Make someone’s day today.
Contributed By Rachel Tjahjadi
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
On Nov. 13, 500 volunteers from the Singapore=Kindness Movement will be giving out 40,000 Gerbera Daisies along Orchard Road, an embodiment of this year’s SKM slogan: “Say Thanks, Make Someone’s Day.” Recipients are encouraged to pass these flowers to people around them who have done something kind.
World Kindness Day began on Nov. 13, 1988, when the first World Kindness Day conference took place in Japan. This day invites people from all over the globe to look beyond themselves, country, culture, race and religion and to recognize that everyone is a citizen of the world.
The Singapore Kindness Movement hopes that through the activities organized on World Kindness Day, Singaporeans learn to show appreciation and help kindness to bloom across the island.
Julie Xie, 17, has decided to show kindness, even to strangers. A member of City Harvest Church, she, together with her cell group members, recently visited a stranger in the hospital, bringing comfort and a listening ear to the patient and her family. Xie was pleasantly surprised that the patient was willing to open up to them about her life. Through this experience she realized the difference between “loving people” and “loving people fervently,” Xie says.
The Singapore Kindness Movement is based on the belief that a gracious Singapore can be created by one kind act at a time. If it becomes a lifestyle for Singaporeans to show kindness to one another, this will be a stronger and more loving country.
For more information, visit http://kindness.sg.
