International Day of Friendship: let's hug! =)

Today is the International Day of Friendship! Come and celebrate by giving and receiving hugs! =)

POLL for those of you who want to chat as well as hugging people: https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Brisbane-Hugging-Meetup/polls/

LOCATION: The Edge, Window Bays 5 and 6, at the State Library of Queensland.

~~~~~~~~ Optional hugs: free stress relief! ~~~~~~~
Hugs are a free oxytocin boost, stress reliever and trust promoter. But if you're in this group I assume you've already noticed some of the benefits of hugs. :)

As scientists at the Greater Good Science Centre have said before, "All you need is love, gratitude and oxytocin"! And hugs promote all of these :). https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/love_gratitude_oxytocin

If you want to come but don't want to hug people or only want to hug certain people (e.g. friends you brought along, since you already know them), that's all good! Hugs aren't required, they're just available if you want them :).

~~~~~~~ Optional Long-Distance Hugs: these are not free, but they're worth it! Donate-what-you-feel charity option =) ~~~~~~~
There's an optional gold coin or donate-what-you-feel option - all proceeds will go towards a charity focused on relieving human suffering...read on if you want to know more! (Or just bring yourself if you just want the free hugs on their own.)

Friendship doesn't have to be limited by distance. If you want to extend your friendship to people on the other side of the world - people who, although they're far away, will significantly benefit from your compassion - then you can donate-what-you-feel to Second Chance Africa, a charity working to support people who've suffered from trauma. They use cost-effective methods of training health care workers to help relieve the suffering of refugees who've experienced significant trauma. They are in the early stages of expanding to help more people than before, via the Sankofa Project, which you can read about on their website. Once enough evidence has accumulated, the trauma relief might be funded by the UN and can then be scaled to deliver relief to more people. But first we need to study the intervention to show to the UN the ways in which the trauma relief is helpful. So, especially at this early stage of the project, every donation counts.

To see who you're choosing to help if you do bring a gold coin, go to: http://secondchanceafrica.org/

Hope to see you there :)

Sending hugs & best wishes,

Clare
P.S. In case you were wondering, yes, the International Day of Friendship is a recognised day - it's even on a UN site! See: http://www.un.org/en/events/friendshipday/