On Tuesday, January 26, The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, a nonprofit organization teaching others to choose love, created in honor of that first grade victim of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School 12/14, announced the Second Annual Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Awareness Week, from February 7 to 14, in the state of Connecticut, declared by Governor Dannel P. Malloy:

Whereas, addressing the complex mental health needs of children, youth, and families today is fundamental to the future of the State of Connecticut; and

Whereas, children's mental health disorders affect children of all ages, genders, races, and backgrounds, and an estimated 13-20 percent of our nation's youth can be diagnosed with a mental health disorder in a given year; and

Whereas, social and emotional learning is an increasingly important process for learning fundamental life skills, including how to recognize and mange emotions, how to deal with oneself and others in a positive relationship, and building compassion and empathy for others; and

Whereas, social and emotion learning can have a positive impact on school climate by promoting academic achievement, social awareness, and emotional growth; and

Whereas, by bringing attention to social and emotional learning, we raise awareness for its importance in the growth and development of our nation's children; now

Therefore, I, Dannel P. Malloy, Governor of the State of Connecticut, do hereby proclaim February 7-14, 2016 as Social and Emotional Learning Awareness week in the State of Connecticut.

Jesse Lewis, whose action saved the lives of nine classmates, was one of 20 first grade students killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. His message scrawled on a chalkboard at home - "Nurturing, Healing, Love" - became the inspiration for his mother, Scarlett, to found the Choose Love Movement.

The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with a commitment to provide students and educators with a formula for choosing love. Its signature program, the Choose Love Enrichment Program, is a pre-K through twelfth grade curriculum that contains teachings of courage, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion in action, and is free to educators.

The pre-K portion of the Choose Love Enrichment Program is currently being piloted in Danbury, said Ms Lewis, Friday, January 29, with plans to launch the program online at jesselewischooselove.org within two months for grades 9 through 12, and for middle schools, after that. Additionally, as a precursor to the launching of the program, seven elementary and high schools in Connecticut have been selected to create student murals, on large canvases, with the theme of Choose Love. The murals will be shown February 12 at Quinnipiac University, where Senator Richard Blumenthal will be discussing his legislative efforts around social and emotional learning. The murals will then be hung in the participating schools.

Ms Lewis has dedicated herself to sharing Jesse's message, traveling the world and crisscrossing the United States over the past three years. She has researched the science behind love and compassion, meeting with scholars in this field and learning from them. Stefan Deutsch, of Human Development Core, an organization offering support in the areas of well-being, nature, and culture, has told her that after decades of studying "love," his definition boils down to "nurturing and healing." It is a chilling synchronicity with Jesse's words, she said.

"I believe this message came not from, but through, [Jesse]. He handed me a torch, and I accepted it," said Ms Lewis.

The Choose Love Enrichment Program is a powerful tool for teaching love, she said.

"When you practice these values [nurturing, healing, love] in this order, you are choosing. It really helped me and JT [Jesse's older brother] dig our ways out of this tragedy. We added a component on top of this - courage. Jesse saved nine lives [by confronting the shooter in the hallway] and that redefined courage for me. You have to have courage to feel grateful when things aren't going your way or on the darkest day; courage to step outside your own pain; and courage to forgive when the other person isn't sorry," Ms Lewis said.

In speaking of compassion, Ms Lewis said that what she has learned is that compassion is much more than empathy. "What I learned from the world's reaction to 12/14," she said, "is that there are two components to compassion. One is identifying with someone's pain. But there is an action component, when you do something to ease someone else's pain."

She has seen that form of compassion at work in her own home. Shortly after 12/14, a group of survivors of the Rwanda genocide reached out to JT. "They told him 'We want to share our experiences with you, and let you know that you're going to be okay, and you will feel joy again.' They gave JT how they had gotten through their ordeal - through gratitude, and through forgiving the murderers," said Ms Lewis.

She and her son were moved to make a gratitude list. "And we made a decision to forgive," she said.

JT was also inspired to create newtownhelpsrwanda.org, selling bracelets to raise funds. Within two months, he had raised enough to send one of the Rwandan survivors to college for a year, and since then, has raised enough to keep her in school, as well as support other programs.

"I learned that JT's being able to step outside his pain to help someone else was so healing for him," Ms Lewis said.

What her research has shown her, she said, is that there are only two things: fear and love, and people have the option to choose love. The Choose Love Enrichment Program gives children - and adults - the tools to learn how to choose love over anger, and to tap into the five core values of Social and Emotional Learning.

"Self-awareness, self-management, responsible decisionmaking, social awareness, and relationship skills," said Ms Lewis, are the components that allow children to choose love. When a child feels compassion for him or herself, it makes it easier to choose love.

Everyone is aware of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which focuses on the negative aspects of trauma recovery, Ms Lewis said, but very few have heard of posttraumatic growth (PTG), the positive side of human suffering that has been studied by numerous researchers and clinicians. "It is way beyond resiliency, which only brings you back to where you were before the trauma," she said. PTG is how people who have suffered trauma are able to stretch their recovery beyond what they ever imagined themselves capable of doing.

"What if," she mused, "we planted the seed that said pain is an opportunity for growth? Wouldn't it take fear out of life experiences, instead viewing them as opportunities for growth?"

Her own experience was of looking for and being fearful of PTSD, after Jesse's death; and as she learned more about love and compassion, deciding instead to look at what meaning could be found in suffering: PTG.

"From Jesse's message, I have realized that if the shooter had had access to social and emotional learning… I knew if he had had basic elements of these life skills, if his classmates had had them, this tragedy would never have happened," she said. "The whole tragedy started with an angry thought, and he had no tools to deal with it, and it escalated. An angry thought can be changed."

Ms Lewis believes students will respond positively to the Choose Love Enrichment Program. "I think the need to give and receive love is universal," she said. "The [enrichment] program teaches a formula for choosing love. It empowers children to understand that they can choose love in any situation," she said. Teachers, as well, learn along with the children.

There is great power in those three words given to her by Jesse, Ms Lewis said, and she will continue to promote love and empower others through the Choose Love Movement and the enrichment program, as well as through speaking engagements wherever she is invited.

The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement encourages teachers to support SEL Awareness week by having students create art projects based on "Choosing Love." The works can be submitted to info@jesselewischooselove.org, or posted on the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Instagram page.

The Choose Love Enrichment Program is offered completely free of cost, and can be used by a whole school system or by individual teachers or families. "There is no cost, to fulfill part of the foundation's mission: that every child has access to [social and emotional learning]. SEL," said Ms Lewis, "is more important than math. My vision is that [SEL] is woven through the curriculum, not a standalone class, and taught all day long."