Words by Smiley Team
Held In Our Hearts - a specialist bereavement charity helping parents who have lost a child - have launched a new awareness campaign focussing on acts of kindness for the month of August.
They are calling on their local Edinburgh community to share their own kindness locally, encouraging people to join in by doing acts of kindness for a friend, family member, neighbour or colleague in August.
Since lockdown, the charity has been encouraged to see that more families have been coming forward for support (including those that are long ago bereaved) and are being more open to sharing about their loss and the trauma that they have experienced.
Through their specialist bereavement support, Held In Our Hearts know how essential it is for families to be open and talk to one another and be met with kindness. Now more than ever, we feel that it is so important for everyone to be mindful of their mental health and they hope that the “K for Kindness” campaign will help share a wave of positivity in the community and encourage more kindness and more openness with each other.
Nicola Welsh, Chief Executive Officer says: “We witness the power of kindness and compassion every day in our work. When a baby dies, it is the kindness and compassion from our bereaved staff that holds families and helps when they feel alone in their grief.”
As we begin to step out of lockdown, we might feel a little fragile and vulnerable and although we cannot hug freely yet, we can give of ourselves and do acts of kindness to make others smile. Giving to others is good for the soul and you just never know how much someone else might need that kindness that day, especially at the moment.”
The charity hopes that “K for Kindness” will help us raise awareness of our work and spread some much needed positivity through the community.”
The charity have organised and delivered a series of popular and fun virtual challenges through April, May, June and July, helping to keep their community connected and raise essential funds for their work.
In July, the #PassTheK challenge was set for their running and cycling community, which has supporters take up the baton and ‘PassTheK’ to reach our neighbours down under in Brisbane, Australia, 16,313km away. In total they managed just over 20,000k!
In order to take part, you simply need to do an Act of Kindness, share with a picture on social media and tag a friend to do the same with #KforKindness.
