Exeter wakes up to kindness, compassion and play on 14th June

Exeter city will unfold into a week-long festival of play, colour and kindness in the middle of June.

As we re-emerge from lockdown, families, children and adults are all invited to play games, make music and have a lot of fun in the green spaces of our city centre. Watch out for kindness ninjas roaming the streets, playful yoga in the park, origami, quizzes and a scavenger hunt. After months of being deserted, the city centre will blossom once again as we celebrate Kinder Exeter. This event will be ticketed, limited to smaller groups, keeping in line with current Covid-19 guidelines. 

Organiser Olya Petrakova of Maketank said: "This free event is for everyone in Exeter, for all ages and backgrounds. The people of Exeter, the people of the world, the planet itself have been through a terrible traumatising experience in the last year. As we are coming closer to restrictions being lifted, we aim to kindle a deeper, more meaningful social contact. There is a need for a greater sense of care and support. We aim to show that the city centre is not just about shopping: it’s about human beings sharing public spaces, smiling and laughing, spreading small acts of kindness” 

The Kinder Exeter festival will run from Monday 14th June until Sunday 20th. There will be online speaker events and creative activities during the week, featuring Roy Leighton (Undiscovered Country), Andy Smallman (Kinder Living), Ted DesMaisons 

(Anima Learning), Justin Featherstone (Playful Leadership), Dr. Vikki Barnes, Dr. Bryan Brown. Then on the weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, the festival will be taking over parts of green spaces in the city for fun, games and music. 

Having started to spread the word, the organisers are finding that entertainers, musicians and community groups are eager to join in and offer activities. ‘It’s like that 

lovely old story about Stone Soup’, said Petrakova. ‘We put the word out and people 

are coming forward and saying “yes, I want to be involved”. There’s this enormous pent-up feeling of fun and emotion and sheer joy wanting to be released, and mid-June will be the perfect time to do it.’ Co-organiser Maarten Koeners of the University of Exeter said “We have taken-up the challenge to create through play, the awareness, skill and freedom to allow us to be compassionate - be that for ourselves, for others, an organisation or a community.” 

This project is a part of Communities and Students Together programme (European Union ERASMUS+), developed by University of Exeter students working with community-led organisations and local residents. Through partnership with Maketank  this project grew into a festival Kinder Exeter, twinning with Kinder Leeds.