Recognized Globally for Advancing Student Wellbeing
On January 15th, 2025, HundrED named Roots of Empathy (ROE) as one of 15 leading education innovations globally for their Spotlight on Wellbeing in Schools. This prestigious honour underscores ROE’s deep impact and scalability on students’ wellbeing in schools, and celebrates how it engages teachers, families, and communities. A huge accomplishment for ROE given the elite and highly selective process of evaluation by a team of global education experts.
HundrED Spotlights are distinct from their Global Annual Collections for Education Innovation, in which Roots of Empathy has achieved ‘Hall of Fame’ status. Spotlights focus on specific themes, providing deeper insights through evaluation by a specially convened Advisory Board. This Spotlight was initiated by HundrED in partnership with these leading institutions – International Baccalaureate, Oxford University, Research Schools International, Harvard University, and the Jacobs Foundation. They recognized the critical need for improving student wellbeing in the wake of the global youth mental health crisis and that many programs/programmes and initiatives were not grounded in scientific evidence.

Why Roots of Empathy Stands Out
Our program/programme transforms classrooms by fostering:
Emotional Literacy and Self-Regulation:
- Guides children to understand and manage their own emotions and feel with others.
- Independent research proves ROE promotes empathy and reduces aggression and bullying in children thereby addressing mental health issues for bullies, victims, and bystanders.
- Due to ROE, children individually feel more emotionally and physically safe and collectively make a classroom that is softer, kinder, and more inclusive.


Resilience Building for All Children:
- Builds confidence and pro-social skills, leading to more positive relationships and friendships, helping children cope.
- Trauma-informed approach supports vulnerable children.
Inclusive and Integrated Approach:
- Enhances teachers’ connection with students. Teachers have a window to see their students’ authentic emotions and vulnerability which facilitates a closer relationship with the student.
- Deepens ROE volunteer parents’ understanding of the importance of their attunement to their baby and the baby’s attachment relationship to them, and celebrates this best model of empathy to the students.
- Helps break intergenerational cycles of violence – Enables children to empathically understand a baby’s full range of emotions and connect with their vulnerability, while also providing information on infant safety and development. Learning, that shapes the wellbeing of the next generation.

A Legacy of Impact
Roots of Empathy empowers children to discuss feelings, resolve conflicts, and self-regulate, essential tools for making ‘friends’ with themselves and friends around them – positive outcomes that improve mental health and wellbeing. This recognition reinforces our commitment to putting relationships at the heart of education, shaping not just classrooms but societies.
Learn more about HundrED and our organization’s journey by visiting our HundrED page.
