Good Samaritans spread kindness in South Africa - from small gestures to generous deeds

17 May 2017 - 19:02
By Roxanne Henderson
Picture: Instagram
Picture: Instagram

Pay for someone’s parking‚ help someone with their homework‚ buy someone a lottery ticket or a rose‚ spend an afternoon at a soup kitchen — a card game by a local entrepreneur reminds people to carry out random acts of kindness.

Game for Humanity is the creation of Marc Buhrer‚ founder of non-profit organisation Dare to Share. He was inspired to create the game‚ which encourages kindness‚ after playing Cards Against Humanity‚ described on its website as “a party game for horrible people“.

“That game basically makes fun of everything we celebrate in our game‚” Buhrer said.

Game for Humanity has received “incredible” feedback on its social media accounts‚ where players share their good deeds.

“It’s great to know you can change the mindset of people through a prompt on a card.”

The game cards instruct the player to perform an act of kindness‚ before passing the card on to the recipient of their kind act.

Prompts include‚ “make someone laugh“‚ “tip the waiter/waitress 50%” and “bring a treat to work and share“.

In the case of a 2007 MBA class‚ however‚ it was the kindness of one of their own that inspired them to look after the man’s family after his death.

Alumni from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business have started crowd-funding campaign to pay for fellow classmate Russell Martin’s two sons’ tertiary education.

Martin passed away on April 30.

“He was young‚ too young. Russell leaves behind saddened friends and family‚ who never got an opportunity to say good-bye to this loveable character‚” the alumni BackaBuddy page said.

The group described Martin as a caring and humorous personality and a loving and devoted husband and father.

“Russell’s warm heart was always worn on his sleeve inside our lecture halls and‚ in his more natural habitat‚ the student bar The Brig.”

Thus far over R138‚000 of the R150‚000 fund-raising target has been accumulated in donations.

The money will be invested over a period of 15 years to contribute to the tertiary educations of Martin’s two young sons.

One donor gave R15‚420 and another R10‚010‚ while others gave money in US dollars.

“As Russell so famously quoted in the early days of our year of study: ‘Sharing is caring!’ Russell‚ you are sorely missed. The world has lost a true gentleman and a unique MBA grad‚” the alumni said.

An app — ARK — was also launched recently with the aim of helping South Africans become kinder by setting daily‚ weekly or monthly kindness goals.

The app can be downloaded from the iStore and Google Play.

See more about the Game for Humanity initiative here