#Oggimisento - How empathetic are we?

#Oggimisento – How empathetic are we?  The social initiative to recognise our emotions

Empathy is the universal value that ties together the emotions of people.
And it is one of the values on which the ASIA project Distinti ma non distanti is based, funded by AICS – Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, within which #oggimisento was born, a social initiative realised together with our partner Explora to face, recognise and represent emotions.

Empathy, from the Greek empatheia «feeling inside», is that innate capacity of human beings to tune in with the emotional state of another person, in an immediate way, without resorting to explanations or interpretations. It is an innate capacity that requires some basic conditions in order to develop: one of these is contact with oneself, the ability to recognise and to stay with one's own emotions and feelings.

Isolated, hyperconnected in a virtual network, hidden behind screens, even more distant and covered by protections, empathy is probably an ability that more than the others we are developing in this period, a capacity inherent in recognising the moods of others, even if distant, even if hidden. Although empathy is defined mainly as the capacity to place oneself in the mood of the other, the first step to start this wonderful journey into emotions is to strengthen one's ability to express oneself.

How to recognise emotions?
Even before communicating through gestures, the human being has been equipped with what we could define “the stage of emotions”: the face.
Chin, mouth, nose, eyes, eyebrows, 16 muscles supplied to represent and represent oneself, a user manual for those who want to approach the other empathetically, in their joy, anger, sadness.

We started from the face and from its ways of expressing emotions giving life to a challenge, a small step in the long path towards respect for emotions. Children and adults can thus learn to describe themselves, to recognise their own sensations and to represent them, using objects of common use.

How to take part?
Every week we publish a post with a photo on the social pages of ASIA (Facebook of ASIA and of Explora-the Children's Museum of Rome and ASIA Instagram and of Explora) : discover together with us which emotion that face arouses and take part in the challenge by creating your own work with objects you use every day. Space for imagination and freedom: take part in #oggimisento and give a face to your emotions!