Kindness to the fore in Canterbury

Kindness to the fore in Canterbury

All Right? media release
28 June 2016

Canterbury, you’re a kind, honest and humourous gem!

In the last three weeks nearly 4,500 Cantabrians have discovered their hidden strengths as part of the All Right? campaign’s latest project.

Throughout June All Right? has been encouraging Cantabrians to spend 15 minutes doing an online quiz so they can find their hidden strengths. The quiz was developed by the VIA Institute of Character in the United States. All Right? are promoting it because knowing and using your strengths has been proven to make you happier, more confident and improve your relationships with others.

Sue Turner, All Right? manager, says the most common top strengths for individuals to emerge so far are kindness, honesty, and humour.

“Canterbury has been through a lot over the last five and a half years and there’s no doubt that the prominence of kindness, honesty, and humour has helped many of us get through some of the tough times,” says Sue.

“The fact that kindness is the most frequent strength so far is something we can all be proud of. By being kind to ourselves, and to those around us, we’ve been able to support one another through the quakes and all the stresses that have followed, such as insurance woes, housing issues, the loss of facilities and road closures.”

Sue says giving people more opportunities to practice kindness will help create a much happier, healthier city.

“Immediately after the earthquakes our community came together and shared and cared for each other. It was an amazing display of kindness. We’re keen to explore how we can find more ways for people to apply their kindness without having to be in the middle of a disaster. How can we use this strength to turn Canterbury into a world capital of kindness?”

Interestingly, research from the UK shows their most prevalent character strengths are judgment, fairness, curiosity, love of learning, and kindness. The results so far also suggest there’s a difference between the top strengths of men and women. The top three strengths for women who have done the survey are kindness, honesty and fairness, compared to judgment, humour and kindness for men.

“If you haven’t done the quiz already you should definitely give it a go. Taking the time to discover your strengths is a great way to find your spark and boost your wellbeing,” says Sue.

To discover your strengths visit www.allright.org.nz/strengths

ENDS

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