Northampton asked to share acts of kindness

People across the town and county are being asked to share their stories and suggestions for being kind during lockdown as part of a national awareness campaign.

This week is the Mental Health Foundation’s Mental Health Awareness Week and the theme chosen for this year is a key ingredient to experiencing good mental health – kindness.

The week is geared toward celebrating and talking about how kindness has helped us through the coronavirus pandemic.

From doing the shopping for isolated or vulnerable neighbours to indefatigable war veteran Captain Tom Moore’s incredible 100 laps of his garden which raised more than £26m for NHS charities, the nation has gone out of its way to keep the kindness flowing.

UON staff and students have done their bit to ‘keep kind’, from Nursing students opting in to provide extra people hours to support the health service, Criminology student Ben Eva donating £450 of food vouchers to support students in need and science lecturer David Young volunteering to support Covid-19 testing at a local hospital.

The good work continues this week and members of the public are encouraged to chip in with their stories and reflections.

The University’s Mental Health First Aid team will be sharing daily kindness phrases on their Twitter page to keep everyone’s spirits up and people are encouraged to share theirs, or a favourite poem or song lyric that expresses kindness.

The Students’ Union are running an event a day to help encourage discussions about mental health as well as hosting an online mental health drop-in event for students to support them during lockdown.

Follow the conversations online: #KindnessMatters #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and #UONMHFA.

For more about Mental Health Awareness Week, see the MH Foundation’s website.