A Message From Our Founder, Leah Green
- TCLP Staff
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Dear Friends,
This is a momentous year for the Compassionate Listening Project and I want to thank you for your presence here. Whether you’ve been with us for decades, many years, or you’re new to our community, we deeply value your interest, participation, and support.
Thirty-five years ago, I could never have imagined that this sacred and practical work would grow into the global training organization we are today. Thirty-five years- a lifetime, and the blink of an eye. And the time has arrived for me to set down the director hat and bless the powerful new leadership team that has emerged to carry this work forward. I feel deeply at peace with this transition and I plan to remain involved as Founder and Director Emeritus, continuing my work as ambassador and spokesperson for the organization. I also now serve as treasurer of our new Board of Directors - a highly skilled, energized, “leaderful,” and hands-on Board.
I’d like to share a little about myself and the history of The Compassionate Listening Project, and tell you about the impressive work that’s taken place over the past year, and our plans for 2026.
Did you know that the Compassionate Listening Project was born in the Middle East 36 years ago? Take a short walk with me through our origin story:
I first lived in Israel when I was 19 years old, and returned to Jerusalem at age 21 to attend the Hebrew University. These two years were the start of my decades-long immersion in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1990 at age 30, after earning masters degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Administration from the University of Washington, I began leading citizen delegations to Israel and Palestine (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza), and founded a nonprofit organization called Mid-East Citizen Diplomacy. After eight delegations, I sought out international peacemaker, Gene Knudsen Hoffman, who helped me integrate and evolve a concept that her friend Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese poet and peacemaker, called “Compassionate Listening.” I realized that beyond goodwill and political analysis, what we needed for the delegations was a reconciliation framework to help us bridge the intense polarization that we encountered on every trip.
Compassionate Listening challenged us to seek the humanity of every person that we encountered, from all sides of the conflict. During the ensuing years, I worked closely with my mentor, Gene, and my colleague, Carol Hwoschinsky, and eventually with a team of colleagues who went through our first facilitator certification program in the United States in 2003-4.
My life's work was born from questions that were ignited during my first year in Israel: Why do we dehumanize one another? Why is “othering” so pervasive? What are the pathways to re-humanization?
I come from a Jewish family that lost many members in the Holocaust - something I only discovered at age 22. Over time, I realized how inherited trauma had quietly shaped my path, drawing me toward war and trauma like a moth to flame. Being exposed to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict at a young age, I dreamt of being a peacemaker in service to these two peoples, so closely related by genetics, history, and land. After discovering my own family’s traumatic history, I became even more determined to dedicate my life to peacemaking.
Compassionate Listening began as an experiment in the citizen delegations that I led, asking a simple but radical question: Could ordinary people step into fields of profound conflict and polarization, and find ways to connect heart-to-heart and build trust with people from all sides of a conflict? Could we invite people from conflicting sides to come together and guide them through processes of re-humanization and healing? Our curriculum grew out of our successes in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. We discovered that, in addition to strong communication skills and inner work to understand how we personally contribute to peace or conflict in each moment, a key ingredient in peacemaking is how we engage our own hearts. Listening and Speaking from the Heart are two of our Five Core Practices, and the “Science of Compassion” is part of our core curriculum.
Recognizing that our Compassionate Listening training in the Middle East was applicable to all conflict, I began putting together and facilitating our first Compassionate Listening workshops in the U.S. in 1999. People had been expressing curiosity about what I was doing “over there” and had asked if I would bring it to the U.S. It was at this time that we changed our name from Mid-East Citizen Diplomacy to The Compassionate Listening Project, and began to visualize a facilitator training program.
In the early years, we held facilitator gatherings each summer. We used to joke about how we “know Compassionate Listening works” because, after years of personal practice and integration, we had witnessed transformation in ourselves and in one another. Along with our success in the Middle East, this gave us confidence in what we were teaching.
Over the ensuing years, it was an honor to co-create the Jewish-German project with my German colleague Beate Ronnefeldt, bring a Compassionate Listening delegation to Syria and Lebanon with Munteha Shukralla, and co-create the Journey to Guatemaya with Mayan colleagues in Lake Atitlan. I’ve taught Compassionate Listening around the world, produced three films, mentored many people through Advanced Trainings and Facilitator Certification, and led a total of 26 delegations to Israel and Palestine.
Our facilitators have brought Compassionate Listening to dozens of countries around the world, and collectively, we’ve brought it into every kind of organization and setting you can imagine. Two facilitators created a powerful Journey to Alabama to explore the roots of slavery and racism, and another Journey is about to be announced called Borderlands, that will explore issues surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border.
One unexpected gift of the chaotic COVID years was that we moved all of our offerings online. As a result, over 50 countries are now represented among participants in our workshops and programs, and we have certified facilitators in 11 countries. The work has become truly global.
Our Board and staff have created an ambitious 2026 Strategic Plan and are actively implementing it. The momentum is tremendous!
Our recent accomplishments include:
Launching our first major fundraiser, raising $66,000
Clarifying new Vision, Mission, and Identity Statements
Beginning our foundation search so we can focus on training more facilitators in war and post-war zones
Promoting Camille Dickerson-Lemieux from Co-Director to Executive Director
Doubling the hours of our Operations Manager, Alanna Faust (who resides in Berlin)
Hiring Kirsten Szykitka, a longtime colleague with decades of nonprofit and large-scale event management experience, to be our new Director of Program Development and Outreach
I could not be more excited about this triad of exceptional women: Camille, Alanna, and Kirsten, or the level of skill and devotion among our Board of Directors, whom I enjoy working with tremendously. I could not have imagined a more aligned or beautiful transition, and I feel profoundly grateful.
I’ve been living in Mexico for the past three years, where I’ve been immersed in the beauty of Lake Chapala, the close-knit community, vibrant cultural life, yoga, sunshine, and travel. I feel deeply blessed to live among Mexicans - people whose kindness and compassion touch me every day. I facilitate Family Constellations, a healing process that reveals and releases inherited family patterns influencing our lives and relationships - a natural complement to my lifelong work with trauma and reconciliation. I have a vision for a listening project here, and will also be spending more time with my family in Washington State, as I am now deeply blessed to be a grandmother!
Compassionate Listening changes the world from the inside out- because it changes us. Every day is an opportunity to contribute our peace to the world. I have always believed that the key to our human evolution is to become skilled at transforming conflict and to learn how to BE peace in our daily lives.
Thank you to Gene Knudsen Hoffman and all of my teachers in Israel and Palestine. Thank you to senior facilitators, Susan Partnow and Andrea Cohen, and my colleague and co-conspirator, Carol Hwoschinsky, who passed last year. Truly, there are too many facilitators to name, but our history is beyond rich. Thank you to Camille, our new E.D., for your love and devotion to The Compassionate Listening Project - I’m cheering you on! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this beautiful organization and engaged with us. Thank you for the opportunity to have lived a life of service, and to my family for always supporting me. Creating and guiding this organization has been more than I ever could have dreamed of. With deep gratitude for all we have built, and with tremendous excitement for what is unfolding…
With love,
Leah
You can learn more about the early years of The Compassionate Listening Project and our work in Israel and Palestine in Carol Hwoshinsky’s newly published book, available here.
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