{"id":8435,"title":"Kindness nuggets from World Kindness Day and Kindfest 2020","description":"Seven kindness nuggets from World Kindness Day and Kindfest 2020","content":"

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It was World Kindness Day on 13 November, which is our kind of day (no pun intended!) - and what an inspirational day it was! At The Kind Penguins<\/a>, we took to social media to celebrate virtually and joined Kindfest 2020<\/a>, a unique online festival of kindness. The event proved that kindness is very much thriving and making the world a better, brighter place. Here's what we learnt on the day and what made us hopeful for the future.<\/strong><\/p>

A community of kindness<\/h3>

Kindfest 2020<\/a> <\/strong>brought together over 6,000 people and more than 120 speakers across five virtual 'tents' for six hours of conversations, interviews, film and performances. It was a truly packed agenda that explored the themes of kinder living, kinder thinking, kinder politics, kinder youth and kindness at work.<\/p>

All proceeds from the event go to three charities - Young Minds<\/a><\/strong>, Blurt<\/a><\/strong> and the Captain Tom Foundation<\/a><\/strong>, helping to tackle mental health, depression and loneliness across society. Organised by a group of volunteers under the banner of #TeamKind<\/a><\/strong>, the event aimed to be a festival that brought light to a dark and challenging world - and it certainly did!<\/p>

So, what did we learn?<\/p>

Seven nuggets of kindness from the day<\/h3>

1. Smiles go miles:<\/strong> Captain Sir Tom Moore brilliantly set the tone when he opened Kindfest with an observation about the power of a smile. Championing that a smile can do a lot of good, he encouraged us all to be kind and smile at someone today. As he noted, you never know what that smile might mean to someone; a friendly face can change the course of someone's day for the better.<\/p>

2. Kind chats change lives:<\/strong> With busy lives, social distancing and more, it can be too easy to plough on and ignore the world around you. However, the theme of talking to strangers was common across Kindfest speakers. They encouraged people to have a little chat with a stranger or ask how someone is (and listen meaningfully to the response). We might have to be physically distant these days, but staying socially connected helps us all.<\/p>

3. Small acts have big impacts:<\/strong> Little acts of kindness add up - they send ripples, then waves through our communities. We loved 'Finding Flowers', an initiative from The Flower Bank<\/a><\/strong>, that left bunches of flowers for people to find and take home as an act of kindness. Check out BBC News (click here<\/a><\/strong>) for a short video where producer Kamilah McInnis<\/a><\/strong> shares her experience of finding flowers when she was at a really low point in her life. Acts of kindness don't have to be complicated or big - small, quiet actions can, and have, saved lives.<\/p>

4. Share and collaborate to thrive: <\/strong>As we share our pains, anxieties and tragedies and have the courage to ask for help, we get better and we get on better. That was a key message from Professor Paul Gilbert of The Compassionate Mind Foundation<\/a><\/strong>. Likewise, when societies cooperate and share ideas, we see great advances, said TV presenter and biologist Professor Alice Roberts<\/a><\/strong>. We loved how some of these themes were captured visually by Mandy Johnson<\/a><\/strong> from Sketchnotes<\/a><\/strong> - check out some of her fab work below!<\/p>

\"\"Photo credit:<\/strong> Mandy Johnson, sketchnotesuk.com<\/a>

5. Self-kindness comes first: <\/strong>Personal wellbeing and self-care were frequent themes across Kindfest. Speakers shared how people are scrolling through negative news online even more during the pandemic ('doom scrolling' is the phrase we learnt!) and how looking after your own mental health means you're then better able to help others. As Rob Stephenson from FormScore<\/a><\/strong> put it, we've been trying to sprint through the pandemic for months, but it's actually a marathon. We need to slow down, check (and score) how we're feeling, and prioritise kindness to self and to others. That's how, he says, we stop poor mental health becoming \"the pandemic of 2021\".<\/p>

6. Take time to understand others: <\/strong>When we take time to educate ourselves and understand others, then chat (instead of leaping in with criticism, for example), we all benefit. It was a message brought to life powerfully in a short film written and directed by Karen Anstee. It's going to be shown in schools across the UK, and you can watch it on YouTube, below, too. Just a quick warning that the film includes strong\/explicit language and scenes of discrimination and hate.<\/em><\/p>