UNESCO MGIEP joins Lady Gaga's foundation for '21 Days to be Kind' challenge

UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) has collaborated with pop star Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation for its second annual '21 Days to be Kind' challenge.

Inspired by the idea that habits are formed by repeating an activity for 21 consecutive days, the challenge encourages youth to practice kindness from September 1 to September 21.

"In a world full of rising intolerance, apathy, indifference, social exclusion, fear, gender-based violence, climate change and extremism, we believe that apart from catering to students' academic needs, it is equally important to hone their social and emotional capabilities to nurture rational, empathetic and compassionate citizens. Encouraging them to be kind is one of the most effective ways of achieving this," said Anantha Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP.

UNESCO MGIEP had launched the #KindnessMatters campaign on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary on October 2 last year.

"We were overwhelmed by last year's response to our BeKind21 Challenge. This year, we hope to build on the excitement we saw from thousands of people and dozens of partner organisations, said Cynthia Germanotta, co-founder, and president of Born This Way Foundation.

Kindness is a simple yet powerful practice. That's why we're inviting everyone to join us in establishing kinder habits and building a culture of kindness by putting kindness into action each day from September 1st to September 21st - being kind to your body, mind, and community," Germanotta added.

The campaign aims to mobilise the world's youth to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals through transformative acts of kindness.

It will be a foundational step towards the ultimate request, to be backed by 250,000 transformative stories of kindness by global youth, for the Member States of the United Nations to declare a 'Decade of Kindness for the Sustainable Development Goals 2020 to 2030', the release further said.