Transforming Empathy Into Empowerment
Canadians have a powerful feeling of empathy for soldiers, veterans and their families. They recognize that service members experience a wide range of physical and psychological challenges when serving and after they have left the military. The empathy, however, is often latent; there is little opportunity to show support for active duty and veteran service members and their families as the military experience, for most Canadians, is far removed from their day-to-day existence. When Canadians are reminded of the sacrifice of its military members—often as a result of tragedy, such as the death of a soldier—they respond with an outpouring of support.
The Invictus Games Toronto 2017 will provide an opportunity to awaken the latent empathy that Canadians feel for its military and transform it by empowering the Canadian public, politicians and corporations to solicit long-term advocacy, donations and support for the country’s service members and military families in need.