<Downloadable PDF in the series is forthcoming. In the meantime, please refer to their Blog post>
Publication Date: June 19, 2025
Citation: Roelofse, E., (2025). Moment of Truth Playbook: Black Capital Studies. Institute for Quantum Innovation and Impact, Qii Moment of Truth Series (Qii MOT No. 1-27, published in 2025).
License: Open access under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0
Available at:
https://theqii.org/portfolio/Global-Community-Hub/
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 dark 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.
The Qii 