2023 Ideas Challenge Entry
As part of the city’s broader violence prevention strategy, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg collaborated with the Alamo Colleges District and the San Antonio Peace Center to launch CompassionateUSA. Compassionate USA is a people-centered campaign with an accompanying micro-course to promote compassion and community healing. These courses help develop foundational skills, a common language, and shared practices for all ages and communities and increase individual and community capacity and resilience on a systemic level. The city made the program freely available to every city, town, and territory across the United States.
Impact
With close to 300 participating communities, stories are already coming in from across the U.S. and beyond on how the program is influencing policies to reflect the ethic of reciprocity. For example, teaching hospitals requiring compassionate care training and including the curriculum in pre-K and PhD programs. The campaign portion will continue to run indefinitely as a globally accessible and educated network at no-cost.