Words: Alison Fyfe-Turck
Global Icon Hello Kitty recently launched a worldwide initiative, the Hello Kitty #OneKindThing Campaign. This initiative is aimed at making young people aware of just how powerful kindness can be in the world. The old adage that kindness doesn’t cost you anything is true and Hello Kitty is leading the way on this journey of benevolence, which is all about encouraging kids to carry out random acts of kindness.
The campaign launched in July and has consisted of Hello Kitty calling upon fans – old and new – to take part in an act of kindness, with the key message of the campaign being to encourage South Africa’s youth to “Do one kind thing for someone. Pay it Forward and join the movement”. Since launch, the social media uptake has been phenomenal, with over 10 000 followers on FaceBook all taking heed and interacting with Hello Kitty on the platform. Hello Kitty has been leading the way in terms of kindness acts, with the various random acts of kindness that she has been carrying out including donations of cake supplies to Kindness baker – ‘Girl with Cake’, dropping in on a Code Teen Workshop hosted by Claire Mawisa with inspirational words of kindness for the girls, impromptu coffees at key intersections for traffic suffering Gautengers including messages of kindness and finally late night soup and rolls for emergency services personnel to acknowledge their incredible work. The Hello Kitty #OneKindThing Campaign is aimed at making people remember that kindness costs nothing, but that it’s value can be imeasurable.
The Campaign is now aiming to get South African schools to join Hello Kitty on this mission of kindness and is handpicking schools to be a part of this wonderful initiative. Schools do so much to educate and grow the children of South Africa and leaving school as a rounded and whole person is no doubt the goal of every school - for every child. Kindness is one of the things that contributes to this growth and Hello Kitty is on a mission to get as many kids as possible on board to try to get positivity sparkling across South Africa!
The Hello Kitty #OneKindThing Schools Campaign aims to create a Kindness Forest in South Africa’s Biggest Man-Made Forest – Johannesburg, by decorating trees in the school playgrounds with leaves of kindness. Hello Kitty will deliver leaves of kindness to the schools, these plain leaves will be decorated by the students and on the back, they will write their name and their act of kindness. The idea is then to choose a tree on the school’s property that becomes the Kindness Tree. The leaves of kindness that the students decorate and populate with their information will be tagged to the Kindness Tree and will be a symbol of how many acts of kindness have been carried out by each school. Hello Kitty’s aim is to create a Forest of Kindness in and around Johannesburg to showcase just how kind the youth in Gauteng really are. This will be replicated in key malls around Gauteng in the month of August starting with Greenstone Mall which will also have a Kindness Tree in their promotional court where kids can clip on their act of kindness and be part of Hello Kitty’s Kindness Journey. Like the Hello Kitty Loves SA Facebook page for updates and information on this initiative.
The campaign is all about trying to encourage kids to do kind acts as a part of their daily life and to understand that kindness is not charity, you don’t have to spend money or give anything, you simply have to do something for someone else that makes a positive difference in their life – it can be as simply as helping your Mom bring in the groceries from the car or helping an old lady to cross the street!
Hello Kitty Loves SA is on a mission to bring kindness to South Africa, inspiring people to do #OneKindThing for family, friends and even strangers. To be a part of Hello Kitty’s Journey of Kindness or for more information, visit:
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/HelloKittyLovesSouthAfrica
Instagram: https://instagram.com/hellokittysouthafrica/
Hashtag: #OneKindThing
