Empathy as care: day two of the Happiness International Workshop in Valencia

On 24 March 2026, the Valencia Public Library (Pilar Faus) hosted the second session of the Happiness in Practice International Workshop. The theme of the day: the Empathy Circle — Art, Health and Wellbeing.

The thread connecting the two days

Domingo Ferrandis opened the morning by picking up the words that had emerged the previous day during the reading circle on Magda Szabó's The Door: dignity, boundary, care, betrayal. Words that served as a thread connecting the two days, carrying into the new healthcare context the reflections already begun through literature.

Voices from the healthcare system

The central moment of the morning was the contribution of Vega Gracia Chiva and Irene Colomer Agulló, two nursing students from the Consultorio Auxiliar Convento de Jerusalén in Valencia, joined by Salvador Espert, the centre's director. Together with Ana María Solís and Domingo Ferrandis, they coordinated the Empathy Circle, explaining why this value lies at the heart of their training and daily practice.

The nurses presented how proximity healthcare works in Valencia — where healthcare staff visit patients directly at home — and how this profoundly changes the quality of the care relationship, especially for those facing long, painful conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer's or mental health disorders.

A significant comparison emerged with the Italian system, where patients traditionally travel to healthcare facilities. A difference that is not merely organisational: it changes the kind of empathy possible, the kind of human relationship that can be built between carer and patient.

Personal experiences of the participants

The most intense part of the morning was that of personal testimonies. Italians and Spanish shared moments when a doctor's or nurse's empathy had made a real difference. Stories of care, of loss, of healing. Real stories, spoken aloud in a circle that knew how to listen.

The red thread

Before heading to the museum, Marisela Ríos of the Pilar Faus Library facilitated one of the most symbolic moments of the workshop: the red thread activity. Participants crocheted a heart together with a red thread — a symbol of the connection between Italy and Spain, between two communities of practice meeting in person for the first time.

The red thread, a symbol in many cultures of an indestructible bond between people, took on a particular meaning here: woven together by Italians and Spanish, it became the visible, tangible representation of what this workshop was building.

RECETA CULTURA: culture as medicine

The visit to the Museum of Valencia, as part of the RECETA CULTURA project, offered a journey through Valencia's history across its great civilisational layers — Roman, Muslim, Christian through to the present day — with a particular thread: the role of women in this history, in the month of International Women's Day.

But the most extraordinary moment was that of the testimonies from the Spanish participants of RECETA CULTURA. They told their Italian colleagues something concrete and powerful: since joining the project's cultural activities they take fewer medications. They sleep better. They feel less lonely. They have made new friends. They have started reading again, taking an interest in painters, artworks and authors.

Culture as medicine. This is not a metaphor — it is what they are living.

The emotion of connection

At the end of the day, the atmosphere was that of a group that does not want to part. Participants expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of meeting again the following day for the final session of the workshop, at which the international Community of Practice would be officially launched. There was a genuine desire to continue, not to stop, to take home what had been learned — and to return with something new.

The workshop continues on 25 March with Art and Shadow: Art, Health and Happiness.

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