A boy shivered in the harsh Oslo winter, pathetically wrapping his arms around himself on a bus stop bench. He wasn't wearing a coat and temperatures in the Norwegian capital regularly plunge to -10℃ during winter.
A heartbreaking scene, but the actions of the ordinary people who witnessed the difficult situation of 11-year-old Johanne Linnestad Flaaten were both joyous and inspiring.
A young woman sat next to the boy and noticed him rubbing his arms. She immediately asked him, "Don't you have a jacket?"
"No, someone stole," he replied. She questioned him and discovered he was on a school trip and was told to meet his teacher at the bus stop. She asked him the name of his school and where he was from as she selflessly covered her own coat around his shoulders.
Later, another older woman at first gave him her scarf, and then wrapped him in her large padded jacket.
Throughout the day, more and more people offered Johanne their gloves and even the coats off their backs as they waited for their bus.
Johanne's predicament was a hidden camera experiment by Norwegian charity SOS Children's Village as part of their winter campaign to gather donations to send much-needed coats and blankets to help Syrian children get through the winter. Many of the refugees have left their homes without winter clothing.
"People should care as much about children in Syria as they care about this boy," Synne Runnine th information head of SOS Children's Villages Norway, told The Local. She also noted that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the filming.
