How do the places where we gather shape how we connect? From housing to green spaces, public libraries to digital forums, the environments around us play a vital role in fostering belonging and community.

What to Expect

The Healing Art Circle provides a supportive space to process emotions about current events and racial suffering through creative expression. Using an adapted Healing Circle format combined with art-making, participants explore their feelings in a safe, judgment-free environment.

Healing Circles Help Us:

Step out of ordinary time into a safe and accepting environment. We listen with compassion and curiosity, honor each other's unique paths to healing, and trust that each person has the guidance they need within them. We rely on the power of silence to access our inner wisdom.

Core Practices:

• Listening with attention: Being fully present for others' experiences

• Speaking with intention: Sharing authentically from the heart

• Tending to the well-being of the circle: Supporting collective healing

What You'll Need:

• Any materials or writing and art supplies you have available

• Any medium you choose (poetry, music, watercolors, collage, pen and paper, digital art, dance, etc.)

• No art experience necessary—all forms of creative expression are welcome

Past participants have created diverse forms of expression including poetry, music, watercolors, collage, paper and pen drawings, digital art, and dance. The focus is on the healing process, not artistic skill.

National Native American Heritage Month
Domincan Sisters of Houston
&
Center for Healing of Racism
Presents

The American Indian Genocide Museum

Two-Day Interactive Workshop

Join us for our signature workshop in a safe, respectful, and loving atmosphere where individuals will learn new information, share their experiences, dispel fear and guilt, and get to know each other.

This groundbreaking event returns to Houston Community College for the first time since 2020, inviting you to experience the world through someone else's eyes using the power of virtual reality.

Join HCC Central for a special VR for Empathy event on Saturday, November 15. This groundbreaking initiative was first held at HCC in 2019, followed by a larger, more impactful edition in 2020, and now returns with fresh perspectives on how immersive technology can help us understand one another more deeply.

Welcome to Compassion Week 2025 - Celebrating 10 years!

This year marks a special milestone—our 10th anniversary of coming together for a full week of inspiration, knowledge-sharing, dialogue, collaborations, and hands-on activities. What began as a simple idea has grown into a vibrant tradition, connecting hearts across Greater Houston by showcasing and sharing tangible examples of Houston’s compassionate culture through various partner and network offerings.

Compassion Week 2025 NOVEMBER 10-16

Save the date for Compassion Week 2025 and it’s core message of SMALL ACTS. BIG CHANGE, highlighting the aspiration that each of us can be a force for good. Our small actions rooted in care and love ripple outward to transform the world, starting right where and how we are. Our theme invites us to explore how everyday gestures—rooted in care, courage, and connection—can spark powerful transformation, rippling outward to create lasting change. And it begins with us, right here, right now.

Whether through learning, practice, service, storytelling, or other types of shared moments, Compassion Week 2025 celebrates the tools we each carry to build a more compassionate world, one act at a time.

PURPOSE OF WORLD KINDNESS DAY

Compassion Week coincides regularly with the week in which World Kindness Day falls, a global day, introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, that promotes the importance of being kind to each other, to yourself, and to the world.

The purpose of this day, celebrated on November 13 of each year, is to help everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together.

Why Church Safety Matters

Your church should be a safe place. Everyone should feel welcome and protected. But many churches don't know where to start with safety planning.

What churches deal with:

• More than 75% of churches don't have a safety team

• Many churches don't know what rules they need to follow

• Church leaders want to help but don't know what to do first

• Communities need safe places to gather and worship

This event will help you learn simple ways to make your church safer for everyone.

Examine how coordinated disaster response efforts can inform the design of long-term, community-led systems for resilience and development.

When disaster strikes, communities often respond with extraordinary care and coordination. But what if we carried that clarity and cooperation into everyday systems? In this session, we’ll explore how disaster response can evolve into a more permanent infrastructure of resilience—led by those closest to the work. Drawing from the story of the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance and other local efforts, we’ll explore what it looks like to shift from emergency response to proactive, community-led design. Participants will reflect on how shared experience can become shared capacity.

Explore evidence-based strategies and community-driven practices that support student success across Houston’s diverse learning environments

Our expectations shape our systems. This session invites leaders to begin with a bold premise: every student has the potential to thrive. Drawing on local and national research, we’ll explore strategies that have made a significant impact on student success. Together, we’ll reflect on what it means to design learning environments rooted in possibility, care, and community wellbeing.

Parking Information

The session will be held at 1801 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002. Parking is available in the attached garage, with the entrance located on Fannin Street. Parking will be complimentary for all exits after 6:00 pm. We recommend arriving 5-10 minutes early to allow time for parking and check-in.

peakers: Míriam Juan-Torres González (Head of Research, Democracy & Belonging Forum) and Stefánia Kapronczay (Hungarian human rights defender; 20 years field experience, 12 years civil society leadership)

How do authoritarian movements weaponize gendered anxieties to divide society and justify extreme measures? This session shares a six-strategy framework from the (En)Gendering Authoritarianism report (Othering & Belonging Institute + Over Zero), with examples from Europe and North America and a special focus on Hungary.

A 30-minute audience Q&A will follow the presentation.

Step beyond workforce gaps to explore how networks, trust, and local systems expand access to opportunity.

Workforce development isn’t just about placement—it’s about belonging, access, and navigating a shifting economy. In this session, we’ll explore how opportunity emerges when systems are designed to reflect the realities of the people they serve. Rather than focus on short-term fixes, we’ll hear from regional leaders who are weaving together education, business, and community to build more adaptive and connected opportunity ecosystems. Participants will consider how relationships, not just programs, create durable pathways to economic mobility.

Parking Information

The session will be held at 1801 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002. Parking is available in the attached garage, with the entrance located on Fannin Street. Parking will be complimentary for all exits after 6:00 pm. We recommend arriving 5-10 minutes early to allow time for parking and check-in.