Living Bridges is a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Social Change project initiated by enCOMPASSion Foundation and held in collaboration with Connext Coaching and Facilitation. The project aims to bring together individuals and organizations from diverse sectors of society to promote empathy, compassion, and collaboration in addressing social challenges in India.
Through our workshops and training programmes, Living Bridges aims to empower individuals and organizations to become agents of change in their communities, and to create a more just and equitable society. The project focuses on building bridges across differences, promoting diversity and inclusion, and fostering sustainable, community-driven social change.
This project has its own website. Please visit to find out what’s going on at Living Bridges!
Living Bridges began in October, 2020, and has gone through two phases of development.
Phase 1
In the first 13 months the Living Bridges reached out to and served 780+ participants through 56 intense and experiential weekly small group workshops, as well as 8 long term training programmes. These workshops have brought together 780+ participants from 44 countries and 37 trainers from 17 countries to collaboratively explore, learn about, and develop skills for:
- Practicing empathy and collaboration in an increasingly polarized world
- Building bridges across people and communities for creating sustainable human systems
- Actively living nonviolence, compassion and peace in day-to-day situations, and
- Seeding an inclusive future that works for everyone
To make them accessible for all, our workshops were highly subsidized. In addition, to reach out to the grassroots practitioners from local communities with limited means, Living Bridges provided scholarships (more than 50% of the cost) to about 350 of its participants. The workshops were also offered with Hindi translation and the training material translated in Hindi to overcome the language divide.
From the money raised from these workshops, we supported grassroots initiatives, including:
- Community development in urban slums in NOIDA
- Winter blankets relief for Delhi’s urban poor, and
- Towards supporting sex workers during the second wave
Phase 2
Phase 2 of the Living Bridges Project focused on streamlining our learning journey into a stage-based apprach. Despite falling short of our fundraising goals, we were able to leverage the support we received to keep our project going.
In 2022-2023, we have offered:
- 19 Workshops focused on Nonvilent Communication and Social Change – bringing together NVC Trainers and Social Development Practitioners in a curated programme oriented towards beinging about social change in the world.
- Living Nonviolence with Children and Youth – a 22 hour training programme with Certified Trainers Stephanie Bachmann Mattei and Shera Lyn Parpia, which empowers parents and educators to bring an energy of compassion to their relationships with their children in effective, doable ways, that enable long term growth and social emotional learning.
All of this amounts to approximately:
- 210 Total Particpants
- 35% Scholarships
- 20 Trainers across the world!
What Living Bridges Does:
Weekly Workshops: Living Bridges offers workshops with experts in fields of NVC, social entrepreneurship, leadership, and more. Usually held on Saturdays on a variety of exciting themes! Our workshops are nominally priced betwee INR 750 and INR 1500 per workshop, with the option to ‘pay it forward’ or ‘scholarships’.
Intensive Training Programmes: Deeper learning experiences where facilitators guide you into a deeper exploration, along themes like personal growth, spirituality, social development, and more. Our training programmes are offered on a sliding scale from INR 3000 to INR 25000, with the option to ‘pay it forward’ or ‘scholarships’.
Living Bridges Conversations: Initially part of our fundraising effort, these conversations with experts in the fields of Nonviolent Communication and Social Change have become meaningful resources for learning and inspiration.