Haakon

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With the help of Eugenio Burzaco, Andy Freyre, Alex Oxenford, and Federico Sturzenegger, Dignity Day was held for the first time in Argentina.  The event took place at Colegio del Pilar in Buenos Aires. More than 60 students between 15-17 years old participated.
Discussion was held around the Dignity Principles. It was an outstanding experience with a very good interaction between the students and ourselves.

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• Ahmet Ulusoy High Schools Ankara/TÜRKİYE

• 20 students from 10th-11th and 12th grades have participated to our meeting. They were between 15 and 17 year-old.

• Global Dignity Day is being accomplished in Turkey on October 20. We prepared  meetings about the Global Dignity with the participation of Mr. Murat SARAYLI. The topics of this meeting were the future of Global Dignity, how can we make Global Dignity widespread and effective in world and in our country together with the improvement of human rights. At the end of the meeting, we prepared a list of the solutions and recommendations. We want to reach our goals and work to spread the avareness of the Global Dginity principles..
  

• Following outcome was reached at the end of the meeting:

-          Broadcast of related programs about the Global Dignity principles  must be established in major national and global broadcasting companies. These programs must be introduced to the people.

-          Media’s awareness about human rights must be raised.

-          Laws that protect the Human Dignity must be standardized established globally.

-          Global Dignity classes must be put to elementary school curriculums in coopeartion with  natinalMinistries of Education globally. UN could be a partner fort his process.

-          Programs that help diffent cultures communicate and undesratnd each other and life conditions of  the people who lack dignified life must be supported to situmulate the break the thought of ” it is non of my bussines”

• Prepared by the Global Dignity Comitee of the Ahmet Ulusoy High School.

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On October 20th, 2009, over 50 college students of Social Sciences celebrated Global Dignity Day at Universidad del Distrito Federal Campus Santa María, in Mexico City.

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In Mexico City, YGL Idalia Cruz, focused on a debate where the five Dignity Principles were appointed, as well as acknowledged and discussed by the students.

In this Dignity Day celebration, the students agreed on the fact that encouraging dignity is a responsibility of the whole society, especially amongst the most vulnerable groups, like children, women and elders.

They also wrote down and shared their ideas and commitments to accomplish a more dignified life. Some of their testimonies were:

“Dignity shouldn’t be just a day, but a way of living as independent individuals and as a society. It’s a matter of education and principles.” – María Patiño Lara, 18.

“Dignity is a value that many people around the world can’t enjoy because of ideologies or beliefs, so that’s why it’s important to learn about it.” – Miguel Ángel Rodríguez González, 19.

“I think values like dignity must be learnt at school. Children must be taught to respect elders, nature and animals, and Media should play a definite role on it.” – Lourdes Araiza Martínez, 18.

At the end, the students concluded that dignity must be lived every single day through actions like respecting each other, educating this principle since childhood, and exercising our individual rights.

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Global Dignity Day

20^th October, 2009

Ramallah, Palestine

Introduction:

Global Dignity Day is an annual event that takes place on the 20th of October every year where more than 30 countries have celebrated this initiative for individuals to lead a dignified life and to increase the meaning of dignity to others by appreciating and emphasizing the role it plays in our lives.

Paltel Group Foundation for Community Development (PGF) was pleased to work under the guidance of Operation Hope in bringing this special day to Palestine.  PGF quickly realized the importance of this event and decided to hold it in Palestine for the first time as dignity is a very crucial concept to the Palestinian people who have been severely suffering from occupation for several decades.

Global Dignity Day Session:

The event took place at the Friends Boys School in Ramallah targeting 60 male and female students aged between 12 to 14 years old (7^th and 8^th grades).

Staff (Event facilitators):

Samah Abouon Hamad. (PGF)

Neda Morrar (Paltel Group)

Rula Al Baradiah (Paltel Group)

Mahar Saleh (Paltel Group)

Rana Riady (PGF)

Wafa’ Abadi (PGF)

Suhaib Jarrar (PGF)

Goals:

• To clarify the concept of Dignity day
• Explain the principles of Dignity day
• Encourage young people to define what dignity means to them, to create a certain concept of dignity and what does dignity mean to Palestinians living under illegal Israeli occupation

The Session:

The session started with an introduction given by the PGF Director General, Mrs. Samah Abuoun Hamad. The introduction provided gave a brief overview of the one hour program, dignity day and what is required of the students in the session and how they will contribute and benefit from the activities. Icebreaking was needed for both staff and students to bond and encourage students to enjoy as well as participate in the session.

The students were given a copy of the Dignity Day principles, where various students volunteered to read the principles and interpret what each principle meant to them.

The staff then handed out colored cards to all the students, where the students then wrote on the cards their own definitions of Dignity in a sentence in order to define what the term means to each one of them.  After completion of this task, each student thumb- tacked their card on various boards where students were given the opportunity to explain what they had written down.  It is important to note that a majority of the students took this topic very seriously and assured the staff that dignity is the right of every Palestinian, but not a right given to every Palestinian living under occupation.  Many students turned to the Gaza war that erupted in December 2008 and January 2009 to express the lack of dignity in Palestine and described how they saw on the nightly news the children of Gaza being slaughtered by Israeli missiles, where no one was questioning such brutal acts nor being concerned with the rights of dignity of the children located in the Gaza Strip.

The Friends School Principal, Mr. Mahmoud Amer warmly welcomed this initiative and thanked PGF and Operation Hope for holding such an occasion at the school since he viewed it with high priority due to the long term illegal occupation suffered by all students. During the session, the students’ attention and participation increased as they realized Dignity should be a part everyone’s very existence.  A student named, Husam Awashreh, 13 years old defined dignity as “freedom for all occupied nations.” Lina Enbtaweh, a seventh grader defined it as “the freedom of speech.”  Naji Herzallah, 12 years old added “during the war on Gaza we felt we lost our dignity because the Palestinians were not acting as one unit.”

This initiative brought about students’ attention to the current status in Palestine and posed the question back to the class: “Do we have dignity?.” The students quickly started connecting their thoughts with the current reality on the ground.  Faced with the grim reality, they began to question whether or not the Palestinian people lead dignified lives. Ala’ Al Ramahe, a seventh grader described the loss of his dignity when he has had to cross the borders between

Palestine and Jordan, where time consuming and difficult procedures have been installed by the Israeli Government that run for hours on end. Fares, a 12 year old student stated that, “dignity is life for a human being, the air he breaths and a man without dignity is like a black cloud in a white sky.”  Sara Al Rayyan said: “I feel humiliated and sorry for being unable to visit my family in the Gaza Strip especially after the war.” All participants had the chance to express themselves and answer the questions: What is dignity? Does it exist in our society?  Is dignity important for someone’s life? Can our actions influence dignity in others?

Towards the end of the session the facilitators asked the students to provide one word to describe dignity using the alphabets and the followings words were jotted down by a staff member: Acceptance, brave, choices, dignity, eat, freedom, generous, honest, independent, joyful, kindness, life, morality, nationality, opportunity, personality, quality of life, respect, sharing, trust, universal, voices, work, youth and zealous.

At the conclusion of the session, the students left the room buzzing due to this introduction upon them of the emphasis of dignity, and with it came along a feeling of confusion, since they haven’t been exposed to dignity in this way before.  They left the session with a new idea to think about and to share with others.

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GLOBAL DIGNITY DAY IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

On Tuesday 20^th of October 2009, 45 secondary school students within the age bracket of 11-16 years old, all gathered in the recreational hall of Fountain Heights Secondary School in Lagos, Nigeria.

They had all gathered to learn about a course in dignity. The course started at 10.10a.m. prompt and lasted for an hour. I had two fellow colleagues representing Young Global Leaders (Ms. Mosun Layode- Executive Director, LEAP Africa and Mrs. Amy Oyekunle, Executive Director, Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND) and two guests (Mrs. Tosin Anibaba of FATE Foundation and Mr. Gbenga Sesan- Microsoft IT Ambassador) to assist me in addressing these students.

Fountain Heights School is a co-educational secondary school with high academic standards based in Lagos, Nigeria.

The YGLs shared their experiences with the students on how they have lived a dignified life and how that has helped shaped the success of their businesses.

This was then followed by an interactive session on the 5 principles of dignity, ABCs of dignity and the students gave examples and instances on how they can fulfil the principles and ABCs of dignity.

They also asked questions bordering on

• The ABCs of dignity
• How they can excel in their studies with dignity to become successful and respectable citizens

The students were all advised to act with dignity by showing respect not just for people, but for property as well. They were also made to understand that it was important that they imbibe the values that their parents teach them and be role models to other students. They were also encouraged to be focused and studious, in order to be successful and live dignified lives.

The session ended with the YGL leaders advising the students on how to apply what they learnt.

This session would not have been complete without expressing our gratitude to the Fountain Heights principal, Mrs. Delano, who gave us the platform to spread the awareness and importance of dignity day to her students.

Osayi Oruene,

Executive Director, FATE Foundation

YGL 2007

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Dignity Without Drugs

For two consecutive years, YCAB – Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa (Loving the Nation’s Children Foundation) hosted the Global Dignity Day event in Indonesia. We dedicate October to be the Dignity Month as we integrated our message of a healthy lifestyle without drugs with the message of dignity. In the message, youth are encouraged to stay away from drug use and drug abuse, to make the right choices and to reach out for their dreams as the manifestation of living a dignified life.

The message was delivered in classes and assemblies starting October 12^th-30^th, 2009, involving around 7,908 youth at over 30 schools in four cities (Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi). Students were introduced to the Global Dignity Principles and how important it is to lead a dignified life. Generally, the student did not know about these principles before, as they assumed that dignity is an “elite and old people” issue that is not well known to them. After the campaign, they are now aware of the importance of living a dignified life and to make the right choices in life, one of them is to say no to drugs.

The pinnacles for this Global Dignity Campaign were held on October 19^th and 25^th, in which we have a mass campaign at KONI Auditorium, Central Jakarta and a band competition in Metropolis Mall Tangerang, respectively. Each event was enjoyed by more than one thousand youth as we introduced the Global Dignity Principles through games and interactive campaign method. With the live performance of Dance, Group Band and Arts, they are being reminded to grasp the opportunity to fulfill one’s potential, to start living a dignified life now in their young age so that they could later on grow up to their full potential and respecting each other.

On October 20^th, we held a press conference to socialize the Global Dignity Day concept to our media and journalist friends. With the power of the media, we want to reach and share Global Dignity Day to as many people as possible, not only to youth, but also to all layers of society in Indonesia.

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Poland participated in Global Dignity Day 2009, with the help of YGLs Jacek Szwajcowski and Jacek Olechowski. The event took place at Gimnazjum #17 in the city of Lodz. Gimnazjum #17 is a typical high school located in Poland’s second largest city. This school is known for lagging behind the rest of the country behind economically.

Almost 50 kids aged between 13-15, selected by the school among their 400 students to attend this event. Our special guest, Artur Partyka, a former high-jumper and Olympic multi-medalist, and one of Poland’s most respected athletes spoke to the students about the importance of dignity. The students prepared a 10 slide presentation about the concept of dignity, which was followed by a dynamic 60-minute discussion on what matters most in terms of dignity.

The event was covered by local press (tv, radio, print) and websites widely reported on the event. The aim is to take the event to a national level. Ideally we would want to have 6 to 8 schools around Poland hosting Dignity Days at the same time.

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On Monday, October 20th 2009, we celebrated Global Dignity Day in South Africa with 1,120 (one thousand one hundred and twenty) grade 12 students at Diepsloot Combined School. In addition to students from Diepsloot we also had grade 12 students from Itirele Zenzele Comprehensive School and from St Angars Secondary School. These are students who had previously been “written off” as delinquent youth. To this extent I was astounded by the depth of talent and positive energy amongst them.

We were very warmly received by the school principal, Mrs Kgabo who is the principal to two of the schools. We also had two education inspectors from the Department of Education.

With 41% of our population comprising the youth, South Africa has one of the youngest populations in the world. To this extent there is a significant need to ensure that these young people are transformed into productive citizens. It is against this backdrop that I gave them a talk about dignity and their relevance in South Africa and the rest of the world.

The students responded very enthusiastically and I selected a few of them who came up on stage to talk about their visions of themselves in the future. Their aspirations ranged from becoming radio journalists (and two of them gave very entertaining impromptu radio “performances”) to becoming engineers and chartered accountants as well as writers (one of the students shared a very moving piece of writing she had prepared on the aids plague amongst South Africa’s youth).

This was truly a wonderful day and I would like to thank John, Haakon and Pekka for encouraging us to continue to spread the message of Dignity around the world.

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Celebration Dignity Day

20 octubre 2009

In Unidos Somos Iguales, we joined the celebration of the Dignity Day in the following cities: Cuernavaca, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Monterrey.

For this celebration, we held visits to different schools in each city, where 2 Unidos volunteers and 1 person with disabilities facilitated each session, first explaining what dignity is, which are the basic principles of dignity, and reflect on the importance of them.

Then, with the help of the facilitators, we made a team activity with students, where they developed a collage representing what dignity means for them.

To finish, the teams presented their collage to the rest of the class.

For Unidos, Dignity Day represents an expression of our values and philosophy, touching the lives of hundreds of students and creating awareness towards a group that is frequently discriminated and marginalized, which is people with disabilities. Recognizing the value of every human being, despite any kind of social, cultural, physical or intellectual difference, is a path to achieve peace among people and nations.

Unidos somos iguales Cuernavaca

Country: México

State: Morelos

City: Cuernavaca

Name of the school:

- colegio pillicao

- colegio montessori de tepoztlán

- colegio waldorf de Cuernavaca

Grade level and: 5° y 6° primaria

Age of students: 10,11,12,13 years old

Number of students in attendance : 158

Teachers and other persons: 20

Total in attendance : 178

Persons were facilitated the session:

- volunteers 7

- person with disabilities 3

The activity was covered for a newspaper: Diary of Morelos

Unidos somos iguales Guadalajara

Country: México

State: Jalisco

City: Guadalajara

Name of the school:

- centro Escolar Los Altos

- Instituto Alberici A.C.

Grade level and: 4°, 5° y 6° primaria

Age of students: 9, 10,11, 12 years old

Number of students in attendance : 200

Teachers and other persons: 8

Total in attendance :208

Persons were facilitated the session:

- volunteers 4

- person with disabilities 2

Unidos somos iguales Hermosillo

Country: México

State: Sonora

City: Hermosillo

Name of the school:

- Centro de Educación Biligue (CEB)

- Instituto Vanguardia

- Colegio Bicultural Cananea

Grade level and: 1ro., 2do, 3ro preparatoria (15-18 years old)

2do secundaria (13 y 14 years old)

6to. primaria (11 y 12 years old)

Number of students in attendance : 140

Teachers and other persons: 14

Total in attendance : 154

Persons were facilitated the session:

- volunteers 4

- person with disabilities 1

Unidos somos iguales Monterrey

Country: México

State: Nuevo León

City: Monterrey

Name of the school:

- Ciudad de los Niños

- Colegio Mirasierra

- Necali Centro Educativo

- Colegio Mexicano

- Instituto Excelsior

- Colegio Americano Anahuac

- Instituto de Educación Naciones Unidas

- Escuela Juan Jacobo Rousseau

- Instituto Arxe

Number of students in attendance : 990

Teachers and other persons: 29

Total in attendance : 1,040

Persons were facilitated the session:

- volunteers 15

- person with disabilities 6

• next Saturday 31 October, will be held in a mass activity a celebration of dignity day

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