Port Elizabeth, South Africa: South Africans have seen a
resurgence of random acts of kindness more than thirty years after Anne Herbert
wrote “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty” on a
place mat at a Sausalito restaurant in the United States of America.
Prof Jean Greyling, Computing
Science Department Head at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU),
shared a video made by students from his department of their NMMU-Random Acts
of Kindness Campaign. The students took up the challenge to “work on their soft
skills” and set about spreading a little happiness on the university’s campus
and in the community without asking for anything in return.
The first-year Computing Science students, Lutho Msutu, Bongo Mgubo, Michael
Selby, Ruan Oliver, Christopher Marinus, and Cruden Daniels, started a Random Acts of Kindness page on Facebook as a
platform for everyone to post and share their random acts of kindness. In the heart-warming
and uplifting video, they can be
seen dishing out cupcakes, leaving inspirational notes for unsuspecting
students and handing out lunches to homeless people. Since
then their video has been trending on social media and led to interviews on
radio and national television.
South Africa has been experiencing a lot of turmoil with what’s happening
around the issues of Xenophobia and the defacement of statues. According to the
students the aim was to inspire others to practice kindness and pass it on. They have contacted other
universities and schools challenging them to spread the joy by posting videos of
themselves performing random acts of kindness.
The late Princess Diana knew how to change the world with one
hug, one touch, and one smile at a time. She was quoted as saying, “carry
out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the
knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” Professor Greyling
said that since the release of the video, many people came back and said ‘but
this is the real South Africa’. “We want the world to see this is how we really
are,” he said.
One can only hope that many more
will take time out of their normal routine and attempt a new random act of
kindness to make this world a better place.
– Selwyn Milborrow, CNN iReporter
Click here to watch the video clip.
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