Resilient Ararat launched its Random Acts of Kindness in the Rat campaign to emphasise the importance of practising empathy through kindness during Mental Health Week (October 10-17).

Wellbeing leader Ms Georgie Peel said she thought the campaign was "extremely timely" amidst the uncertainty of COVID-19 cases in the community.

"There is probably never a bad time for promoting something like that in the community," she said.

"I think especially at the moment as we are coming out of some unprecedented times.

"It has been hard for everyone, especially for families with homeschooling being on and off for as many months as it has been.

"With a couple of cases popping up in Ararat, I thought it was extremely timely that the kindness campaign was happening when it was.

"This time is as good as any to promote to our kids to look after each other."

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Ms Peel said the school incorporated the campaign into the children's learning.

"The Central Grampians LLEN office gave us some postcards which had some writing prompts on them," she said.

"It was put in the form of a letter; there were four different prompts.

"We made resources that we could spread throughout our classrooms, and they were writing tasks that the students could do throughout the week.

"The kids chose someone to write a letter to, they wrote it in a writing lesson one day and we said this is one way of showing a random act of kindness, by posting a letter."

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Ms Peel said the school had a positive response from the community and would love to participate in similar campaigns in the future.

"We got involved in the campaign through my connection with Jane Moriarty at Resilience Ararat," she said.

"She is often inviting schools to be involved with any of the campaigns happening through resilient Ararat. That is where we heard about it.

"We have had a very positive response by staff, by our families and by the students.

"We would certainly be interested if it was something to happen on an annual basis.

"We have always tried to get involved and engaged in any of the campaigns that have been happening across the Ararat community in whatever we could."

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