Hello week: basic gestures
If you spontaneously say “hello” to a stranger on the street between May 5 and 9, all you risk is winning 25 or 25,000 euros. Members of “Message sans nom”, a group which campaigns for a more friendly and caring society, will indeed walk the streets in search of these spontaneous “hellos” during “Hello Week”. “Message without a Name” is based on the principle that small changes are enough to make society more pleasant. To reward friendly people, an anonymous “hello team” will walk the streets of the country and offer up to 100 times 25 euros per day to anyone who spontaneously says hello. Two of them will even win 25,000 euros. “It’s easy to mobilize people but you need encouragement. Our objective is therefore to give a little spark to this simple gesture that we want to establish,” explains the creative director of the campaign.
Hello Week, which took place from May 5 to 9, was a great success, said Tuesday Piet Jaspaert, coordinator of the non-profit organization Message sans Nom. The action will now be available with the tagline “Say hello and win… a million smiles, a colleague in a good mood, nice neighbors…”. The most courteous will therefore no longer be rewarded with a sum of money. With the slogan “Say hello and win 25,000 euros”, the campaign crisscrossed Belgium last week. “The campaign also attracted enormous attention from the media and that of institutions and businesses,” said Piet Jaspaert. The goal was to offer 25 euros to 100 people who would spontaneously say “Hello” in the street. The team was only able to come up with 35 spontaneous “Hellos” per day. “This proves that we must work for a more friendly and attentive society,” added Mr. Jaspaert. The campaign will be extended over the coming weeks. Via the website www.messagesansnom.be, ideas are collected to say “hello” in a new way. The best ideas will be published at the end of 2008 in a book published by Message sans Nom. The campaign received a lot of attention from abroad as well (Belga, 04/29/2008 and 05/13/2008).
Behind its apparent simplicity, this initiative goes far! It has the merit of resting on its foundations the elementary gestures which are essential not only for interpersonal communication, but for living together and, ultimately, for the creation of lasting social capital.
Whatever the vicissitudes of social life or our individual frustrations, we must perform these minimal acts on which all social relationships are built: recognition of others in the public space through looks, smiles and greetings. It doesn’t matter if that greeting is poorly received, unanswered, or misinterpreted. We must have the courage and patience to make this modest, but real, individual contribution to the restoration of civility and good neighborliness. There is no doubt that the road will be long in the most blocked societies: Flanders, France…:). But you have to persevere.
Let us be permitted to doubt the sincere adherence to this ethic of Electrabel, Fortis or the National Lottery, who financed this initiative… they are sponsors with advertising aims, who undoubtedly did not understand the meaning. deep reach. Their nature and behavior: financial exploitation of the population in the case of Electrabel, raiding behavior in the case of Fortis, opium of populist games in the case of the National Lottery… hardly seem to fit with the restoration of social ties.
