An Edmonton mother is teaching her three young children about generosity and kindness during the month of Ramadan.
Sonia Baroudi describes Ramadan as a month of “sacrifice,” and she wants her kids to experience how doing simple acts of kindness can brighten up a stranger’s day.
“We are doing 30 days of kindness, and trying to teach them it is nice to give," Baroudi said. "We are very fortunate to be in this country; we are fortunate as a family to be where we are right now with what we have.”
Ramadan is celebrated during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. A major component is fasting because it’s widely believed that giving up food will allow people to get in touch with their spiritual self.
Baroudi is focused on doing good deeds to show her kids, ages one to five, how to be better people.
She’s set up an advent calendar that explains which random act they will be doing that day.
“I think the excitement is opening up the envelopes and not knowing what they’re going to do. So they wake up, they open up their envelopes and they know,” she explained.
Some of the tasks include setting up a lemonade stand for charity, handing out freezies to strangers and giving cupcakes to RCMP officers.
The 30 days of kindness is also teaching her children some hard lessons. Not everyone was receptive to their family’s simple acts and she believes it’s because some are suspicious of strangers giving out things for free.
“We had a tough day at the park trying to hand out chalk. We had a lot of rejection,” she said.
But the family has overwhelmingly received positive responses.
“You always want to be the positive influence to someone, especially in your community. And you don't realize it until social media, and then you see how many people are liking it and how far it's going,” she said.
She said she hopes the 30 days of kindness helps break down barriers with strangers.
“To help people understand that it’s just a religion. We’re all the same people; we’re all just trying to do good.”
With files from Dez Melenka
