A note from the editors:
We think you’re great. November 13 is World Kindness Day, first launched by charities in 1998 as a prompt to do at least one deliberate kind act. At Goats and Soda, we wanted to look beyond headlines of cruelty and conflict to see how ordinary kindness shows up — and why tiny gestures often matter more than we expect. Stay with us; the examples below make the case.
A biscuit that felt like hope
In 2004, Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri was a 28‑year‑old neuro‑psychiatrist working long, chaotic shifts in a Lagos emergency room. One day she went more than 12 hours without eating while tending to accident victims. An elderly cleaner came up to her with a small nylon bag: a biscuit and a sachet of water. The woman told her she needed “small strength to save people.” Kadiri remembers that biscuit as tasting like hope — a reminder that care and human connection are part of healing, not only medicine.
A life set on a different path
Huguette Diakabana left school at age 10 because her family could not afford the fees while planning to emigrate from Zaire. She sat outside her classroom still in uniform until the principal invited her back in. Years later she discovered a school guard had quietly paid her fees and asked only that she try to help others someday. Diakabana credits that anonymous kindness with changing her life; she later helped create a scholarship program and now co‑founds a nonprofit focused on digital literacy.
Kindness multiplies
Kindness often spreads beyond the initial act. Dr. Junaid Nabi, a physician‑scientist at RAND and a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute, compares kindness to a stone dropped in water that creates widening ripples. Research supports that: people who receive help are more likely to help others, and one study described roughly a 25 percent increase in helping after being helped. A striking real‑world example happened in Winnipeg in 2012 when a morning line of drive‑through customers kept paying for the person behind them; the gesture moved through 226 cars. Social scientists call this “social contagion” — watching or receiving help increases the chance of passing it on.
What surveys show
The 2025 World Happiness Report, which surveyed people in 147 countries, found a clear pattern: doing something kind without expecting anything in return makes people feel better. When people experience care, they tend to reciprocate, creating positive loops that strengthen relationships and communities.
Nature or nurture?
Is kindness something we’re born with or something we learn? Psychologist Jeff R. Temple at UTHealth Houston says kindness is a core element of healthy adolescent relationships. School programs like the Fourth R teach skills such as perspective‑taking, expressing care even during conflict, and recognizing the impact of words and actions. These behavioral skills — practical ways to show concern and respect — reduce bullying and build healthier peer interactions.
Kinds of kindness
Kindness takes many shapes: individual gestures and collective efforts that reflect a sense of mutual responsibility. In Alausí, Ecuador, women worked together to clear roads after a landslide. In Kinama, Burundi, a neighbor helped rescue a chicken that slipped from someone’s hands — a small, neighborly act. After an earthquake, migrants in Bangkok exchanged a reassuring smile. In Puno, Peru, an older boy teaches his younger brother on the walk home from school. Volunteers in Quito dress as princesses to visit children in hospitals and lift their spirits. Even care for stray animals in a Bangkok neighborhood signals a shared sense of humanity. These scenes show how ordinary practices of kindness are woven into daily life across cultures.
How giving changes the giver
Kindness doesn’t only benefit recipients — it reshapes those who give. Nabi recalls volunteering after the 2013 Savar building collapse in Bangladesh, when garment factories pancaked and thousands were trapped. As a Red Cross volunteer he performed CPR on people he knew were unlikely to survive and stayed with dying workers when he could not save them. Seeing workers embrace each other as the concrete gave way broke through his clinical detachment. Returning home, he found he listened differently and encouraged fellow medical professionals to volunteer as a way to practice compassion. For him, kindness meant being present with someone’s suffering and allowing that experience to change you.
The ripple in practice
Small acts often inspire more. Kadiri notes that when people receive kindness they rarely just feel better — they tend to become kinder themselves. Nabi points to the multiplier effect: your single act can influence a friend, who influences another, and so on, weaving care through social networks and strengthening communities.
Your story
Have you ever had a life‑changing experience because of someone’s kindness? Email your story to [email protected] — we may include it in a follow‑up piece.
Credits
Thanks to the photojournalists of The Everyday Projects for sharing images of everyday kindness. This piece was reported by Kamala Thiagarajan, a freelance journalist based in Madurai, India, who writes on global health, science and development for outlets including The New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian and the British Medical Journal.