This isn’t just a story about circles.
It’s a story about how a handful of Iowa teenagers—armed only with Zoom, mentors from an MIT training program, and a pandemic-size heartbreak—re-discovered the oldest social technology on earth: deep listening.
During the darkest winter of COVID, mental-health hotlines rang off the hook while licensed therapists hit capacity. That’s when four young founders of YOU & I Care asked a simple question:
“What if we could give everyone a safe place to be heard and share what is on their hearts?”
Their answer became Caring Circles—five-week micro-gatherings of 4-6 people who meet online to practice deep, non-fixing listening using Otto Scharmer’s Presencing Institute “coaching-circle” protocol. Each session moves through:
- Check-in – feelings named, cameras optional.
- Story share – one participant speaks; others hold the space.
- Mirror back – listeners offer images, gestures, or phrases that surfaced.
- “Letting come” – the speaker harvests insights; no advice is given.
- Collective close – gratitude round, two-minute breathing, exit.
No fees. No hierarchy. Just deep listening for 75 minutes. Every participant is getting their opportunity.
What began as a Waterloo pilot now reaches from a hospital bed in Paris to a self-sustaining camp run by a retired nurse in the Australian bush—and right back to living rooms across Iowa. Among the fifty inaugural members and advisors were a blind participant and an ASL trainer who taught everyone how to “sign” when Zoom is on mute. Most returned the following week, saying it was the first time in months they’d felt truly heard.
A reminder that justice can begin in a 75-minute Zoom square and that the medicine we’re missing may be as old as the campfire: genuine presence.
This is the Global Community Hub’s Moment of Truth.
1 | What do you know from your experience that the future shouldn’t forget?
“It becomes a state of flow… a space where boundaries open and new insights come forward.”
She remembers a time—100 years ago, and also yesterday—when people could really listen.
Caring Circles aren’t a program.
They’re a practice:
- of presence
- of shared emergence
- of letting solutions arise rather than be imposed
And most importantly, a reminder:
We already know how to do this.
We just need to remember.
Their mission? Care.
This is the Global Community Hub’s’ Moment of Truth.
2 | What have you protected that no algorithm could ever describe right?
“The importance of creating a safe space where people can just be.”
She’s protected something sacred:
- Spaces that aren’t optimized or monetized
- Moments that aren’t measured in productivity
- Relationships that aren’t built on extraction
From a 14-year-old in Waterloo to an elder in Paris,
They formed a network of belonging
No system could engineer.
This isn’t performance.
It’s protection of trust, of dignity, of intergenerational wisdom.
3 | If someone 100 years from now listened to this story, what part would still be true?
“Listening deeply was important 100 years ago… and it still will be.”
When the world feels fractured,
gathering around a symbolic fire—with care and attention—is still healing.
No matter the technology,
A listening circle will always be sacred.
“We are connecting again with that part of ourselves that knows how to be still together.”
Even in a fast-paced future, the power of listening
—without fixing, without judging—will remain timeless.
4 | What kind of intelligence deserves your trust?
“Emotional intelligence… and turning the telescope inward.”
She doesn’t trust systems that demand compliance.
She trusts living systems that nourish the spark in each person.
– Intelligence that sees the uniqueness in each child
– Teachers who look for meaning, not just mastery
– Hubs that protect what’s invisible, yet essential
They invoke the living systems lens—a way of seeing the world that centers flourishing, not control.
5 | What does justice sound like—in your voice?
“We see you. We hear you. Let’s build justice together.”
Justice, to them, is a campfire with room for every voice.
She draws from Mandela’s vision and Native artists’ generosity.
They build not from scarcity or guilt, but from love and collective agency.
“We want to bring care to this world… and that means all of us sitting at the fire, together.”
Justice sounds like an invitation.
To remember. To restore. To co-create a future where love leads.
Here are a few of the traditional media appearances:
1) Iowa News Now
2) Rocky ‘n Chaveeva
3) 1 Million Cups Cedar Valley
The Qii 