Crafting Gentleness is a non-profit organisation established for the following purposes:
- to promote the study and practice of gentleness in everyday life
- to contribute to the de-escalation of conflict, violence, coercion, and domination in personal, professional, and institutional practice through a series of programmes and workshops
- to promote self-care and emotional self-defense in personal, professional, and institutional practice
- to develop a body of research relating to the personal, social, and political possibilities of gentleness
- to produce materials for publication and broadcast relating to the personal, social, and political possibilities of gentleness
- to provide consultancy relating to the research and educational concerns of Crafting Gentleness
The five main areas of the work of Crafting Gentleness are:
This site is not affiliated to a cult, a new religious movement, or an old religious movement. We respect people's spiritual views, and we may or may not have some of our own, but we work hard to have what we do be as welcoming as possible for anyone, whatever they believe or don't believe.
The notion of crafting is often associated with activities like pottery, knitting, woodwork, quiltmaking and so on. Engaging in these sorts of crafting can be a great way to remind ourselves that we can make a difference, to remind ourselves that we can learn to listen more carefully to how we make the differences that we make. Crafting materials can be a way to align ourselves to think more in terms of the consequences and effects of what we do, to consider that helpfulness and appropriateness might be friendlier values to live by than rigid rules of right and wrong. By sculpting, shaping, moulding, guiding, building, and by listening and responding as we go, we can become more aware of how we make a difference. Crafting can be a reclamation of the power of life.
On this site, crafting activities aren't just promoted as opportunities to experience empowerment. Here, crafting activities are understood as reminders that we can become aware of how we always-already make a difference, at any time, in any situation. We are always-already sculpting, shaping, moulding, guiding, building. We always-already have an influence on how we and others experience life. We can become more aware of how we always-already matter.