Gisela Jacobs

Compassion is a choice

Compassion is sometimes mistaken for softness. For weakness. For feeling deeply but doing very little. I have come to understand it differently. Compassion is noticing — and then choosing not to look away. It is seeing the person who is struggling and asking whether they are okay. It is seeing an animal whose suffering has become invisible and deciding that its story deserves to be heard. It is seeing a family, a community, or even one frightened human being who needs somebody in their corner — and choosing to stand there. Not because you can fix everything. But because doing nothing was never going to sit comfortably with your heart.

People, animals and a kinder world

One of the things closest to my heart is the relationship between people, animals and compassion. Because how we treat something vulnerable when there is absolutely nothing it can give us in return says something profound about who we are. Perhaps compassion can be taught. When we teach a child to care for an animal, we are teaching gentleness, responsibility, patience, empathy and respect for vulnerability. That child takes those lessons somewhere — into a classroom, a friendship, a relationship, a family and eventually, into a community. That is how something seemingly small becomes something much larger.

Turning compassion into action

My work within uManity therefore stretches across Animal Welfare & Advocacy, Compassion Education, Community Wellbeing, Family Strengthening, Volunteer Engagement, Mentorship and Community Outreach. They may look like very different things. To me, they are connected by one question: Who — or what — needs someone to care enough to notice? And then comes the more important question: What are we going to do about it? Because compassion without action can become little more than sympathy. At uManity, I want compassion to move — into homes, into communities, into the way children learn about kindness, into the way vulnerable people are treated, into the way animals are protected, and into the way we treat one another when nobody is watching.

The person behind the Director

I have learned that some of the strongest people I know are also some of the gentlest. Perhaps because life taught them what hurt feels like. Perhaps because they know what it means to need kindness. Perhaps because somewhere along the way, they made a quiet decision: What hurt me will not become what I give to the world.

I didn't arrive at uManity with the belief that I was going to change the world. I arrived as myself. And I began discovering that perhaps the things I naturally care about — people, families, communities, animals, dignity, belonging — weren't simply things I cared about. They were places where I could contribute. I began finding my voice. I began bringing forward ideas. I began taking ownership. And I began understanding that leadership doesn't always look like standing at the front of the room. Sometimes leadership begins when somebody points at something everyone else has become accustomed to and says: “No. We can do better than this.”

Still becoming

I don't expect to save everyone. I don't expect to fix every problem. And I certainly don't expect to always get everything right. But I can notice. I can care. I can speak. I can show up. And I can encourage somebody else to do the same.

Because perhaps changing humanity doesn't always begin with something enormous. Perhaps sometimes it begins with one person seeing something that hurts and deciding: “It doesn't have to stay this way.” And then doing something about it. That is the kind of Director I hope to be. That is the kind of woman I am still becoming. And that is the kind of humanity I want to help grow.