What if moving through emotion together was the most powerful thing a change maker could do?

Network of Empathy is a membership-based community for change makers built on the belief that sustaining impact over the long run requires more than strategy. It requires genuine community, embodied practice, and the space to process what this work actually costs. We bring together diverse traditions of knowledge and practice to resource the people who are working hardest to reshape the world.

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Who We Are

We believe empathy is not a vulnerability, it is the source of everything.

We hold space for the emotional and the strategic as equal parts of the work.

We build community as infrastructure, not as afterthought.

We are owned by our members and governed by the people we serve.

We work across traditions, geographies, and sectors, because systemic change requires all of us.

  • Network of Empathy was founded in 2025 by a small team who had spent years working at the intersection of systems change, community building, and emotional intelligence — and kept seeing the same thing: change makers burning out, working in isolation, carrying grief that had nowhere to go.

    We believed something different was possible. Not a programme that told change makers how to be more resilient, but a community that recognised the structural conditions they were working in and built genuine infrastructure in response.

    We registered as a German Verein — a membership-based non-profit — because the legal structure needed to match the values. Our members are co-owners. That is not a metaphor.

  • The body and nervous system

    At this level, we draw on somatic, trauma-informed, and neurobiological traditions that recognise the body as a site of knowledge and a precondition for sustained action. We understand that change makers cannot think their way to resilience — the nervous system must be resourced, and unprocessed stress and disconnection must be acknowledged. Thinkers such as Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory) and Gabor Maté (trauma, compassion, and the mind-body connection) inform this dimension of our work, alongside a wider field of somatic and embodied practice.

    The relational and collective

    Here we draw on traditions that understand change as inherently relational — emerging through the quality of connection between people, the health of groups, and the dynamics of communities and movements. This includes systemic and relational coaching approaches, frameworks for processing collective grief and ecological distress, and theories of how change propagates through living systems via trust, emergence, and shared rhythm. Joanna Macy (the Work That Reconnects), adrienne maree brown (emergent strategy), and the broader field of systemic coaching are among the voices that shape our thinking at this level.

    The systemic and planetary

    At the broadest level, we draw on frameworks for understanding complexity, interdependence, and the conditions under which living systems thrive or collapse. This includes systems thinking, regenerative design, and ecological philosophy — traditions that orient us toward working with natural systems rather than against them, restoring rather than extracting, and acting with awareness of the long arc of change. These frameworks help us hold the planetary dimension of the work without being overwhelmed by it.

  • We begin with care

    For ourselves, for each other, and for the environments we are part of. Care is not an afterthought but the foundation for everything we do, ensuring the well-being of people and communities as we work toward change.

    We center connection

    As the bedrock of empathy and transformation. This means engaging with openness and generosity, listening deeply, and recognizing that we are all part of a wider web of relationships. Only then are we able to foster the communities that sustain us and build the relationships that drive collective action.

    We honor experience

    As a vital source of wisdom, healing, and direction. Storytelling is at the heart of our approach—not just as a way of sharing knowledge, but as a way of producing it collectively.

    We ground our work in justice

    Because we believe that authentic connection and collective care require the recognition of and response to the interconnected systems of power and privilege that shape our lived experiences. Our work is therefore informed by intersectionality and decoloniality.

Our Team

Rimma Samir

Founder

Rimma is a storyteller and a filmmaker with a background in cultural project management, media, and marketing. She believes the right story, told with care, can shift how people see the world and each other.

These past months she's been building cultural bridges between Central Asia and Europe - two worlds she carries close. At NOE, she's the one shaping the stories we tell, making sure they land with honesty, integrity, and intention.

Alex Wolf

Founder

Alex is a systems change facilitator and narrative strategist working helping others in the field of regeneration and systems change to channel their stories into aligned action. She also helps mission-driven organizations navigate complexity, reimagine dominant paradigms, and co-create futures rooted in aliveness and interconnection.

As a contributor to initiatives like the award-winning Transformation Lab and The Good Change, her work is grounded in systems thinking, intersectional feminism, and social justice. She currently is part of ZOE Institute for future-fit Economies, where she is designing strategic communication and research dissemination processes that translate beyond-growth insights into compelling, actionable narratives.

Nada El Bohi

Founder

Nada is a feminist economist and environmental advocate, researcher, and policy consultant dedicated to advancing gender, economic, and environmental justice through systemic change, decolonization, and communities of care.

Nada works to build transformative spaces that center emotional wellbeing, empathy, and collective liberation for changemakers. With deep experience in movement building, program management, and advocacy, she brings strong skills in policy analysis, research and writing, and strategic communication - bridging care and justice in every sphere of her work.

Mareike Peschau

Founder

Based in Germany, Mareike is a social and creative entrepreneur with a background in international security from Sciences Po Paris. She previously worked as a management consultant at BCG, an advisor for GIZ and co-founded Germany’s first Community Music collective, Paper Lantern Collective.