Catherine Barrett

The Kindness Pandemic

To promote Acts of Kindness for health practitioners putting their own health on the line to care for others during the Coronavirus Pandemic

As the Coronavirus spreads around the world, many people's lives are being turned upside down. Some frightened people are panicking, some are aggressive - and many people are calling for kindness. This is a time for us to unite - its time to spread kindness. Kindness won't make the virus go away, but it will make our lives easier and more meaningful.

In March, the Celebrate Ageing Program established a global campaign called The Kindness Pandemic. The campaign focuses on spreading kindness across the world, particularly for people who are marginalised and those working in support services. A Facebook Group was established for people to share their acts of kindness and within days the group had over 40,000 members. Feedback on the page was that the Group has restored some people's faith in humanity and given others great ideas for spreading kindness. 

The Kindness Pandemic currently has a targetted campaign on Random Acts of Kindness in Supermarkets. This campaign responds to the reports of violence and aggression directed at supermarket staff who are doing their very best to help make sure that we have the supplies we need. The supermarket campain included suggestions to email or call supermarkets to thank them; and if people were going to their supermarket they were invited to deliver notes thanking staff and reminding shoppers to be kind. These notes were placed around the supermarkets and staff appreciated them enormosly. Some people described buying chocolates for staff, asking staff how they were doing and thanking staff for their service, The response from supermarket staff has been heartwarming. Many who were overworked cried at the kindness shown to them and reported they were so relieved to have shoppers who were kind. The Kindness Pandemic has now documented thousands of such acts. 

Our next campaign is Acts of Kindness for Health Practitioners. These wonderful nurses, doctors, allied health and other staff are risking their own health to be at work providing services to people who have Coronavirus. Without them we would be lost. And yet they are also experiencing abuse and violence from people who are stressed and panicked. We have asked Health Practitioners if they would like us to host a Campaign of Kindness for them - hundreds have told us a resounding yes.

In response, the aim of this Pozible Campaign is to generate funds to help us develop and disseminate messages of kindness to health practitioners around the world. We will utilise the funds to engage the services of people who have lost their work because of the CoronaVirus, this will include graphic designers and also a coordinator to help make sure the Campaign spreads as far as possible.

About the Campaign Coordinator

Dr Catherine Barrett established the Kindness Pandemic. She is the Founder and Director of Celebrate Ageing, a social enterprise challenging ageism and building respect for older people. In 2018 Catherine was a finalist for the Australian Human Rights Medal for her work with older people. Catherine began her professional career as a nurse. She believes that compassion and kindness can help to create a world that we all want to live in - and that we all have a role to play in creating such cultural change. 

Our target is $5,000 to engage the services of graphic designers and other staff, who are curently struggling economically because of reduced work related to Coronavirus. 

The services will include:

• $1,500 graphic design of social media campaign and printable posters and signs
• $3,500 coordinator to liaise with health practitioner groups and push the campaign out for a week.

If we exceed our target we will use the funds to support vulnerable people impacted by Coronavirus.