GEN: Cultural Calendar
General Purpose Guide
It's important to have empathy, kindness, and respect for others. Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings and experiences of another person. This is not to be confused with sympathy which is another common term for connecting emotionally with a patient's feelings. Merriam-Webster (2020) explains that empathy is when you can understand someone's feelings even if you do not share those feelings while sympathy is when you share someone's feelings. Empathy thus allows you to feel for and connect with people who are experiencing situations you have never experienced.
World Kindness Day is celebrated each year on November 13. This celebration grew out of the World Kindness Movement (WKM), which is a nonprofit group that formed in Tokyo in 1997. According to WKM (2020), their mission is to inspire individuals to be kind by creating kindness at a national level. More than 29 countries are members of this organization to promote kindness among different nations. On World Kindness Day, individuals, groups, and organizations celebrate and promote good deeds. According to National Today (2020), World Kindness Day was first celebrated in 1998, and people from every inhabited continent have since participated in some way. Although it is celebrated every year, it is still an unofficial holiday in the U.S.
On November 16, 1995, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) signed the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance. According to the United Nations (2020), "the Declaration affirms that tolerance is neither indulgence nor indifference. It is respect and appreciation of the rich variety of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance recognizes the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of others. People are naturally diverse; only tolerance can ensure the survival of mixed communities in every region of the globe." All organizations participating in the UN are morally and politically obligated to abide by the guiding principles of tolerance set forth in this declaration.