This year 2019 could contribute a little more altruism by living less individually thanks to the development of the global “pay it forward” approach. The purpose of this movement is to develop a better society by creating a surge of solidarity and charitable gestures around the world.
The operation is simple: perform a good action with a stranger in response to a good action received.
The origin of this movement could be found in Naples in Italy with the “caffè sospeso”, (hanging coffee); during the second world war the neapolitans established this tradition of solidarity towards the poorest, the goal being to order a coffee for oneself and to pay another for a poor person who would come to make the request.
Hanging coffee has since spread to France and spread to hanging baguettes.
Concretely, the "pay it forward" is a small daily gesture of sharing requiring little effort. A single good deed may seem less, but if everyone offers a little something to a stranger, the cycle of generosity can be created like a wave of solidarity of redistribution across the world.
In the United States, this movement has become so popular that the expression "pay it forward" has returned to colloquial parlance, and this gesture is becoming a common practice: it is not uncommon that when paying for a menu in a fast -food, a customer discovers that his meal was paid for by a previous customer!
In the same approach, pizzerias offer parts of pizzas at only 1 dollar to encourage customers to buy an additional part which will be set aside for a homeless person who will come and pick it up later.
Other possible actions: pay someone for their coffee, bread, parking ticket, pastry, newspaper; help a person in need, render a service to his neighbor, a vulnerable person or his community. It is customary to write on a piece of paper "pay it forward" and hand it to the beneficiary who will in turn have to render a service or offer something to a stranger.
In 2007, the Australian Blake Deattle created the “pay it forward day”, a day dedicated to spreading this mutual aid; this special day has since spread to more than 80 countries and generates more than 10 million acts of benevolence and offerings every year! This year the “pay it forward day” will be Sunday April 28!
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