people when it is needed.

Liz: Here are a few examples of some uses of social media. There is a formerly homeless man in Australia who came up with the idea that it would be nice for people to get a good night’s rest. He has designed a sleep bus- a rolling shelter- which has sleep pods/personal lockers/place for pets/free Wi-Fi, etc. Her used crowdfunding to raise money to get the 1st bus built. He was able to raise over $100,000 in donations with GoFundMe. People can use crowdfunding. There’s another new app that’s been used in the Seattle area. 80-90% of people who are homeless have smart phones. They can go online to the “We Count” platform (www.wecount.org) and sign up and list their needs. Then, a community member can also go in and sign up and buy the person what they need. There are drop-off points around Seattle where people drop off the donation and the homeless person comes and picks it up. This app helps people donate things that people really need. In Belfast, there is an app called “Simon” where the homeless and community members connect so the homeless get services. Also, a social entrepreneur in San Francisco walked down Market St. and asked homeless people if they wanted to send a Christmas message to their families. One homeless man had not seen his sister in 20 yrs. They were connected via Facebook. The man’s hometown raised money to get him home and help with his needs. This effort is called “Miracle Messages” (http://www.miraclemessages.org/) and helps homeless people get in touch with their families. It is amazing what can be done with tools that exist in every city.

Marilyn: This is just wonderful! We are so excited that you are here with us to share these ideas.

Philip: I have extensive background in big data projects. It is important to think about how we use technology. We are going to try to set up workshops for compassionate cities and also for those developing the technology. Most of you know that communities tend to be master-planned with zoning ordinances. This is a very conventional, civil engineering approach. When it comes to alleviating suffering, we need to take a different approach. We need to attend to suffering around us. Suffering is often the result of prior solutions. We need to act compassionately. We want to develop best practices, procedures, and techniques to open up engineers, technologists and cities to planning that is more in the moment.

Liz: We do have a full compassionate cities presence on www.smartcitiescouncil.com. You will find resources and articles and case studies there re: food and water; shelter; wellness; and upward mobility and how technology can be used to help. We will distribute a compassionate cities newsletter which will include various resources. Sign up on the site is free. When you sign up, you can indicate that “compassionate cities” is your interest. Smart Cities Week is the last week in September in Washington D.C. This is the second year of the conference and exhibition. We expect up to 1500 people. It is a great conference and we are excited to have sessions on hunger, food waste, and homelessness. The gentlemen from Boise who owns the video game company will be there. We have some limited free passes. If interested, get in touch with us via email. [See the speakers’ contact emails just following the “Agenda” in these notes.]

Marilyn: If you have questions for Phil and Liz, press 1 on your phone keypad.

We can include the Smart Cities information as resources in the Charter’s Compassionate Communities Tool Box.

Leanne: In Atlanta, we would like to get businesses involved. Any ideas?

Philip: We will be happy to share information with you. The strength of the Council is that we understand the vendor community. In Europe, sometimes people are cynical about commercial companies. If we approach companies with cynicism, we may get cynicism back. We need to be alert to what companies want. There is a business purpose. If we educate cities about how to use technology in a more compelling, responsible manner, they can get more businesses involved. Try to go to the companies and educate them. If we can extend the benefits of technology to more groups, this effort will add people to the community network and help companies. Local banks are a great place to go. What kind of benefits can you extend to them? You can put them in front of audiences they want to reach.

Lesa: I am interested in the use of data to help us measure the compassion strength of communities. An effort to mobilize and analyze data for this purpose would be beneficial. Also, I want to bring up the Compassion Games (www.compassiongames.org) as a source of data for communities. In addition to providing data, the Games are a way to use the Internet and online access to engage people throughout the community in compassionate action.

Philip: Creating indices to benchmark and measure results and progress and identify where we can improve would be great. This is actually something I know something about. Dubai wants to be the happiest city in the world. How do you map it? In our case, how do you measure outcomes? We can do what we call mapping to a higher value. How do you measure compassion? If you want to reach out to me we can talk more about that. We are working on benchmarks for cities. However, we can sometimes create races between cities that may or may not meet needs.

Liz: The Smart Cities standards provide some guidance about measurement. They provide “core indicators”.

Marilyn: We will be sending out the notes for this call in the next few days. We will provide contact email addresses in the notes. [See the speakers’ contact emails just following the “Agenda” in these notes.]

Now, I’d like to introduce Stephanie Barnett, our next speaker.

Stephanie Barnett from Compassionate Louisville: Thank you so much. I’m happy to represent the Compassionate Louisville Healthcare Constellation. What would it be like if compassion was more of a driving force in healthcare? We’ve attracted more than 500 community partners and have 12 active initiatives. One of these initiatives is the Healthcare Leadership School (HLS). We connected with an international medical student organization, “Humans of Health”: http://humansofhealth.jimdo.com/. Dr. Robin Youngson, a member of the Charter for Compassion’s Global Compassion Council, is our mentor: http://www.charterforcompassion.org/index.php/robin-youngson. “Humans of Health” has been developing information and resources to help healthcare professionals in all areas. People often come to healthcare with a great desire to help, but then, they hit a wall. “Humans of Health” developed HLS as a week-long program, providing peer support, great speakers, and leadership training. It is a week-long intensive to develop inner strength to do the work of healthcare. Healthcare Leadership Schools have been hosted internationally for the last few years in the Netherlands, Portugal, and South Africa. Louisville students attended the HLS in Portugal. They have come back and now Louisville will host the very first HLS in North America: http://humansofhealth.jimdo.com/healthcare-leadership-schools/louisville/. We want to extend the invitation to other compassionate cities. We hope you identify up-and-coming healthcare students and get them to register. If you wish to help host an international student, we can use your support. There are 18 international students so far who are applying for sponsorship. The HLS in Louisville is October 9-16.

Marilyn: Thank you. If you have questions for Stephanie, please press 1 on your phone keypad.

What about the August 1st deadline for applications?

Stephanie: Applications are available on-line here. The posted deadline for applications is August 1st. HOWEVER, if you are interested and miss this deadline, please email me as soon as possible.

Jack: What is your email address?

Stephanie: My email is . Also, please contact me to make arrangements to sponsor a candidate or if you have additional questions.

Lesa Walker from Compassionate Austin: Hello. I am the Founder of the Compassionate Austin Movement. Recently, in July, 2016, we launched the “Neighborhood Compassion Watch.” This is the flip-side of the “Neighborhood Crime Watch.” Instead of looking for and reporting crime, people look for and highlight compassionate action in their neighborhoods. We are partnering with neighborhood newsletters to distribute information about the Neighborhood Compassion Watch into people’s home. In July alone, an article about the Neighborhood Compassion Watch circulated directly to 18,000 homes in Austin and vicinity. It’s a wonderful partnership with the neighborhood newsletters. If people report stories and acts of compassion, these can then be shared to inspire others via the newsletters. Many of the newsletter publishers in Austin also generate newsletters in multiple cities around United States.

The “Neighborhood Compassion Watch” articles also provide a means to share announcements about key events, e.g. the Compassion Games.

If anyone is interested in connecting with these newsletter publishers to discuss starting something similar in your city/community, please contact me at and I will put you in touch.

For more information about the Neighborhood Compassion Watch, go to: https://compassionateatx.wordpress.com/neighborhood-compassion-watch/.

Marilyn: This is a great way to engage your city. We receive emails from cities that they want to be Charter partners and want to see something go on in their city, but people have difficulty getting the word out. The “Neighborhood Compassion Watch” might be a wonderful way to do this.

Announcements

David Breaux: Hello to Lesa and Stephanie. Recently, I spoke with a man in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Colombo just became a compassionate city! He and I spoke about a possible visit to Colombo. I am a messenger of compassion. I am on a compassion crusade. Last year I toured 13 cities in the United States and Montreal Canada. My visits serve as a catalyst for communities to come together to spark or continue their campaigns. There is a project we established in Davis, California, the Compassion Corner Earth Bench. It is a public space where people can reflect on compassion. The bench is a multi-purpose art piece- functional- spiritual, practical. I provide talks in communities to discuss with people their ideas of compassion. It’s an offering. I would like to open this up to anyone who would like me to visit their community. Learn more at: http://compassionis.com/ and https://www.gofundme.com/CompassionProject.

Sande Hart: Hello. It is great to be with you. I am so energized by you all. I am delighted to announce to you the new Charter sector of Women and Girls. While all the other sectors include women and girls, this sector builds ways we can collaborate and build feminine leadership models. There is a global task force that has convened for the last five weeks to craft the vision and mission and create a logo and listen to women and girls about what they mean by compassion. We have subsectors – environment, restorative justice, education, etc. One subsector is “healthcare” which we have renamed “mind, body, and soul”. You will hear a whole lot more about how we are organized and about our Ambassadors program on our August 3rd global call on women and girls. The call starts at 7 a.m. (PDT). Please register for the call and send out the link to your community: http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/AL2Q124VTLYB9PQ. Contact me if you have questions or want more information: .

Marilyn: Please check out the Women and Girls sector under the “Partners” page of the Charter’s website: http://www.charterforcompassion.org/index.php/partners/women-and-girls.

Jack: We will be having an event in Dallas in August. We have made a connection with the arts community- “The Crow Collection of Asian Art” and Amy Hofland: http://crowcollection.org/. The Crow Collection is hosting a meeting for the Executive Director of the Arts Association to talk about how the arts community can promote compassion in Dallas. The Crow Collection had already begun a study of compassion. They have many outreach programs- wellness, etc. We are excited about getting the arts community involved.

Marilyn: Thanks Jack. I encourage you to contact Caren Goldman in St. Augustine, Florida. I can share with you her email address. They have been very successful in St. Augustine in engaging people in compassion through art. Also, Barbara Kaufmann has engaged the Appleton, Wisconsin community through art.

Jack:That would be great! One of the ways we are blessed is that through the Trammell Crow family, “The Crow Collection” is one of the best funded arts collections in Dallas.

Wrap Up/Closing

Marilyn: This call has been very energizing and full of possibilities!

Our next call will be September 13 at 7:00 a.m. PST. Here’s the link to register: http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/WCRZ985I6FF6G5ET

Also, we have the September global read book, “Rebuilding America.” We’ve selected a global read for schools which will be in February, 2017.

The Charter will have an education newsletter coming out mid-August. If any of you have contributions for that newsletter, please share them with me right away at .

Thank you everyone and thanks to our guest speakers.