Dolly’s Dream launches new initiative to inspire acts of kindness

THE parents of Katherine teenager Dolly Everett, who took her own life because of bullying, launched the NT Acts of Kindness Challenge in Darwin yesterday which they say aims to make kindness contagious.

Kate and Tick Everett, the parents of Dolly Everett, have helped launch the NT Acts of Kindness Challenge. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

MORE than two years after Katherine teenager Dolly Everett took her own life because of bullying, her parents Tick and Kate are still working tirelessly to ensure other families don’t suffer the same fate.

Alongside the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN), the couple launched the NT Acts of Kindness Challenge in Darwin yesterday, which they say aims to make kindness contagious.

Mr and Mrs Everett started the charity Dolly’s Dream in memory of their daughter and to educate parents and their kids about the devastation impacts of bullying.

Mr Everett said they started the charity with children in mind but it had since become about promoting kindness throughout society.

“A little random act of kindness can make somebody’s day, month, year a whole lot better than what it was yesterday,” he said.

“It can change the course of someone’s life.”

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The challenge encourages people of all ages to submit an act of kindness they’ve seen someone do or done themselves to the NAPCAN website to be collected and published.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to spread the word on kindness and this is a fabulous idea,” Mrs Everett said.

During a presentation to child safety experts at the launch yesterday, Mr Everett said Dolly’s Dream had launched several education programs in schools across the NT and Queensland.

“If there’s problems there (in school) we, as the public, should help those schools improve,” he said.

“Our goal is that one day, somehow, every school in Australia will have a blue heart system (which rates how well a school fares in terms of bullying and other social issues).”

The charity has also launched a ‘Parents Hub’ that has several informative articles written by experts around bullying.

“When we were going through what we were going through, sometimes just finding the answers was just so difficult,” Mrs Everett said.

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“This helps parents navigate those tricky situations that will help other parents never ever walk this road.”

Take part in the NT Acts of Kindness Challenge by visiting napcan.org.au.