| Website | http://www.worldkindness.org.sg/ |
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The World Kindness Movementis a coalition of various kindness movements around the world. The movement was initially conceptualized in 1997 with the aim of bringing like minded kindness movements across the globe together, The current members of the movement are 20 kindness organisations with representatives from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Oman, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, United arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the USA.
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The idea of a World Kindness Movement (WKM) was conceived at a Tokyo conference in 1996 when founders of the Small Kindness Movement in Japan brought together like-minded individuals from around the world who had started kindness movements in their own countries. They were led by Dr. Wataru Mori, a physician in Tokyo,who envisioned that a more compassionate and peaceful world could be achieved if a critical mass of acts of kindness was ignited.[1]
A second conference was held in 1997 in which the World Kindness Movement was formed. The founding members of the movement were Japan ,Singapore, Australia, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.[2]
During the 1999 World Kindness Movement conference in Tokyo, the cosmos bipinnatus was adopted as the official flower for the organization.[3]
The movement was then officially launched in Singapore in November 2000 at the Third WKM Conference, hosted by the Singapore Kindness Movement. The conference saw 33 delegates from 22 countries discussing in attendance [4]
In 2003, the Singapore Kindness Movement assumed the role of secretariat of the movement.[5]
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is the United States delegate of the movement.[6] In the UK the WKM is represented by the UK Kindness Movement [7]
The mission of the World Kindness Movement is to inspire individuals towards greater kindness and connect nations to create a kinder world.[8]
The date decreed for World Kindness Day is 13 November. This was the opening day of the first World Kindness Movement conference held at Tokyo in 1998, and the 35th anniversary of the Small Kindness Movement of Japan, which brought the signatories of the ‘declaration of kindness’ of the World Kindness Movement together in 1997.[9]