Food Bank volunteers on Mothers' Day

The news these days is dismal, and can naturally make us feel disheartened. The challenges are no doubt real, and the stakes are high. At the same time, news and social media tend to amplify negativity: stories of violence and division spread quickly, while everyday acts of cooperation often go unreported.

This may explain why a 2025 poll found that nearly half of Americans believe rudeness is increasing compared with before the pandemic, with similar pessimism showing up around the world. However, research paints a more hopeful picture.

As reported by The Conversation, in a 2022 study of 32,000 people across 49 cultural groups, the values of loyalty, honesty and helpfulness ranked highest, while power and wealth ranked lowest. What’s more, numerous studies suggest that most people are actually behaving morally. For example, when researchers analysed actual public conflicts recorded by CCTV, they found that in nine out of ten conflicts a bystander intervened. These findings, from 2020, were similar across the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK.

Seeking out a more balanced view of reality matters. When we assume others are uncaring or selfish, we risk becoming more self-centred ourselves. When we notice and talk about the kindness that already exists, we build trust, connection, and hope.

Here’s some news and ideas to help us tune back into the deeper currents beneath the headlines.

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Take a Stand: Care as a Public Commitment

In Flint, Michigan, a program called Rx Kids is showing what happens when families are given support at the very start of life. As reported in this article in The Guardian, the program, launched in 2024, gives every pregnant woman $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month for the baby’s first year, with no income tests or conditions. For many parents, this has meant being able to buy essentials like cribs, diapers, and car seats, and to reduce stress during a vulnerable time. The program is grounded in a simple conviction: poverty at birth is not inevitable, and economic hardship itself is a public health issue.

Early research suggests that this approach is not only humane, but effective. In Flint, families receiving the support have seen lower rates of preterm and low-birth-weight births, fewer NICU admissions, and improvements in maternal mental health and housing stability, alongside significant savings in neonatal care costs. What began as a local initiative has already expanded to other Michigan communities, offering a concrete example of how investing in early life can strengthen both families and the wider community.

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The Growing Edge: Art as Antidote to Loneliness

In Hamburg, the nonprofit KulturistenHochZwei is addressing loneliness among older adults by pairing them with teenagers for shared cultural outings: concerts, museum visits, and theater performances. Founded in 2015 by Christine Worch (after caring for her father with dementia), the program offers seniors free tickets and companionship, giving them both access to culture and a reason to leave home. The initiative has enabled thousands of intergenerational visits, and many pairs have formed relationships beyond the events.
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The program trains young volunteers in empathy, including through exercises that simulate age-related physical challenges. What began as a local effort has grown into a citywide model, showing how cultural participation can reduce isolation and foster understanding across generations. Such initiatives are increasingly seen as a form of “social prescribing”, strengthening well-being through shared experience.

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News You Can Use: Helping Others Help Us Most

What if caring for others isn’t a distraction from our own well-being, but one of its most reliable foundations? This article challenges the common “oxygen mask” assumption that we must first focus on ourselves in order to help others. Drawing on a wide body of research, the authors show that other-oriented behaviors, such as kindness, volunteering, and offering support, often produce greater and more consistent benefits for well-being than self-focused activities. Giving to others is linked not only to higher happiness and meaning, but also to lower stress, better physical health, and even reduced mortality risk, in some cases more strongly than receiving support.

​The paper argues that this evidence has been undervalued in mainstream well-being science and calls for an explicitly other-oriented model of psychological health. It also highlights that prosocial action may be especially beneficial for people facing depression, social anxiety, addiction, or grief, challenging the idea that self-focus must come first. Helping others, the authors suggest, is not a luxury to be added later, but a direct pathway to healing and resilience.

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Inspiration & Insight: Music a Spiritual Sustenance

Charles Yang, from the group Time for Three, turns the violin into an instrument of the blues, of longing, and of heartfelt resolve; an offering that feels especially resonant in an uncertain and ailing world.

​Here, he performs Sam Cooke’s legendary anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” using the violin as his own rhythm section, strumming it like a guitar while delivering vocals that carry both tenderness and strength. Released in 1964, the song became a touchstone of the Civil Rights Movement. Hearing it stripped down to just a voice and four strings brings its message home with renewed vigor.

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Save the Date! NeuroEDU2026: Where Neuroscience Meets Compassion

Organized by the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in San Juan, and co-hosted by the GCC, NeuroEDU2026 is an international congress to be held in Puerto Rico, dedicated to exploring how neuroscience, social-emotional learning, and compassion can transform education.

Over two days, through a rich in-person and virtual program, experts in neuroscience, mindfulness, psychology, and pedagogy will come together to share current research, evidence-based practices, and innovative approaches to cultivating compassionate, mindful, and emotionally healthy schools.

The program includes keynote lectures, music, dialogue, and formative experiences designed to help rethink education through a lens of well-being, empathy, and holistic human development.

Confirmed speakers include Chris Germer, Professor at Harvard Medical School; Ignacio Morgado Bernal, Professor of Psychobiology at the Institute of Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Myriam Mongrain, Professor at the University of York; and GCC founder and best-selling author, Dr. Rick Hanson.

When: February 27–28, 8:00 AM–5:00 PM AST
Where: Puerto Rico & Online

Registration information coming soon!

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Let’s Practice! Tuning Back In to What's Working

Each day, write down one small act of kindness you noticed, in yourself or others.

Describe it in a few lines. Notice how it affected your inner state.

Reflect: What makes it easier (or harder) for you to notice goodness?

What does this daily journal tell you about humans, when we act from our truest selves?

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A Question for You What act of care have you witnessed, or offered, recently that reminded you of what is still good in the world?

In our last edition, we asked: “What is a hope you are carrying for the person you are becoming?”

We received this moving reflection from Marti Anderson, Distinguished Professor at Massey University, New Zealand. With her kind permission, we share an abbreviated version:

“The new year usually awakens my drive to act, to set goals, to strive. But something has shifted. I no longer want to feel ambitious or always be reaching for the next objective. I feel the need simply to be—to live with joy in the miracle of small things: raspberries in a New Zealand summer, an afternoon nap, the breeze moving through clouds.

I can feel myself becoming uber content by a million miraculous things: by showing compassion to an employee of mine who is in need, by dropping all of my plans so I can fly overseas to visit a relative in the hospital, by abandoning my computer to go swimming with my son, by cheering out loud "You got this!" to a stranger riding uphill on a bicycle.

I feel I am becoming the person I was at the age of 8. I used to love to read, climb trees, play catch, and stare up at the sky while laying on my back on the grass. I now have an urge to draw and paint and to experiment with colour. It is something new, and yet, a simple remembering of who I already am.

The hope I carry for the person I am becoming is never again to forget. And to let the sorrow of years of striving make space inside me, so I can fill again with this fresh, simple joy.”

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If you feel moved to contribute to a world that uplifts values such as compassion, justice, and inclusivity, please consider donating what you can to the Global Compassion Coalition. We receive no government or corporate funding, and even small contributions go a long way.

Thank you for your trust and support.

In active kinship,
Fabiana,
Editor, Coming Home

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