TEDPrize Updates

Charter for Compassion plaques available now

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Charter for Compassion plaques are available for purchase now. Hang one in your home, office, school, community center or house of worship. Send one as a gift to your family member, friend, organization or religious community.

AmazonCompassionPlaquePhotoBeautifully designed by Yves Behar and his team at fuseproject, the plaque serves as an elegant reminder that every day is a new opportunity to live more compassionately. The design focuses on the power and meaning of the Charter’s words rather than purely the form. The plaque’s isometric perspective reminds us of a book, and expresses the depth of the Charter’s text and encompassing points of view. The plaque consists of sustainable maple, simple construction and laser-engraving to create a unique and iconic design reflective of the key messaging of Karen Armstrong. Each plaque is hand-crafted by Thomas Duffy, a designer and craftsman with 30 year of experience.

The plaque costs $200 (USD), including shipping & handling. Some international locations may require additional payment for shipping. The Charter for Compassion is a non-profit initiative and the plaques are priced at cost. Plaques can be made in any language we have available for download.

If you are interested in purchasing a plaque, please visit our webstore. If you can’t afford to purchase a plaque, we encourage you to download a copy to frame and hang on your wall. You can find a downloadable version for over 30 languages in the sidebar here.

For the launch of the Charter for Compassion over 60 plaques were hung in significant religious and secular locations around the world, including India, Botswana, Australia, Malaysia, England and Brazil.

Here are a few thoughts from those already displaying the Charter:

IBN ABBAS, NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA

“The hanging of this Charter is an important event symbolising aspects that unite civilisations across the globe, in particular the principle of compassion which is a cornerstone of Islam. It is even more significant as it focuses on children who are at the core of the work of our network.” – Hademine Ould Saleck, President, Imams and Oulemas Network for Child Rights

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHAPEL, CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, PHILIPPINES

“May those passing into the Chapel be reminded by this plaque at the entrance to the Chapel, and reflect again, as they read it on the way out, that we are one with all our suffering brothers and sisters throughout the world, and as members of the Xavier University community, always and ever men and women for others.” – Fr Calvin Poulin,SJ, Chaplain, Immaculate Conception Chapel

LITHGOW CORRECTIONAL CENTER, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA

“The Charter of Compassion plaque is now hanging in the prison chapel at Lithgow correctional centre. It is very rare within a prison for people to have the opportunity to step out of their very fixed roles. The hanging was one of those occasions. To be together for the shared purpose of instating the Charter of Compassion was very special. The governor, head of nursing, a welfare officer and two of the Christian chaplains were in attendance, along with ten inmates. We shared the reading of the Charter between inmates and staff.

We asked the guys why they considered it significant to hang the plaque within the prison. They offered the following responses:

Because you find peace in the most unlikely places
Because everyone wants to be happy
Because compassion spreads compassion.

The atmosphere in the room testified to all of these responses. The governor and head of nursing both requested copies of the photos to hang in their respective offices. The inmates all requested copies to share with their families and friends and links to the Charter of Compassion website to pass on to them.” – Aileen Barry, Liberation Prison Project

Launching 826DC

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Congratulations to Holly Jones and 826DC, the newest incorporated chapter of 826. TED Prize winner Dave Eggers co-founded the nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization in San Francisco and it has since expanded to 8 cities throughout the country.

Holly attended TED Palm Springs last year and has been working with a number of people from the TED community to realize her dream of incorporating an 826 Chapter in Washington. Operating up until now as Capitol Letters, the organization has been running programs in local public schools and is planning on opening a physical tutoring center next summer.

The launch of 826DC took place last week in the home of Carol Blue and Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, master of ceremonies for the evening, set the stage for impassioned readings by some of the country’s best literary minds. Christopher Buckley opened with a reading from his memoir Losing Mom and Pup, followed by Azar Nafisi (author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) and George Pelecanos (The Wire, The Turnaround). Dave Eggers shared his compelling vision for the founding of 826, the vital role 826DC plays in the lives of District students and the need for stakeholders to continue to pledge their support. Nearly $10,000 was raised to help fund the opening of 826DC’s first home.

Thank you to all from the TED community who’ve supported Holly. If you’d like to become involved please visit www.826DC.org.

Announcing the 2010 TED Prize winner: Jamie Oliver

Monday, December 21st, 2009

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We’re delighted to announce the TED Prize winner for 2010:  the chef who’s transforming the way we feed our children: Jamie Oliver.

The prize grants him $100,000 — and something much bigger: “one wish to change the world.” He’ll unveil the wish on February 10 at TED2010, and we, the TED community, will seek to make it come true.

Some of Jamie Oliver’s key achievements:

  • The Jamie’s School Dinners/Feed Me Better campaign pressured the UK government to invest $1 billion to overhaul school lunches.
  • The Fifteen Foundation, a social enterprise and chef apprenticeship for at-risk 18-24 yr olds. Based in London, it has been replicated through franchising in Amsterdam, Cornwall and Melbourne.
  • A new TV series, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution USA, is to air on ABC in 2010, bringing Jamie’s  vision of fun, healthy cooking to America.
  • 12 television series, seen in 130 countries
  • 10 cookbooks, translated into 29 languages, with almost 24 million copies sold in 56 countries

At the heart of Oliver’s work is an assault on the obesity epidemic: The CDC states that one in four Americans are considered obese. It is estimated that 43 percent of Americans, or 103 million people, will be obese by 2018. The cost of this epidemic, anticipated to reach $344 billion per year. It currently accounts for almost 10 percent of the yearly US health care costs, and that rate will rise to 21 percent by 2018. WHO’s latest projections indicate that globally in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight and projects that by 2015, that figure will rise to 2.3 billion.

From the New York Times: “…this British celebrity chef has made it his mission in recent years to break people’s dependence on fast food, believing that if they can learn to cook just a handful of dishes, they’ll get hooked on eating healthfully. The joy of a home-cooked meal, rudimentary as it sounds, has been at the core of his career from the start, and as he has matured, it has turned into a platform.”

Just one winner?

Those who’ve followed the TED Prize in recent years will know that in prior years we’ve announced three winners, not one. For 2010, the fifth-year anniversary of the launch of the prize, we’re doing things differently.

When we first created the TED Prize, we envisioned supporting projects that could be completed in 12 months. But our winners have dreamed up wishes more powerful, more wonderful than we ever could have imagined, and we’ve found that we simply don’t want to stop that quickly! Members of the community are getting passionately engaged in these projects, and they’re not shy to tell us that changing the world can take more than a year … To effect real impact, it’s right to stay involved and sustain the effort.

We agree. And that means it would be a mistake to add three brand-new wishes every year. There are already 15 TED Prize projects, and at least half of them still require our engagement. Adding too many more risks dilution of effort.

Therefore, after discussion with various wise souls in the community, we are moving to a new format of ONE new winner every year. At the same time, we’re increasing our capacity to facilitate your amazing efforts on the existing wishes:

There has been exciting progress on all these projects and we can see that there’s much more to come.

It’s incredibly exciting to welcome Jamie Oliver to join our line-up of change catalysts. And exciting, too, to know that our existing winners are going to stay at the heart of the TED community, as we continue working to realize their inspirational visions for a better future.

Charter for Compassion available in 30+ languages

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Did you know the Charter for Compassion is available for download in more than thirty languages, from French to Japanese to Xhosa to Persian?  Each download is designed not only for easy online reading but to be printed and hung on your wall.

Afrikaans, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Burmese, Català, Deutsch, English, Español, Français, HrvatskiItaliano, Kiswahili, Nederlands, 日本語, Polski, Português, РусскийSuomi, Svenska, ภาษาไทย, Tiếng Việt, TswanaTürkçe, Xhosa中文(简体), Ελληνικάעברית , العربية , فارسی, हिन्दी, தமிழ், اُردوُ

If you don’t see a language you speak and want to help translate the Charter, please email us. Also please let us know if you would like to help subtitle the video.

The Charter site is available in four languages: English, Español, العربية, and עברית. We have also designed the embeddable widget in these same four languages.

You can affirm the Charter directly on the site.  Add your name today and encourage others to do so as well.

Many thanks to the following individuals who helped us in this process:

Anour F.A. Dafa-Alla
Apichai Puntasen
Arnon Cahen
Dimitra Papageorgiou
Dirk and Natalie van Niekerk
Eiji Han Shimizu
Giulia Mignani
Holger Wendt
Kolisa Xinindlu
Lily Limbu
Lisa Brännström
Mar Cárdenas Loutzenhiser
Marcin Zieliński’s ethics class at VI LO Highschool in Gdansk, Poland
Mariam Bazeed
Mike Adair
Nenad Maljković
Pekka Jamsen
Rev Cloupas Molokwane
Ruya Koray
Sabine Pfannenstiel
Sarah Nundy
Sayagyi U Thein Myint
Steve Doss
Vladimir Chernyshov
Zakaria Ngelow

Karen Armstrong on Big Think

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Watch Karen Armstrong’s interview with Big Think, as she discusses topics from holding the world to the Golden Rule to how to die well. You can watch the full interview here or watch in shorter segments here.

Embed the Charter for Compassion widget

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Help share the Charter by embedding the Charter for Compassion widget. Our widget allows you to read and affirm the Charter directly in four different languages: Arabic, Hebrew, English and Spanish. Please consider adding it to your site or as part of a blog post to help spread the movement. You can find the embed code through the “share” tab on the bottom right of the widget below.

Compassion through collaboration

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

The Charter for Compassion is the result of a global collaborative effort. The TED Prize is so grateful for everyone’s work, support and commitment.

A huge thanks to the 1000s who made this wish possible, including…

ABC Carpet and Home
Amin Hashwani
Andrew Nurnberg Associates
Brandfog
Captain and Fox
Chautauqua institute
Council of Conscience
Dalai Lama Center
Easy! Designs
Erin Kissane
Event Organizers
Fetzer Institute
FreeForm
FuseProject
Gilly Barnes
Global Tolerance
Kluster
Liz Danzico
Neil Redding
Ogilvy PR
Our Partners
Our Public Affirmers
Rackspace
Speakers who gave Compassion Talks
SubscriberMail
Thomas Duffy

WORKSHOP

The Charter for Compassion Launches

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Today, around the world, people are celebrating the unveiling of the Charter for Compassion.

Affirm. Share. ACT.

Countdown to the Charter for Compassion on TED.com

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

From the TED Blog…

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In February 2008, Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize and made her wish – to create a Charter for Compassion, a document about the core shared value of every world religion and moral code, the Golden Rule. This document will be released to the world on November 12, the result of months of collaborative work by diverse religious leaders and great thinkers.

Today, to pave the way for the Charter’s unveiling, we’re sharing six short talks on compassion from six different perspectives — from a Rabbi, an Imam, a Reverend, a Tenzin, a Swami and a secular voice of compassion. We hope that in the week following the launch, thousands of sermons and many more discussions on the nature of compassion will take place around the world, and so, thousands of ideas will be shared.

Over 80 events are currently planned across the globe to help launch the Charter for Compassion. Help us launch the Charter by attending one of these events or hosting your own. Click here for more on the Charter >>

Ask Karen Armstrong anything!

Monday, October 26th, 2009

From our friends at the TED Blog

Ask her anything.

Religious thinker Karen Armstrong has written more than 20 books on faith and the major religions, studying what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common, and how our faiths shaped world history and drive current events. She argues that compassion is the core, fundamental idea behind the three Abrahamic religions, and she is working to help people of faith rediscover this principle.

Armstrong has given two TEDTalks (see her 2008 and 2009 talk), and the result of her 2008 TED Prize wish, the Charter for Compassion, will be unveiled on Nov. 12.

Don’t miss her recent article in The Wall Street Journal, in which she and fellow TEDster Richard Dawkins answer the question “Where does evolution leave God?”

Submit your questions on Reddit and we’ll ask the highest-voted ones as of noon Pacific time on Friday, October 30th. (Note: Any questions in the comments of this blog entry will not be eligible.)