Random acts of kindness
You’ll need
- Pens or pencils
- A4 paper
Before you begin
- Get everyone to write down a paragraph about themselves, and the things they like. Encourage them to focus less on material things such as games consoles and clothes, and more on favourite activities or what makes them happy. Make sure they write their name on the top of the page.
- Each page should be folded up small, and placed in a box
- Everyone should pick one folded page each. The person whose page they pick is their new “secret friend”. If they pick themselves, this should be refolded and replaced in the box.
Secret friend
- The person leading the activity should decide the time-frame that this should be done over. It could be over a couple of weeks, a term, or perhaps while the group are on a camp.
- Over this time, everyone should try to do five things for their secret friend. As much as possible, these should be based on the things they have written down on their page.
- The person leading the activity should emphasise that it is “secret” and that nobody else should know who the secret friend is. People could try throwing others off their scent by doing nice things for other people who aren’t their secret friend.
- At the end of the set time, you can decide as a group whether to reveal who was everyone’s secret friend, or whether to keep it a secret. It’s great to have a conversation about how everyone felt being nice to others.
Reflection
This activity was about having more meaningful friendships and relationships. How easy was it to decide what acts of kindness you could do for your secret friend? How did it feel to do something nice for others? How might you continue to do small acts of kindness for others, and how might they feel about this? (You could suggest making a cup of tea for a friend of family member, doing a chore for their family, asking someone how their day is or even smiling to others.)
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
Change the amount of time or the number of acts of kindness each young person should do to make it easier or more difficult.
Make it accessible
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
