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 youths 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 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 immeasurable.
The campaign is now aiming to get South African schools to join Hello Kitty on this mission of kindness and is hand-picking schools to be a part of the initiative. The Hello Kitty #OneKindThing schools campaign aims to create a 'Kindness Forest' in South Africa's biggest man-made forest - Joburg - 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. As mentioned, Hello Kitty's aim is to create a Kindness Forest in and around Joburg to showcase just how kind the youths of 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 its promotional court where kids can clip on their act of kindness.
To be a part of Hello Kitty's 'Journey of Kindness' or for more information, go to Facebook or Instagram. Hashtag: #OneKindThing
