Events

Past Events

What does it mean to Matter? A session on mattering as a fundamental human need, exploring the distinction between being included and feeling genuinely significant to others. Discussion drew on experiences from humanitarian and care work to examine how efficiency-driven systems routinely strip people of agency, and whether participation without real influence can actively deepen a sense of not mattering

Holding a Stance in a Collapsing World. An open space for the group to sit with the current state of global politics, the erosion of the rules-based international order, and what that means for people working from humanitarian values. Discussion turned on the tension between feeling powerless in the face of macro-level cruelty and the argument that personal agency, kindness as active rather than passive, and small acts of human connection remain both available and necessary.

Power With, Power Within: Kindness as a Form of Power. A session examining different conceptions of power, drawing on feminist leadership theory and Foucault to distinguish between power over others and the more relational forms of power within and power with. Discussion turned on what remains available to people working from humanitarian values in a moment of resource contraction and coercive politics, with kindness and imagination framed as genuine sources of power rather than consolation prizes.

What Would Courageous Compassion Look Like as a Norm? A personal think-piece on courageous compassion from a THS member, framing it as the combination of feeling with others rather than merely for them, and having the courage to act on that empathy even when it is uncomfortable or goes against one's own interests. The group then reflected on what practices and behaviours might exist if this were a genuine norm, with discussion surfacing the tension between compassion fatigue, institutional disillusionment, and the desire to remain open-hearted and engaged.

Sensing Before Thinking: An Embodied Approach to Group Formation. A two-hour sense-making workshop for the group's second meeting, deliberately resisting the pull towards terms of reference and action plans in favour of embodied, non-verbal experiments exploring what knowledge, action, and belonging might mean for the group. The session was framed as an attempt to slow down, widen the lens, and attend to how the group was forming together, rather than rushing to define what it would do.