Two weeks ago I went on a studytrip to Copenhagen. I had really been looking forward to visiting this city. The first two days were marked by an assignment that we had to do for Fflink.
Fflink is a social movement in Copenhagen. Fflink refers to Fucking Flink. Flink represents Friendliness, and Fucking is used to catch peoples attention. Not only do they want to make Denmark the happiest country in the world, but also the friendliest.
The movement Fflink
The social movement was founded in 2010 by Lars AP. He noticed a difference in his behaviour/friendliness because of his identification with two different backgrounds; American and Danish. Fucking Flink has a hyperactive Facebook page with more than 170,000 followers. Its online community is the largest in Denmark. On the Fucking Flink Facebook page followers share their stories about random acts of friendliness of both small and large scale.
His question: ‘Why am I happier when I speak the other language than the language of the happiest people on eart’, occurred to him. ‘My happiness has much to do with how I communicate with someone’. The aim is to change our value focus through social innovation. Fflink creates little signs of a better world and creates questions about people’s daily routine. The team of Fflink works full time to spread kindness, this includes organizing workshops for students and companies.
Fflink also tries to raise the awareness of people on the streets with ‘random acts of kindness’ and signs of a better world. Below you can find a video with an example. It’s in Danish but without understanding the language you can guess what it is about.
In the video Lars is playing a parking attendant. Instead of handing out fines if people break the law, he gives drivers who parked well, money. First people look irritated. But once they see what is on the receipt, they are surprised and happy. When you give something to people, they want to give something back. The parking attendant receives several presents from the people.
In the next video you see a test on who is willing to tie someone’s lace. Some people walk over quickly, others stop and help him.
This reminded me of a movie I encountered earlier on Facebook.
When are people willing to help? This video sets people thinking about their own behaviour.
The next days in Copenhagen I ran into several signals without searching for them.
For example, this picture:
‘Blågård skole is paying it forward, do you? If you do take one of these rip off flyers and you are allready paying it forward. And please don’t forget to smile’’. On the rip off flyers they wrote: – Take a selfie with the next person you see – Give a compliment to the next person you see.
During our biking tour around Copenhagen we found this sign by an urban garden: ”Welcome to BYHAVEN 2200, everybody’s garden. Please be kind to the plants and look after your dog & garbage, enjoy!!
With kindness you achieve so much more:) If you are open to it, you can find it in the little things. But sometimes you need something or someone to wake you up or reminds you.
For this blog, I’ve used my own photos.
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