The Two Hours For Family Campaign started on 15th May 2012. On that day 40 employers gave their employees two symbolic hours off to spend with their families. The campaign initiator – the Humanities Foundation, together with a group of employers began an amazing adventure: a social movement for building of better family and work relations.

Following the slogan of the first edition of the Campaign, we encouraged participants to answer the question: “What does family mean to you?”. We know that family stories, the more and the less familiar ones, the incredible and the ordinary ones, may become an important inspiration for us to find out who we are, what is important to us, what we have in common, what bonds us together with the nearest and dearest and finally, what defines our relations with the outside world.

The enormous popularity and positive reception of the Campaign made us realize how much room for good family relationships we miss in the modern world. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life we easily forget what is fundamental to us and what gives us the greatest strength in our lives – the family relations. To what extent have we stopped appreciating our heritage, multigenerational households and diversity of people around us? Let us stop for a while and take a closer look at ourselves and our families. Let us build beautiful memories for ourselves and our children.

Here are some good ideas for the Two Hours For Family:
• My son/daughter conducts a “professional” interview with his/her grandparents about their childhood and youth – or perhaps with one of the parents, or an extended family member.
• Family quiz building, with questions, e.g. how many siblings does your mum/dad/grandmother/grandfather have? Name of your mum’s/dad’s or grandmother’s/grandfather’s oldest brother, sister, place of birth, say how your grandmother/grandfather, mother/father met, etc.
• Does my children know what pets I had as a child?
• A photo map – arranging family photographs according to a selected key, chronology of events, family bonds and relations, geographical locations combined with stories about the events they concern.
• The funniest souvenirs from family trips – stories and circumstances of how they were found or received.
• The most valuable parents’, grandparents’ heirlooms…. kept in drawers, wardrobes, which we have had no opportunity to talk about yet.
• Creating a “chest of happiness” together with children, into which they will put their treasures and hide it in the house, garden… to come back to it e.g. in 5 or 10 years.
• The dumbest lie your parents, grandparents ….. or perhaps children said when they were kids.
• A lifetime adventure with souvenirs and photos of it.