Jill Cole is Director of Northern Heartlands – an arts charity working with post-industrial and deeply rural communities in County Durham. She shares her insights into the power of kindness within her team and their work.
In the work we do at Northern Heartlands—whether it’s music-making workshops in community centres, carnival skills for street parades or crafting sessions with people facing mental health challenges—there’s a quiet thread running through it all: kindness.
Kindness might seem like too soft a word in the face of the harsh realities many in our communities live with poverty, isolation, mental illness, discrimination and neglect. But time and again, I see that it’s often the smallest acts of care—offering someone a safe space to speak, greeting them by name, celebrating their contribution to a group project—that have the most profound impact.
Working with disadvantaged communities facing either the legacy of pit closures or the isolation of deeply rural farms and villages here in Co Durham has shown me that kindness isn’t an add-on to our work. It is the work. It’s how we build trust. It’s how people begin to feel seen and valued. And it’s how communities start to stitch themselves back together after years of feeling overlooked.
The creativity that is central to everything we do gives us a unique way to share that kindness. When someone picks up a paintbrush for the first time in 30 years and is encouraged, not judged, it can be transformational. When a young person struggling with anxiety writes a poem and sees it performed or shared through film, they realise their voice matters.
Kindness doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t undo injustice. But it creates space for healing, connection, and courage. And the rather magical thing about kindness is that it is infectious – and it has radical potential. In my leadership role I know that kindness can inspire in the workplace and motivate staff and volunteers. It can change the lives of individuals and whole communities.
Earlier this year we had the chance to take part in the Pilotlight 360 programme, meeting volunteer Pilotlighters in a very different context from our own.
We saw at firsthand how ‘going the extra mile’ had its own rewards; giving their time to share knowledge and expertise and insights was of benefit not just to us but (hopefully!) to the Pilotlight team too.