Roots of Empathy USA

Roots of Empathy's mission is to build caring, peaceful, and civil societies through the development of empathy in children and adults.

Empathy – the ability to understand how others feel – is at the core of our humanity. The absence of empathy underlies war, genocide, neglect, racism, abuse, bullying and marginalization of all kinds. Empathy cannot be successfully taught through traditional instruction, but it can be caught experientially, changing the architecture of the brain.

The International organization Roots of Empathy, which was founded and is based in Toronto Canada, has been operating since 1996. In 2000 the organization was incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, became a registered charity, and also has not for profit status in the US and Germany. It has been singled out nationally and internationally as an exemplar of social innovation.

The organization has two empathy-based children’s programs — Roots of Empathy and Seeds of Empathy —centred around the loving relationship between an infant and parent. Both of our programs, which use an infant and a parent as models of empathy, are evidence based to reduce aggression, including bullying, and dramatically increase children’s social and emotional competence.