The Practice of Kindness

There is a growing recognition that kindness has an important role to play in our approach to a wide range of challenges. Whether we are talking about people in communities, or service providers and citizens, we know that relationships have a powerful impact on our wellbeing.

However, we have found that while the idea of kindness is becoming more widely discussed, there is still much to do to understand what kindness looks like in practice.

In March 2018, the Carnegie UK Trust brought together a Kindness Innovation Network, made up of over hundred people and professionals from across Scotland, who were interested in encouraging kindness in their own communities and organisations. At the same time we began to work in partnership with North Ayrshire Council, to embed kindness as a value throughout the local authority area.

This short film explores the learning and experiences of some of the participants in these two projects. It showcases some of the interventions and approaches that enable kindness; it highlights the complexity of ‘radical kindness’, which challenges established systems and structures; and it emphasises the importance of creating space for challenging conversations about the type of communities, organisations and society that we are striving towards.

This film was produced alongside our report, The Practice of Kindness: Learning from KIN and North Ayrshire.