Everything You Need to Know about Global Dignity Day
Imagine a world where we are all treated as equal—where compassion, love, and understanding triumph. This is Global Dignity’s vision. Read on to learn more about the organization, Global Dignity Day, the difference they’re making in the world today.
Global Dignity’s mission
The mission of Global Dignity is to bring together young people from all over the world in the shared belief that all of us deserve to live with dignity. Striving to ensure that compassion, love, and understanding win out over injustice, intolerance, and inequality, this nonprofit is working to develop a diverse, proactive movement for equality, justice, and peace.
Sometimes the world can seem like a very dark place. Yet, it is at these dark moments that humanity truly shines. Global Dignity aims to attract individuals from all walks of life, in all countries, to join the movement to create a world where humanity outshines the darkness.
Global Dignity Day 2019
Staged on October 16, 2019, Global Dignity Day 2019 brought together hundreds of thousands of young people from countries all over the world, inspiring them to recognize their own self-worth and dignity in others, and use these valuable insights to create positive change.
An annual celebration, Global Dignity Day is comprised of forums, workshops, storytelling, service projects, musical performances, and inspirational talks. Events are staged at various locations around the world, engaging young people in activities designed to help them realize core dignity values such as empathy, compassion, and self-worth.
Global Dignity events take place in a variety of settings, from community centers and refugee camps to workplaces and schools. This annual celebration promotes Global Dignity’s year-round work and mission to create communities that honor inclusion, justice, and peace.
In the wake of Global Dignity Day 2019, Global Dignity’s chairman, John Osborn, underlined his commitment to imparting the importance of dignity, particularly today when we are experiencing a global diminishment of equality and empathy.
Mr. Osborn explained that the time has come for individuals in all societies to appreciate the inherent worth of all members of society and to recognize the importance of all individuals as valuable members of a human family that can shape the world, ensuring dignity triumphs over injustice and inequality.
Global Dignity was cofounded by Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.
The Crown Prince created the organization with John Bryant and Dr. Pekka Himanen with the aim of empowering people all over the world to look beyond the issues that divide us, searching instead for shared values that unite us all. When the trio held their first Global Dignity Day in a small Swedish classroom, they didn’t imagine that one day, they would be able to reach hundreds of thousands of young people each year through the initiative. It is only through recognizing our own dignity, as well as the equal worth of all others, that mankind can solve our greatest challenges and truly transform the world.
Global Dignity Day uses various teaching tools to inspire children and young people.
Dignity Workshop organizers are presented with a variety of toolkits, curriculum ideas, and additional resources to help them organize workshops in classrooms, youth and community groups, refugee communities—anywhere where local young people can come together.
As Nelson Mandela points out in his international bestseller Long Walk to Freedom, no child is born hating others because of their background, skin color, or religion. People learn to hate. Love is instinctive; it comes naturally to the human heart. If people can be shown how to hate, they can just as easily be taught how to love.
Global Dignity Day started in 2006 with a classroom of just 30 students.
Today, 860,000 children and young people from more than 70 nations worldwide join together to learn the importance of dignity-centered leadership.
Participating countries include the Dominican Republic, Uzbekistan, France, Niger, the UAE, Poland, Spain, Yemen, India, Canada, Ecuador, Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, Germany, Afghanistan, Colombia, and many others.
Global Dignity is guided by five core principles:
1. We all have the right to pursue our individual meaning and purpose, to reach our full potential.
2. We are each entitled to equitable access to income, health, education, and security.
3. We deserve to have our life, identity, and beliefs respected by others.
4. We each have an obligation to strengthen the dignity of other people by building foundations for justice, peace, and freedom, for this generation and the next, helping each individual to reach their full potential.
5. We all have a duty to stand up against intolerance, injustice, and inequity.
In pursuing these five objectives, this ground-up movement has improved the outlook of young people all over the world, sparking transformation in local communities and ultimately creating lasting, positive change.
