World Kindness Day. Why is this a thing? That may be the main question that ponders your mind the moment “Kindness Day” is mentioned. What makes this day so special? Why do we have to specially declare a day just to act like a respectful human being? To answer these questions, we have to go back to 1997, all the way in Tokyo. The idea of World Kindness Day started in 1997 as The World Kindness Movement, an organization formed in Tokyo by like minded organizations that aim to promote World Peace. Their goal was to establish a kinder, safer, fairer and better world for everybody, regardless of their background, race, sexuality etc.
Now that we know the background of this organization, we have to cover why it’s so important. During World Kindness Day (Sunday 13th November), locals are encouraged to donate food, clothes, books, and resources to local communities. Furthermore, many are encouraged to do good deeds like visiting orphanages, old folks homes, doing community work, and so on. This is a way to express our kindness on this special day, going out of our comfort zone to support others in need, or even helping out for a day to help ease their burdens. Thankfully, Tenby is among many selfless communities, with student committee members visiting and donating resources to those in need, having annual Christmas events at orphanages and occasionally visiting, for more information please speak to your prefects or members of the committee on how to get involved with these amazing opportunities. Now to answer your question, why should we pick a particular day to act kind, shouldn’t this be second nature to us? Because in this day and age, the act of being kind is essentially lost, even something as simple as a “Good Morning” greeting has to be a reinforced message towards the general public. However I do not doubt that people are kind, most are just shy or kindness may trigger a flight or fight response in them.
Personally I believe that being overly kind towards someone is something that shouldn’t be reinforced. Mainly because simply going out your way to cheer someone up would possibly trigger the opposite reaction or cause them to grow suspicious of your motives. I believe that the act of simply being kind should be reinforced day to day. An example of this is Japan, probably the kindest place in Asia. It is said that Japanese younglings are often taught respect and responsibility, often told to put others' needs before their own. As a result of this, Japanese people often leave their doors unlocked, most people feel safe walking out at night, children are able to take the subway alone etc., achieving the lowest global crime rate. Being kind helps the world slowly become a better place, as cliche as that sounds, it's true, you never know what a simple act such as holding the door for someone could do for them. Negative people are all around the world, and that is something we can’t really change, we can only give them the “push” they need. Positive people only want to see others win, in the sense that they wouldn’t go out of their way to ruin the vibe.
Thanks to the amazing opportunities and the plethora of activities lined up and organized by the Kindness Team, we as students were given the opportunity to experience a wide variety of activities, such as the Kindness Market that helped support Year 11 prom, buying and selling handmade goods and products, Kindness Week Haiku competition, Kindness Donations, and the Secret Bestfriend project, where students names were chosen at random, and the chooser had to partake in an act of kindness towards them for the entire week.
Kindness is rather essential if we want to grow as a society, strengthening our sense of communion can and will only improve our bonds as a school. It wouldn’t kill you to hold a door for someone wouldn't it?
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