Mary Gordon is the Founder, President and the inspiration behind Roots of Empathy and Seeds of Empathy

Mary Gordon is recognized internationally as an educator, best-selling author, child advocate and parenting expert who has created programs informed by the power of empathy. In 1996, she founded Roots of Empathy, which now offers programs in Canada, New Zealand, the United States, the Isle of Man, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Germany. In 2005, Ms Gordon founded the Seeds of Empathy program. She is a Member of the Order of Canada and an Ashoka Fellow.

Ms Gordon is also the founder of Canada's first and largest school-based Parenting and Family Literacy Centres, which she initiated in 1981. They have become public policy in Ontario, with hundred of school now involved. They have been used as a best practice model internationally. The Nelson Mandela Children's Foundation brought Ms Gordon to South Africa to share her parenting expertise.

Ms Gordon speaks and consults to governments, educational organizations, and public institutions. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards recognizing her contribution to innovation in education and international social entrepreneurship, including the 2011 David E. Mitchell Award of Distinction from the Ernest C. Manning Innovation Awards, and the 2009 Public Education Advocacy Award from the Canadian Teachers' Federation. Her 2005 Canadian bestseller, Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child, was ranked as one of the Top 100 Books of the Year by the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper.

Ms Gordon has presented on early childhood development to conferences organized by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Health Organization, and the United States government, among others. She worked with the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health's Knowledge Network for Early Childhood Development for their report Total Environment Assessment Model for Early Childhood Development.

Ms Gordon has twice had dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama: First in 2006, at the Vancouver Dialogues, and then in 2008, in Seattle, Washington as part of the Seeds of Compassion event. The Dalai Lama expressed that programs like Roots of Empathy will build world peace.

In 2008, Roots of Empathy was one of three winners in an international competition from Changemakers, an Initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, for programs that help youth at risk.

Ms Gordon was the first female Canadian Ashoka Fellow, recognizing her as a member of an international circle of social entrepreneurs who have the creativity that enables them to envision new and better ways to address persistent social problems and the entrepreneurial skill and determination required to bring their ideas to fruition. She is a member of the Executive Board of Directors.

In September 2010, Ms Gordon was invited to speak about emotional literacy at the Untied Nations International Literacy Day celebration in New York. This marked the first time that emotional literacy was included in the event.

Mary Gordon introduces us to the wisdom of babies and shows us how they can teach us - and our children - what it is to be human. Over a lifetime, I have learned that the human capacities for empathy and respect must be fostered from earliest childhood to reduce violence in the world and build a truly civil society."

 

- The Honourable Landon Pearson, Advisor on Children's Rights to the Minister of Foreign Affairs