Kim Samuel, author of On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation, helps us explore how our conversation, as well as the structures and systems we live in, create connection.
Beyond the multifaceted ways belonging may be built in our lives, Kim proposes why we all have a right to it. On the flipside, we look at who is feeling socially isolated today and why... spoliler alert: it`s not your fault! Finally, just a heads up, we also consider toilets and singing giraffes.
Kim Samuel is the founder of the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, she is a fellow at the Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford, and she has worked on the ground with initiatives from South Africa and Mozambique, to the Special Olympics and the Indigenous on Vancouver Island.
Kim is inspired by… Parzival, the well-known thirteenth century Grail Quest, which highlights the key of compassion; philosopher and poet Wendell Berry’s What are People for? which questions value in a world of mechanization; and the Friendship Bench installation where grandmother figures nurture the younger generation on designated benches — initiated by Dixon Chibanda in Zimbabwe and now adopted worldwide.
