Dear fellow empath,
in this edition of our newsletter you’ll find:
🌱 The year in review through the eyes of the noe team.
💧 What is to come in 2025? A look behind the scenes.
🪴 Closing the year with Ocean Vuong’s Essay on Craft.
Enjoy!
Your noe team
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🌱 Planting Seeds
In this section we share thoughts and concepts around empathy that have inspired us and made us think.
The noe year in review
As 2024 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to reflect on an incredible year filled with connection, growth, and meaningful moments. This year has been a whirlwind of activity and progress for noe, and we’re so proud of what we’ve achieved together. To celebrate, we’ve picked five key highlights that capture the essence of our journey this year. From inspiring events to new beginnings, here’s what stood out in 2024!
Design Sprint with Alex (@realutopia)
We kicked off the year with a design sprint, guided by our friend—and now noe board member—Alex. Together, we worked to develop a solution to support our peers during periods of burnout. Out of this collaboration, the noe Experience was born—a resource designed to bring relief, understanding, and connection to those navigating challenging times.
Launching our monthly newsletter
Since launching our newsletter in March, we’ve stayed consistent, never missing an issue! It’s been such a rewarding way to stay connected with our community, especially for those times when participating in events feels like too much.
Our newsletter has become more than just updates—it’s a space to explore and develop our thinking about community action. September was our best month yet, with 150 reads, and we’re excited to keep building this platform.
Hosting our first noe Experience
This year, we took a bold step with the noe Experience—a weekend retreat with around 15 participants in Brandenburg. It was a complete experiment, and what an experience it was!
The retreat challenged us to develop and refine our noe methodology while holding space for a group of people, many of whom we were meeting for the first time. It was a weekend full of learning, connection, and shared growth—a true milestone in our journey as a community.
Bringing back noe Circles
This year, we relaunched NOE Circles, creating spaces to experience community and connection in meaningful ways. These circles have been a chance to come together, share, and just be present with one another.
In our latest circle, we were thrilled to be joined by the wonderful Jean Baptiste MacLucky, who brought fresh insights and energy to our gathering. It’s been amazing to see these spaces grow, and we can’t wait to keep the momentum going into the new year.
Growing as a team
This year has been a big one for us as a team. We’ve grown, especially, in how we work together. After 5 years it was also our first in-person meeting, with all team members being in the same place, with Nada flying in from Cairo and Rimma from Paris. Spending time together face-to-face connected us more deeply and gave us the chance to strengthen our shared vision for noe.
💧 Watering the Mind
In this section we share updates from the noe team and concrete offers that allow you to build emotional intelligence and resilience skills.
What is there to come in 2025 for noe?
As we wrap up 2024 and look forward to the year ahead, we’re excited to share what’s in store for NOE in 2025! The development we’ve started this year will continue to unfold, bringing some exciting changes while keeping the heart of our activities the same.
We are registering and growing into an organisation
After almost 5 years of working as an initiative, we will finally have a legal statute and will be registered in Germany as an association (e.V.). This will allow us to develop from a an informal structure into an actual organisation.
Moreover, members of our network will be able to sign up for official membership and benefit from our offers while also contributing to the development of the organisation.
Being legally registered will also enable us to apply for funding, develop sustainable ways of working, and expand both our activities and our team. Our ultimate goal is to create a flagship project that embodies our mission—building a community of care to support changemakers drive meaningful impact.
We are continuing our noe Circles
The season of circles we started back in September will continue into the next year. After launching this new season, we’ve already had two amazing circles with both new and old faces.
noe Circles are open spaces for connection and dialogue where anyone is welcome to join. Every time we come together, it’s such a source of energy—being part of a community, feeling that sense of togetherness, and sharing some of the heaviness that’s out there in the world.
If you want to join us for the next circle on January 25, sign up now through the link below!
If you would want to join our community or support us, don’t hesitate to get in touch at contact@networkofempathy.org.
🪴 Vines of Community
In this space we foster connection and inspiration by sharing stories, poems, and thoughts of community members.
As we close out the year, we are sharing Ocean Vuong’s Essay on Craft. It is a reminder of our humanness that is always there but is so easy to lose out of sight. It requires rest and self-care. Staying soft in the face of the world is hard work.
No matter how you are spending the last days of this year, we hope that you are able to take some time for yourself. Next year we go again.
Essay on Craft
BY OCEAN VUONG
Because the butterfly’s yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.
Because no one else
was coming — & I ran
out of reasons.
So I gathered fistfuls
of ash, dark as ink,
hammered them
into marrow, into
a skull thick
enough to keep
the gentle curse
of dreams. Yes, I aimed
for mercy —
but came only close
as building a cage
around the heart. Shutters
over the eyes. Yes,
I gave it hands
despite knowing
that to stretch that clay slab
into five blades of light,
I would go
too far. Because I, too,
needed a place
to hold me. So I dipped
my fingers back
into the fire, pried open
the lower face
until the wound widened
into a throat,
until every leaf shook silver
with that god
-awful scream
& I was done.
& it was human.