Events
Friends of Vale Park: Kindness Talk
On 19 May 2024, placement students Ray and Freya delivered a Kindness Talk where they spoke about the meaning of kindness and its importance for a variety of different constructs of our everyday life with the use of some fun, interactive activities!
Community Event
Based on their event back in November, placement students Freya and Ray hosted a similar event at the Open Market on London Road whereby participants wrote kind anonymous messages to be passed along to a stranger!
Panel debate: Scaling-up Kindness - exploring the connections between small acts, charity, rights and systemic change
On 28 February 2024, 3-4:30pm, as part of the Anthropology Department Seminar series, we have a panel debate: "Scaling-up Kindness - exploring the connections between small acts, charity, rights and systemic change". Panellists will include: Dr Amy Clarke, Prof Ben Rogaly, Dr Liz McDonnell, Muthanna Sari, and Prof Meike Fechter. If you're on the University of Sussex campus, you're welcome to join us in person, in the Global Studies Resource Centre (Arts C157).
Stay tuned:
- Click here to join the event live.
- We are investigating the possibility of recording the event. If this is possible, we will post a link to the recording here.
The Kindness Exchange
To celebrate World Kindness Day (Monday 13 November, 2023) our 2023-24 placement students, Freya Smith and Ray Teso, hosted a week-long event consisting of two main activities: the first asked participants to answer question prompts related to five subtopics of kindness, the second encouraged them to write a kind letter to be passed along to a stranger!
The Kindness Corner
Placement student Kerry Moor planned and ran the "Kindness Corner" event on the University's campus in 2022. The Kindness Corner is an interactive space where people can share their thoughts about kindness, learn about kindness, and carry out kind acts in the moment. Daily origami classes were arranged with the intention of having people give away their piece to a stranger, as an act of kindness.
Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness - Public launch
We held a public launch event for the Centre on Thursday 23 March, 2023, hosted by BBC Radio 4 presenter Claudia Hammond.
0:00 - Opening remarks
7:49 - Claudia talks about her book, "The Keys to Kindness", which draws on the results of The Kindness Test: a global research collaboration between the University of Sussex and the BBC.
36:08 - Audience sharing stories about acts of kindness. View the responses from our online audience members
41:38 - Claudia hosts a panel discussion on kindness in schools, in the workplace, and in the community
1:22:05 - Questions from the audience
1:39:19 - Closing remarks
Ask the Experts: Discussion on Kindness - University of Sussex Alumni Network
On Monday 16 May, we held the fourth in our online Ask the Experts series. This episode explored the concept of kindness. The discussion was chaired by Sussex alumna, BBC broadcaster and visiting psychology professor, Claudia Hammond.
With our special guest panelists: -
- Professor Robin Banerjee
- Professor of Developmental Psychology, and Head of School of Psychology
- Dr Tom Farsides, Lecturer in Social Psychology
- Dr Anne-Meike Fechter, Reader in Anthropology
- Dr Gillian Sandstrom, Senior Lecturer in the Psychology of Kindness, and Director of the Kindness Research Centre