New foundation to promote kindness and compassion |10 October 2020
A new foundation called ‘Kindness and Compassion’ was officially launched on Thursday at the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) head quarters, ex-Sacos Tower, Victoria.
The vision is to inspire people to demonstrate and live in a kind and compassionate community while its vision is to enrich lives through simple acts of kindness and compassion.
In addition it will also spread awareness in the community on the benefits of engaging in kindness and compassionate actions.
Among its objective, the foundation is to empower others to do kind acts, thereby creating a chain of reaction of kindness and compassion, to revive hope, provide support and encouragement and to educate the minds and hearts of individuals.
It was the founder and chairperson of the foundation, Berly Dodin, who launched the foundation in the presence of the chief executive of SNYC, Penny Belmont, the chief executive of Citizens Engagement Platform Seychelles (Ceps), Michel Pierre, staff of SNYC, students and other invitees.
Apart from Mrs Dodin as the chairperson, other members of the foundation are Colette Servina (vice-chairperson), Dr Vanessa Lesperance (secretary), Gerard Lim-Sam (treasurer), Sister Alice Vivien, Naddy Zialor and Father Colin Underwood (members).
The idea of the foundation is the initiative of Mrs Dodin, an advocate for living values. She said that she was inspired to be an advocate for living values in her early years as a teacher in 1985 where she started the actions of compassion after encountering students with social issues in her class.
She said that down her career path as a counsellor, she had come across many people suffering in many different ways, which has prompted her to set up the foundation with her partners to help out.
“I want it to be a wake-up call that we put into practice ‘kindness and compassion’ so that even though there will still be suffering, victims will know that there are people out there to lend their support to and care for them,” she said.
She noted that some of the basic acts of kindness and compassion among children and adults are nowadays slipping out of hand even though the country is trying to bring back some of the living values practiced in the old days.
Dr Lesperance on her part called on people in the community to instead of criticising or judging people who are expected to show acts of kindness and compassion to their clients but fail to do so, to shower them with these acts as they might be tired or stressed out.
“We want others to understand the situation the other person might be in which might prevent he or she to display kindness or compassion to clients,” she said, noting that people showing signs of kindness and compassion should shower these acts on those who do not show any of those signs.
The two CEOs present hailed the setting up of the foundation and urged many people to join it to spread kindness and compassion in the country.
To kick-start the activities of the foundation, Marie-Michelle Woodcock presented a small monetary contribution to the vice-chairperson of the foundation, Mrs Servina, on behalf of an Italian family (Pede family) who visits Seychelles regularly.
The ceremony also included a reflection by Pastor Robert Moumou and songs of kindness and compassion by Jean Ally, Cecile Lablache and Claudia Vidot. Hailey Laporte from English River secondary school read out her poem entitled ‘Konpasyon’.
According to the dictionary, kindness is defined as a quality of being friendly, generous and considerate while compassion is defined as a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
Patrick Joubert
