We Believe Every Child Deserves Kindness
Feeling connected to their community gives children a deep sense of belonging, it allows them to view themselves as an important part of a larger network of people.
Afrikindness
Inspire, Educate. Empower, Advocate
Afrikindness is a non-profit children’s charity organization working actively to provide an enabling environment for children and young adults to learn acts of kindness and inspire them to be kind through creative activities that make an impact in their communities.
We believe that the spread of kindness will, in our opinion, effectively battle the core causes of identity crises, bullying, mental health crises, and abuse in schools, in our society, and around the world.
According to Ripple Kindness Project, Bullying (and cyberbullying) may be on the rise due to a lack of empathy, learned behaviour, or emotional inadequacies in a child. This implies that a child’s surroundings can impact their behaviour.
As such, our goal is to raise kindness ambassadors by helping children connect to their communities and inspire them to be kind, and be a kindness advocate through our children-led projects and volunteering opportunities.
Afrikindness
Our Approach
Young people are growing up in a world that is turbulent, less tolerant, and Less Compassionate. Children also get stressed over physical and emotional changes, their purpose in life as they encounter challenges and start to make decisions, and their identity as it is questioned and challenged. So, how do we approach these conundrums?
How do we support children and young people to be resilient, kind, emotionally balanced, and thrive in society?
Our approach is KINDNESS.
The importance of Kindness cannot be over-emphasized in children. It builds empathy, social and emotional skills and makes children more resilient. It is an essential core value that creates a positive and supportive environment for all.
Our three-stage approach is designed to bring about real change in children and young people. We believe that meaningful changes will only happen if a collaborative environment is set between parents, teachers (who make impactful decisions during the formative years of children), and the children, empowering the latter to acquire the abilities needed to deal with life obstacles.
How we do It
Inquire
To support children and young people, it is important to understand the problem. We create a steering group of parents who are committed to addressing the issues. We conduct research to support our work, reaching to communities and drilling down to the core parenting issues. Our approach includes webinars with expert interviews, sharing multi-racial information, collaborative events to connect families and conversations that speaks to the core of the lingering issues children face.
How we do It
Create Impact
Through our inquiry and engagement, we highlight the systemic issues and develop strategies that will bring the best impact in children ensuring that every child is loved and inspired to realize their unique potential. We work with children empowering them to be part of the solution through children-led projects and academy sessions. Our impact strategy focuses on children. We partner with schools, parents, organisations to increase our reach and scale our impact.
How we do It
Review and Monitor
‘’What we are, teaches our children far more than what we say’’. Our aim is to instill the values of kindness, empathy, mindfulness and compassion in children from an early age, but these values need to be modelled on a daily basis. Consistent & Intentional Kindness is key to our success. We review and measure what our work in the society and use these insights to drive continuous improvement. We present our findings to government and policy makers and seek for a collective societal change for the benefit of our children and young people.
Afrikindness
Our Impact Strategy
Our key strategic aims are ambitious in intent.
Founded in 2021, following series of dialogue with parents whose children have suffered identity crisis, young adults transitioning to the UK, a survey of teachers in the UK and Africa seeking support on building emotional intelligence of children and knowledge on racial diversity – Afrikindness, a children-based initiative, was formed to find effective solutions to social, cultural, and emotional issues that children and young people face.
Our aim is to support the social and emotional development of children, support teachers and parents by building their racial knowledge. We leverage on our existing structure and kindness framework in the UK to support and strengthen the educational system in Africa while connecting Africa to the UK. In so doing, we bring kindness to Africa.
Inspire
children by creating awareness of everyday acts of kindness to each other, their environment and to Africa. We also organize competitions to encourage children & young adults to get involved.
Educate
children and young adults on strong interpersonal, social and emotional intelligence skills; build their racial knowledge and promote positive racial identity in schools as well as incorporate the practice of intentional kindness in school curricula.
Empower
children and young adults by partnering with parents and schools. Afrikindness presents THE EMPOWER PROJECT (Empower. Motivate . Promote. Organize. Win-over. Educate. Relate)
Advocate
for kindness in schools, engage policy and decision makers in the society on our research work and facilitate educational reforms that supports contemporary ideals on inclusion, kindness and mental well-being.
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”
- Margaret Mead
Afrikindness
Our Core Values
Community
Our aim is to continually create that space that fosters meaningful connections between children, teachers, parents and our local communities through community initiatives, educational awareness and partnerships. We place a high value in getting involved in our community through volunteering and other creative acts of service that will promote kindness in children.
Mindfulness
Common humanity, mindfulness and by celebrating Cultural pride, we have inspired people and increased our reach. We embrace kindness and empathy in our daily lives, teaching children what it means to be mindful of themselves and others.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu – “I am because we are“. This is a South African ethos that speaks to our common humanity and that demonstrates that we are all connected to each other, and our interactions define us. Celebrating and respecting other cultures especially of the black race is central to our existence and links to the impact of racial diversity in children.
Cultural Pride
Maintaining our cultural community-based practise, we have initiated, empowered and nurtured parent and community initiatives, enabling children to learn and be mindful, identify and celebrate other cultural heritage, take pride in their identity; thereby tackling social and emotional breakdown, racial and social injustice and identity crisis in children.
Creativity
We are flexible and open to new ideas and innovative ways that will meet the needs of stakeholders, children and partners.