Global Dignity Blog

Shen Bing taught thirty-one students the message of dignity in a classroom in China.

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Muna AbuSulayman taught Dignity Day in Saudi Arabia.

As schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rarely are able to deviate from the set curriculum, but the principle and superintendent both like the idea so much, especially as it tied in to another event they were doing a World Hunger day—where students semi fasted and fundraised for the world’s poor in a few days.

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Reuven Agassi taught Dignity Day at the community of “Tel Mond” in the center of Israel. The class is Junior class in a shared agricultural community (Moshav, which is a more capitalistic version of a well known Israeli concept – Kibbutz). This one is about 5 miles west of the Palestinian west bank.

The dignity message was on the obligation of the youth to serve as they grow. The talk centered on the “culture of service” to one’s country and personal dignity in accepting responsibility and commitment to providing back to the community after you received from the community. They can serve by joining the military service and protecting people with their lives. They can also serve by other social means not related to the military. Their choice needs to be of service.

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On Friday, October 26, to round out Global Dignity “week”, Kate Roberts and Cori Lathan spoke with the 4th through 8th graders at the Oneness Family School in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The topic was very timely as the school had just celebrated United Nations day as a manifestation of the school’s global vision to help bring the nations of the world closer to peace and harmony. Cori introduced the topic and then Kate inspired the kids with stories of dignity from her program “Five and Alive.” Five & Alive reaches children five and under to prevent and treat malaria, water-borne illness, pneumonia and malnutrition.

After reading the Dignity principles, we began the discussion by talking about what gives us dignity.  The students started with material things – food, homes, education, water, money- but quickly realized that that dignity was more about trust, kindness, love, and respect.  They talked about how each of our actions can make a difference.

Finally, we discussed how we could communicate the concept of dignity to the younger students at the school (Kindergarten through 3rd grade). Words to explain dignity included sharing, helping and caring for each other, and Peace, not war.  Examples of dignity that the younger children could understand included giving away old toys or books even though it’s hard; donating old newspapers to the animal shelter; treating a homeless man with respect; and simply smiling!

The students ended by making a video that will be edited and posted on the school website.

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We had a great Dignity day in Vienna with kids from the Czech republic (Prague and Brno where Gregor Mendel started genetics), Romenia, Slovakia (Bratislava) and two schools in Vienna.

We invited some friends who were amazingly kind to join me and tell their story:

Georg Koptez, a young guy who built a computer company from nothing, which now does the software for the next generation of space shuttles and is a multinational company.

Rainer Riedl who started a self help group for children with a terrible disease called Epidermolysis bullosa (his daughter got the disease) where the skin is just breaking all the time and they cannot eat anymore and get cancers etc. He got it all off the ground and now they have clinics for the kids where there was nothing before – from kids that were taken away from their parents for literally years because of lack of knowledge to help where they can stay at home with their family. He was also the PR person of the year/Austrian of the year here because of his amazing efforts.

Peter Resetarits is a TV show host, he takes up the needs and daily injustices against “small” people from big companies etc to help them, and it works very well. Peter is a trained lawyer and TV personality to help the people in need.

I think these three people did honour to our Dignity Nation.

Josef Penninger

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Co-Founder Crown Prince Haakon talks about Global Dignity:
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Welcome to Global Dignity Blog,

My name is John Hope Bryant and I am one of the co-founders of Global Dignity. Welcome to our global community and our initiative to help to make the world “better.”

Almost since the very founding of the Forum of Young Global Leaders (YGL) – the organizations we all belong to and where we first met – the co-founders of Global Dignity, HRH Crown Prince Haakon, Professor Pekka Himanen and myself, have conducted a series of Dignity Day teaching sessions in more than a dozen countries around the world, From Europe, to the U.S., to India, Africa and the Middle East.  We even hope to conduct a special Dignity Day, China session, tied to our 2008 annual YGL summit in September, 2008.

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