Acts of Random Kindness Ltd: An Irish Start Up That’s Changing The World

“So I have this idea, I’d love you to join me…I’ve started this clothing line with a purpose other than profit. The name, the movement – Acts of Random Kindness. The idea- one Ark every times the clothing is worn. That’s it. Buy a stranger a coffee, give up your seat on the bus. Just make someone’s day, it’s up to you how you Ark on it.”

This is how Cameron Stewart, a then seventeen year old Irish guy with a flair for “buying things and selling them” and the urge to change the world, began the not-for-profit clothing line on a mission to make the world a nicer place. Cameron started off with t-shirts in his parents’ spare room, and a staff of one. He’s now got over 12000 Facebook likes, a growing staff of fans with a similar purpose in life and customers in the Phillipines and Pakistan. Founded in November 2008, by a Leaving Cert student, it’s hard to believe such global success has come so quickly, but when you look at the idea Ark put forward into the world, when you examine their driving ambition, you realise exactly why.

            Cameron Stewart talks a lot about a little thing you may have noticed called “Disconnect”. Pretty prevalent in this Western Society of ours, actually- it’s the way, strangers on buses ignore each other instead of saying hello, it’s the way if you do something nice for someone on a whim, chances are they’ll think you’re crazy and/or call the relevant authorities, it’s the way in which it is perfectly normal to think of ourselves first, every time and all the time. This is the problem that inspired him to start Ark, and it’s a problem everyone who has worn an Ark tee shirt since, wants to solve. The theory being, the kinder we are to total strangers day by day, the happier the world will become. Of course, you don’t need tee shirts for this. Or do you?