Amplifon Group’s corporate foundation, the Amplifon Foundation, unveiled its Kindness Manifesto, which is aimed at promoting the social inclusion of the most vulnerable people in society and encouraging a collective reflection on kindness.
The aim of the project is to highlight the importance of promoting kindness as a customary habit to be cultivated and practiced in everyday life, according to the hearing care retailer.
“On our fourth anniversary we wanted to launch a message on the importance of kindness in our society, raising awareness of a phenomenon that we encounter every day through the activities of the Foundation aimed at helping vulnerable people and, in particular, the elderly,” says Susan Carol Holland, president of the Amplifon Foundation. “It is precisely the elderly who often teach us the importance of living in harmony with others and of simple gestures often forgotten such as smiling, saying hello and thank you.”
The Kindness Manifesto is not just a conceptual symbol, but an actual physical manifesto enriched with illustrations and text purposefully designed to summarise the concept of kindness, Amplifon says.
Kindness Manifesto
“To be kind takes courage.
Kindness may sometimes appear as a weakness, but it is instead a strength.
Kindness has always been a part of us.
It exists in children from their earliest gestures; it exists in nature and in animals, both tame and wild.
Kindness is profound, silent, free, conciliatory and brings hope.
Kindness listens and asks for nothing in return.
Kindness is to be cultivated, performed, and dispensed in the present.
Kindness is nurturing relationships, making them grow, ensuring they take firm root.
Kindness is learning from plants, which support each other by intertwining their branches to grow stronger.
Kindness is a mighty virtue that is to be practiced with patient perseverance.
Kindness is necessary and urgent.
Kindness lies deep in the heart and holds the secret of invincibility.“
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“In fulfilling our mandate of social inclusion in times of great complexity, we have decided to supplement our more traditional initiatives with a programme of reflection on the theme of kindness, understood as a desired form of our actions and relationships, and, ultimately, as an instrument of peace that is necessary and possible for each of us,” says Maria Cristina Ferradini, managing director of Amplifon Foundation. “We asked leading figures in civil society for their input and what emerged was a collective, kaleidoscopic, and unexpected reflection that helps us to see kindness as a possible, concrete and infectious alternative. As confirmation of its commitment, the Foundation has included kindness as a founding principle of its Code of Ethics, incorporating it into the structure and essence of its corporate volunteering activities for the elderly and in the implementation of its social change activities.”
A key element of the initiative is Mario Calabresi’s podcast Sulla Gentilezza (On Kindness), written in collaboration with the writer Paolo Di Paolo and produced by Chora Media on behalf of the Amplifon Foundation.
“Kindness is a theme that has always been close to my heart and I believe that today, more than ever, it ought to be the focus of collective reflection,” says Mario Calabresi, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Chora Media. “Dostoevsky said that the world will be saved by beauty, but what we see around us today suggests that only kindness and its daily application can help us transcend such a complicated time in history”.
The Amplifon Foundation and Chora Media invite the public to actively participate in this initiative by disseminating the Kindness Manifesto and following the podcast to help promote a wave of kindness that can permeate every aspect of daily life.
Photo: Amplifon Foundation
