Kindness Is the Work: A Conversation with Salas Balde for the Next Generation of Early Years Educators

Why you should listen

• Discover how kindness can grow from a simple idea into a global movement, and why Salas Balde sees it as a lifeline, not a luxury.
• Hear powerful real-life stories from schools that reveal how children instinctively understand fairness, courage and sharing.
• Explore why children already hold strong moral instincts, and what adults can do to protect and nurture them rather than overwrite them.
• Reflect on the importance of presence, slowness and connection in a distracted world, and what this means for Early Years practice today.

A conversation about kindness

What better way to begin than with a conversation about kindness, children’s wellbeing, and the courage it takes to truly connect. After the pace and pressures of recent years, I think many of us working in Early Years education are now craving a little more gentleness, a little more humanity, and a little more willingness to show up for one another. I hope this interview is a reminder that kindness costs nothing yet gives back so much.

Every now and then, someone walks into your professional world and reminds you why you care so deeply about Early Years, community, childhood development, and humanity itself. For me, one of those people is Salas. He was last on Talking Early Years in December 2023, and even then, he was a burst of optimism and purpose. Since then, he has done so much more that I felt it was time to bring him back and let him tell the next chapter of his story.

For those who haven’t met Salas yet, let me introduce him. He was born in Guinea-Bissau, moved to Portugal at the age of seven, and eventually found his way to London where he has now lived for fifteen years. London can be a tough city, but he talks about it with the affection of a long-term friend. During the lockdown, when many of us were clinging to routine and connection in whatever fragmented forms we could manage, he started “Workout to Help”, a simple idea that grew into something global. What began as online exercise sessions to keep people connected quickly became a movement of kindness, wellbeing, and community that travelled from living rooms to communities across continents. And somehow, he did all this with humility, warmth, and an infectious belief that kindness is not a nice extra but a lifeline.

His kindness movement eventually led to his book and a series of school visits around the world. Just last year, sponsored by Nando’s, he travelled to Mozambique and Johannesburg to read his book to children in local schools. He describes it vividly: standing in classrooms full of young faces that reminded him of his own childhood, when kindness meant neighbours sharing food and strangers looking out for each other. He told me that he never imagined kindness could travel the world like this, let alone that he would be the person carrying it. He reflected on a special moment when a little girl in Johannesburg came up to him and said she was bullied for playing football because she was a girl. It broke his heart but what he did next mattered. He shared the story of Marta, the Brazilian footballer who won FIFA Best Player four times. A real role model. A living message that girls belong in football too. “Don’t stop dreaming,” he told her. “You can be as good as Marta or even better.” These are the moments children remember long after the adults have forgotten the conversation ever happened.

Another story was about a bag of sweets he brought to a school where there were far more children than sweets. He braced himself, expecting disappointment. Instead, without a single prompt, the children shared them among themselves. Some had whole sweets, some had half, but everyone received something. As he spoke, I could feel the simplicity and power of the scene. Children everywhere have this capacity for instinctive goodness, empathy, fairness, and social connection. Our role as adults is not to manufacture kindness but to unlock it, model it, and crucially protect it.

This is where Salas’s work overlaps so beautifully with Early Years education, children’s emotional wellbeing, and community-focused learning. He is building a Community Centre focused on creativity, connection, and reducing loneliness. He is going into schools at a time when education systems around the world are burdening children with relentless pressure to meet targets. And yet, as we both reflected, children need the opposite.

They need slowness, time to daydream, and opportunities for play-based learning and emotional development. They need the chance to lie on the grass and look at the sky, or stir a potion for ages, or be absorbed in nothing in particular. These simple acts of being human are being squeezed out of childhood not maliciously, but mindlessly.

We also talked about the adult world, the scrolling, the constant phone-in-hand, the way people rarely spend time just looking around, letting London reveal its beauty. If we cannot model presence, how do we expect children to value it? If we cannot appreciate nature, how do we expect them to protect it?

Before we ended, I asked Salas for one message for our young apprentices, those building Early Years careers in the middle of a very distracted and divided world. He shared the affirmation he uses with children during his kindness tours: “I am kind. I am strong. I can do amazing things.” And then he added something simple: you don’t need to do big things to make a difference. Start small. Smile at someone. Share what you have. Include someone who is left out. Kindness, like everything worthwhile, begins in tiny moments. It grows when we notice it, practice it and choose it, especially when the world feels noisy and divided. Salas embodies that choice. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. It is a reminder that kindness is not sentimental. It is strength, connection, and hope in action. And we need it now more than ever.

3 Key points

Kindness is not an add-on. It is a lifeline.

Through Salas’ journey, from lockdown workouts to global school visits, kindness emerges as something essential rather than ornamental. It sustains connection in times of isolation, crosses borders without effort, and offers children a sense of safety, dignity, and possibility. This is kindness as action, not sentiment.

Children already understand fairness, sharing, and courage. Adults must protect it.

The stories of children sharing sweets and standing up to gender stereotypes reveal that empathy and justice are not taught first through instruction but through their own experiences. Children possess an instinctive moral clarity. The adult role is not to impose values, but to notice, model, and safeguard these capacities in environments that too often erode them.

Presence, slowness, and connection are acts of quiet resistance.

In a distracted, target-driven world, choosing to slow down, daydream, notice nature, and truly connect becomes radical. Salas’ work aligns with Early Years pedagogy in its insistence that human flourishing depends on time, attention, relationships, and emotional wellbeing. Without adult presence, children lose the very models they need to value care, community, and the world around them.

Frequently asked questions

Why is kindness important in Early Years education?

Kindness helps children develop empathy, emotional wellbeing, confidence, and positive social relationships. In Early Years settings, kindness creates safe and supportive environments where children can thrive emotionally and academically.

Who is Salas Balde?

Salas Balde is a community advocate, author, and speaker known for his global kindness movement “Workout to Help”. He works with schools and communities to promote connection, creativity, inclusion, and reducing loneliness.

What can Early Years educators learn from this conversation?

This conversation highlights the importance of presence, emotional connection, play, creativity, and modelling kindness in everyday interactions with children.

Why does play and slowness matter in child development?

Play, reflection, and unstructured time support creativity, emotional regulation, problem-solving, and healthy childhood development. Children need opportunities to slow down and connect with the world around them.

How can educators encourage kindness in children?

Educators can encourage kindness by modelling empathy, creating inclusive environments, celebrating cooperation, and giving children opportunities to share, connect, and support one another.