2025 NSW Australian of the Year Kath Koschel

Australian Community Media

Meet Your Australians - 2025 NSW Australian of the Year Kath Koschel. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.

Transcript

00:00Kindness has saved my life on many different occasions.

00:05The first time, I had just been told I'd never walk again,

00:08so I'd broken my back on the sporting field.

00:10I was pretty defeated in that moment, as you can imagine.

00:12It's a sobering reality you'd have to face into

00:14and emotions were close to the surface

00:16and I had my head in my hands with tears starting to come out of my eyes

00:20and a random stranger saw that I couldn't reach an elevator button.

00:23It was centimetres out of reach.

00:25He walked past and pressed that button for me

00:27and I hadn't realised it at the time until I heard the ping of the elevator arriving

00:31and as he walked off into the distance,

00:33I realised that that act had absolutely no meaning to him

00:36but a significant one to me.

00:38I got downstairs into my room

00:40and the tears that were escaping my eyes earlier had vanished.

00:43I got myself out of the chair,

00:45looked at myself in the mirror and told myself that I would walk again.

00:48It felt like he believed in me

00:50and I needed to believe in myself again

00:52and that's what kindness has the power to do.

00:54The Kindness Factory started almost like a bit of an online blog.

00:58It was a social media page of kindness.

01:00Simply, I recognised I'd received a ton of kindness through my periods of adversity

01:04and I wanted to pay forward the kindness that I'd received.

01:06So I started doing small things for others.

01:09I raised some money for kids in wheelchairs,

01:11bought dinner for the homeless, etc.

01:13And it got quite catchy.

01:14People from all around Australia and then the world

01:16started sending me acts of kindness.

01:18So far we've seen close to 8 million acts of kindness

01:21from all around the globe being logged on our website

01:23Through that, those acts of kindness, we've been able to collect data.

01:27What that data has allowed us to do is to co-create a kindness curriculum

01:31and that exists in three and a half thousand Aussie schools

01:34and beyond that within the university pathway in the UK

01:37and high schools in the USA as well.

01:39So that's a social and emotional learning tool

01:42that teaches the basic principles of kindness to kids.

01:45What that's doing is increasing mental health and wellness within children

01:50and allowing them to create a form of resilience that matters to them.

01:54So far we've seen a decrease in absenteeism

01:57as well as greater academic output.

01:59So when we're in a kind state, i.e. we're giving or receiving kindness

02:03we actually open up our neural pathways a little bit more within the brain

02:06and we can absorb information better as well.

02:08So we're seeing kids not only perform acts of kindness

02:11and being kind to themselves and others

02:13but they're actually growing academically in the process as well

02:16which has been something that surprised us

02:18but something that we're really proud of as well.

02:20We never know what a person's enduring

02:22and I think sometimes kindness can often be underestimated

02:25but we've had so many people tell us that kindness has saved their life.

02:28So it's fundamentally important to thriving

02:31and also to human connection in the process as well.

02:33No act of kindness is wasted.

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