Sitting in my office as news pours in about the London Riots, I can’t help but be reminded of a quotation of support that we received from Sir Nicholas Young, CEO of the British Red Cross and this resonates what is happening.

            “It is kindness that helps people cope with a crisis”

The British Red Cross deals with global crises on a daily basis, in the most wonderful and humanitarian way and on a huge scale.

For many of us working or residing in London at this particular time, these truly shocking and frightening events on our doorstep can easily be described as a ‘crisis’.

Sir Nicolas Young’s quotation demonstrates great wisdom as it is the acts of kindness that have taken on the role of offering comfort, support and reassurance.

Facebook and Twitter are awash with kind messages “for anyone caught up in riot areas we have sofa beds and floor space” or “thinking of all my friends in London”. Communities have pulled together, ‘Riot Wombles’ taking to the streets, sweeping and scrubbing away the scenes of destruction.

Many people’s initial associations with the word ‘kindness’ would be ‘interpersonal’, ‘society’ and ‘community’. However, kindness to the planet, environment and animal kingdom totally underpins the whole equation. To put it simply, without the planet and the environment, there would be no people, society or community anyway.

Our dear planet is sending us distress signals. Our planet is in crisis. A simple start would be to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our current level is 392 parts per million and would need to be reduced to 350 in order to help achieve climate safety. This would also clearly be described as an act of kindness in a crisis.

I am a firm believer that kindness can change the world - it can improve our relations with ourselves, each other, the animal kingdom and our planet – it can help us cope with and address the reality that we live in every day. It is with this in mind that I co-founded Kindness Day UK, every 13th November. Our joint goal should be to perform as many acts of kindness, however small or big, to the environment and as often as we can and hope that we can encourage other people to do the same.

Kindness Day UK is a non monetary, humanitarian, independent organisation with the aim of promoting kindness, to people, animals and the planet. For more information, please go to www.kindnessdayuk.com

David Jamilly will be posting regularly on Little Green Mag.