During the pandemic, many of us realised more than ever the priceless value of friends, family, connection, generosity, empathy compassion and gratitude. When one is unwell one knows that he/she can do better with support but how about when we are not in a crisis mode — do we still believe we need each other in our daily lives?

Now that the crisis has fortunately abated, how do we use this realisation to make sustainable changes in our lives that we know holds the power to transform us, our own world and the world at large?

This is difficult to grasp as a teenager as you seek your independence but pause and search for answers within and ask: In a world where everything has a price, what happens to the priceless? How do we bring them back into circulation?

• What we do for love will always be far more powerful than what we do for something purely monetary. Think of a time you did or received a kind act unconditionally.
• What we can do together is often far greater than what we can do alone. Think of a time when you worked as a collaborative team for a common goal.
• We live in a time where we have mastered the art of “liking” each other online but have forgotten the art of loving each other in real life. How does it feel having a face-to-face conversation with some of your true friends?

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We’re all excited to bring in the Year of Kindness, a unique initiative launched by the Rotary and Rotaract Clubs of Mumbai Bravehearts, The Teenager Today, Kindness Unlimited and the World Kindness Movement, this month!

A vital aspect of this movement is the mobile and web app that will drive this initiative to identify, track and acknowledge acts of kindness across the world.

The Kinder Logo

Designed by Think Creative, Mumbai, the KINDER logo plays on the top bar of the E. It is transformed into a hand moving upwards. Three similar hands lead the way, signifying ‘helping hands’ and symbolizing acts of kindness. They are shaped like birds giving the impression of birds taking flight. This is to depict the ‘Pay It Forward’ principle — many kind acts being paid forward gives the movement wings to encompass the world. The orange colour signifies fire, the energy that comes from a movement of this kind, where every person and every hand strengthens the cause of creating a kinder world.

The KINDER App

What does the KINDER App do?
The KINDER app, developed by Inventeam Solutions Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, enables you to record instances of kindness, enter details of the beneficiary of the kindness and track your web of kindness as it spreads, one act at a kind.

What are the features of the KINDER App?
The Android and iOS versions of the app will be available for download from 27 March when we launch the movement.

The salient features of the app are as follows:

1. An easy-to-use interface that makes it very simple for anyone to navigate through.

2. You will need to register yourself on the app with your mobile number and other basic details.

3. Begin your Kindness journey by recording a kind act that you have done or a kind act that has been done to you.

4. Acts of Kindness have been broadly classified as done to: Oneself, another person, another living being (plants, animals, birds, etc.) and the environment.

5. Specify the type of act, the time involved in the act as well as the monetary value as applicable. Describing the act in detail will give us a repository of inspiring stories which we hope to feature in The Teenager Today, month after month!

6. If you are recording a kind act, provide the name of the beneficiary of the act or the initiator, depending on whether you are a giver or receiver, and a mobile number for the same. If no mobile number is provided, the Act of Kindness will still be recorded against the name of the initiator; unfortunately, it won’t be able to track it any further.

7. The app will generate a message for the persons who received the kind acts, asking them to spread the movement by doing a kind act to somebody else, downloading the app and begin recording their own journey of kindness.

8. Participate in the campaign as an individual and/or as part of your school, college, company or any other organization, if your organization decides to participate as a unit.

9. The app will display your history of kind acts, initiated by you and received by you, which you can access at any time.

10. At the back end, the app will track the length of the kindness chain for each individual and organization, entities with the kindest acts, entities inviting maximum people and organizations to the cause, the geographical spread of the movement and many such parameters.

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A movement by The Teenager Today, Rotary and Rotaract Clubs of Mumbai Bravehearts, Kindness Unlimited and the World Kindness Movement

The world has seen nearly two years of uncertainty, hardships, untold misery and grievous loss as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, even through this trying period, what has shone through and endured have been the stories of indomitable courage, compassion and humanity — not only from the medical fraternity and the frontline workers to whom we owe so much, but from the common man on the street, our friends, our relatives, our neighbours and even complete strangers.

The Year of Kindness is an attempt to highlight these acts of kindness which we keep performing on a regular basis in our lives, and even more so in troubled times, and create a movement wherein every such act gets felicitated and encouraged in such a way that ‘being kind’ and ‘doing good’ becomes a habit and a way of life for every human being on the planet.

A Year of Kindness will roll out from 1 March 2022, exactly two years after the first official declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns, and run through 28 February 2023, in its first phase.

The initiators and drivers of this project are the Rotary and Rotaractor Clubs of Mumbai Bravehearts, Kindness Unlimited, the World Kindness Movement and The Teenager Today. Through its tenure, more organizations and individuals, across India and the world, will be encouraged to join the movement.

How will this work?

All founder organizations, including the readers of The Teenager Today, will reach out to individuals and organizations in their network to participate.

The basic idea is for everybody to do at least one kind act a day — this could be an act of kindness to oneself, to others (friends, family, strangers), to animals and birds or even to the environment.

The project will be supported by an app and a web-based programme, developed by our technology partner, Inventeam, which will be used to facilitate and track every act of kindness.

Every participant will need to record her/his act of kindness on the app giving details of the person the act has been done to and the story behind it.

The spread of the idea will be based on the ‘Pay It Forward’ principle — instead of the recipient of the kind act saying “thank you” and moving on or doing something good in return to the initiator of the kind act, s/he will carry on the chain by doing an act of kindness to another person.

The app will gently trigger the recipient of the kind act to ‘pay it forward’ and thus continue the chain.

The app will not only record these acts of kindness but also track the spread of the same in terms of geography as well as timelines.

The Teenager Today will feature each month the initiatives which will cover the latest statistics, inspiring stories of kindness coming in through the app as well as updating readers on all the partner organizations that have come in through the month. This will also be done in greater depth on the website and social media channels of the magazine as also the other founding organizations.

The initiative is open to individuals as well as organizations to participate in.

No act of kindness will be deemed too small or insignificant. All participants are free to record as many acts of kindness as possible at whatever frequency. Organizations and companies are free to participate as a unit as well.

A number of recognitions are being planned for star individual performers, kindest organization, longest and broadest chains, individuals inviting the highest number of participants to join in and many other.

The campaign will kick off in March with the launch of the app. Please follow updates on the website and social media channels of The Teenager Today. Immediately after the app goes live, each one of you can register on the same and start recording your acts of kindness and share this with your contact sphere across the world. With all our efforts, this campaign can go viral globally in no time!

We are setting out on a historic mission here — a mission to create a kinder world that will be beneficial to every living and non-living being on this planet! Be an Ambassador of Kindness this year!

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Nirmala Peters-Mehendale, a human resources professional by vocation, is also the founder of Kindness Unlimited and the Global President of the World Kindness Movement. In this free-wheeling interview with TTT’s NARESH KARMALKER, she tells us why she believes that widespread kindness will be the one habit that will transform this country and, through it, the world.

NK: What is it about kindness that attracts you?
NPM: I believe kindness is connected to success. Success is possible only when you get something done through others. It is a myth that one can achieve success by oneself.

Growing up, in my extended family, everybody needed to be ready to dialogue and work towards a common goal at all times. For example, if you were not coming to dinner, you needed to call and inform that you were not going to be there. Why was this an act of kindness? Because that would free others from worrying, especially the seniors. This notion, of treating others like you would like them to treat you, was a belief ingrained in us from childhood.

I got married into a community with seemingly nothing in common. Again, I found myself in a joint family where, along with my husband and in-laws, I also had my brother-in-law living with us. My brother-in-law was differently-abled and looking after him became the one common point that brought everybody together. Loving him unconditionally was the differential factor for all of us, another example of how we learnt to collaborate for the common good, joyfully.

Professionally, I come from a corporate background and work in the field of human resources. There again, I was fascinated to explore how collaboration and interdependence can be fostered amongst employees. Kindness was the underlying motive.

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