Movement launched to spread compassion in Ghana’s schools

A new movement to promote compassionate living and action has been launched in Ghana.

The initiative has been founded by twenty-five activists who together form the Ghana Compassion Connectors.

The group has identified a number of projects that they intend to undertake as part of an effort to create “communities of compassion” that bring people together to offer support, care, and aid to those who need it.

Primary amongst these is an initiative to bring compassion coaching to young people through their schools and colleges.

The group intends to create “Compassion Circles” for young people in all of Ghana’s 16 regions. These circles will act as hubs of support and care as well as promoting knowledge and awareness of the power of compassion.

By mobilising younger generations Global Compassion Ghana also hopes to direct their energies to pressing national concerns like the low educational attainment rate amongst children and the rising climate emergency.

The new group’s efforts are being supported by the Global Compassion Coalition [1] – an international charity founded in California in 2022 which works to inspire compassionate action across the world.

The group has been founded by Meshach Bondzie, a career-guidance counselor from Accra.

Meshach said:

“We Ghanaians continue to face many challenges but we also have an incredible resource that we can draw upon: the spirit of our young people. 50% of our population is below the age of 20. These are the people who can change our present and shape our future. I believe that compassion is hard-wired into us but it needs cultivating and coaching. Working with these young people I can see that they are eager for action and want to get stuck into projects that can help their peers and elders to live better, kinder, and happier lives. I am looking forward to building this movement of compassionate action with them and spreading it across the whole of Ghana.”

Mamphela Ramphele [2], Chair of the Global Compassion Coalition, said:

“Change is coming to the continent of Africa. Millions of young people – guided by people like Meshach and his team – are waking up to the empty promises and false narratives they’ve been taught and are choosing a very different future. They are choosing inclusion and community over violence and difference. They are choosing to face-down climate change and call-out the inaction of the global community in the face of the crisis. And they are choosing to embrace a vision for our continent which is based on our common humanity, on Ubuntu. I am excited and honored to see the role group’s like Meshach’s are playing in this transformation.”

Ghana’s Global Compassion initiative mirrors similar projects that have now been launched in Malawi and Uganda as well as in Canada, the UK, and Australia.