Source: HuffPost
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – When 6-year-old Eddie Writes decided the world needed a little more kindness, he did the only thing he thought would work ― he wrote to his city’s mayor and asked for help putting on an annual “Kindness Day.”
Much to Eddie’s surprise, Wellington Mayor Justin Lester wrote back.
On Nov. 16, New Zealand’s capital city will be holding its first Manaaki Day (manaaki being the Maori word for kindness), taking Eddie’s ideas of how to encourage and celebrate charitable acts ― “We can buy toys for children that don’t have any,” for example ― to improve the social well-being of citizens.
“I am pleased to see a change in politics in New Zealand that I hope focuses more on listening,” says Eddie’s mother, the noted Kiwi writer and feminist Emily Writes. “Kindness should be what politics is all about. When you become a politician, it shouldn’t be for money or power or privilege ― it should be because you had a dream right from childhood that you could work with others to make our world better.”
The mayor’s support for the new holiday is part of a new wave of progressive, child-centred politics sweeping New Zealand, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, herself a new parent.
Ardern was met with thunderous applause at the United Nations last month for her speech calling for kindness and cooperation from world leaders. Watched by her partner and their then 4-month-old daughter, Ardern pledged New Zealand would be “a kind and equitable nation where children thrive, and success is measured not only by the nation’s GDP but by better lives lived by its people.”
Ardern’s call for a different kind of economy was viewed by many commentators as a direct rebuke to the more prominent trend of right-wing, populist strongmen in the U.S. and Europe.
New Zealand’s social and environmental policies already set it apart. The first country in the world to give some women the right to vote (and which has had two other female prime ministers before Ardern), New Zealand is a leader when it comes to paid leave. Under the Ardern government, 22 weeks paid parental leave has been introduced, and that will rise to 26 weeks by 2020.
Families with babies born after July 1 this year now receive the equivalent of about $40 a week in the child’s first year.
The policy is close to Ardern’s heart. She is only the second world leader in history to give birth while in office, and took six weeks’ leave when daughter Neve Te Aroha was born (although the timing left Ardern ineligible for her own paid leave).
In another world first, a new law requires victims of domestic violence be given up to 10 days paid leave from work, separate from annual leave and sick leave entitlements, to help them get away from abusive partners, relocate and protect their children.
Ardern also has her sights on New Zealand’s growing housing affordability problems. The country’s housing market is heated, with home prices rising more than 60 percent in a decade and nearly doubling in its largest city Auckland.
Housing became a big issue in last year’s elections, and…
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