Proposal and Initiation of "The Kindness Club"

In coming up with the "Kindness Club", we aimed in fostering student-led change in our school community through a “Grade 5’s for Change” meeting. Our first initiative was to create a space for students to act as agents of change in their own community. In our first meeting, we asked students minds-on questions about what they wanted to see in their community. This developed into a discussion about what it meant to be a good neighbour, good student, and good family member.

We wanted to act only as mediators in this group and discover the extent in which the students could take charge of the group and make it their own. We proposed ideas to keep the ideas flowing, but we let the students help set up the club alongside us.

Our first act, we all decided, was to create a positive atmosphere in the school. How the students proposed to do this was through creating posters that acted as messages for the student body.

The students created colourful posters with messages such as "Being Yourself is the Key", "You are talented" and "Smile today". The students came up with their own messages that they wanted to say to the school. Afterward, we hung the posters around the school, and thus signified the first official act of the "Kindness Club".

Originally, we thought of the name "Grade 5's for Change" as the group consisted of only grade 5 students, and we hoped they would produce change. We chose grade 5's as we all taught the grade and we thought they could act as leaders for the younger grades through their positive change. However, upon out first meeting, we asked students what they wanted to call themselves, instead of applying a name to them. The students opted for "The Kindness Club" and came up with a sign-off for our group at the end of each session.