Students Challenge Toronto Mayoral Candidates to Show Their Kindness
TORONTO, April 7, 2014 /CNW/ - Kindness Week, from May 5-9, 2014, is a weeklong series of events and projects designed to empower children and youth through acts of kindness. In its inaugural year, the project has already become a great success, showing the appetite that students have to demonstrate how kind they are. Toronto City Hall will proclaim the week of May 5th, 2014 as Kindness Week and the Toronto District School Board is a partner in the project.
As part of the many planned events, a group of students will challenge each Toronto Mayoral candidate to perform an act of kindness and post it to the Kindness Week Facebook page.
The Doing Kind Project, a volunteer team and emerging non-profit, focused on helping students perform and celebrate kindness, has conceived of and developed this program.
During the week, thousands of students across the city will showcase their core character strength of kindness with deliberate and random acts of kindness. A detailed playbook at kindnessweek.ca is available to support students in choosing their acts. Kindness Clubs are being created to ensure that students have the necessary support to celebrate kindness one week at a time.
A focus on kindness has been shown scientifically to not only reduce stress, but also support stronger social connections and increase physical and emotional well-being. Overall students are kind and caring and recognition and celebration of that character strength can help ensure greater success in life. Kindness Week will also be used to perform a scientific survey in the hopes of showing a measurable impact on a student's well-being through acts of kindness.
While the acts of students will take place across the city, the Doing Kind Project team is also taking students out to some high-profile events.
On Monday morning, May 5th, from 8-9am, Kindness Week will kick-off with a launch at Union Station. Students will greet commuters to give them a drink and treat to help them on their way to work. Those commuters will also be challenged by the students to commit an act of kindness.
On Tuesday at 9:30am, May 6th, Toronto City Hall will proclaim the week as Kindness Week and honour some of the people who have been instrumental in making this week a success. At that time a group of students will challenge all Toronto mayoral candidates to do an act of kindness within 24 hours and post to the Kindness Week facebook page.
On Wednesday, May 7th, the Doing Kind Project team will be present at the TDSB/York University Social Justice conference. A special award of excellence will be presented to Donna Quan, the TDSB Director of Education.
On Thursday, May 8th from 4:30pm-6pm, students will be at Terminal 1 Arrivals of Toronto Pearson Airport greeting visitors in a very unique way that will show everyone the kindness of Toronto students.
On Friday, May 9th, winners of the creative arts contest will be announced showcasing the creativity of students who will express their ideas of kindness in multimedia formats.
Kindness Week is the first program of the Doing Kind Project team, a new organization focused on increasing the health of students through a focus on positive character strengths. Future projects will include specific character strength curriculum, workshops and other events to promote stronger social connections and well-being.
SOURCE: Doing Kind Project
Modya Silver
Executive Director, the Doing Kind Project
(416)994-3278
[email protected]
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