Global Dignity Day is coming to London

Global Dignity Day is once again fast approaching, scheduled this year on 17^th October 2012. This year, Just for Kids Law in the UK will pilot the first Global Dignity Day across London. So far we have 10 schools signed up with nearly 1000 students being reached. Our 20 volunteers will soon be trained as to how to run a Dignity Day and then we will send them out in the real world with a message of dignity, hope and strength.

Besides the red tape and bureaucracy that seems pervasive to any action here in the UK, everyone has been very enthusiastic about the idea. The chance to give young people a way to articulate their ambitions and gaining respect through dignity is an important one. One issue that has been raised by teachers and volunteers we have spoken to is that they don’t want it to be a one-off event. The schools have been particularly enthusiastic about developing an on-going curriculum so that the staff in the schools can continue to talk about Dignity with the students throughout the school year. This is something that we would really like to take forward in the next year and so it has got us thinking about who are the role models who epitomise dignity and what does dignity mean for us?

In our work with troubled young people here in the UK all of our staff have on their desks or by our computers a mantra that was passed on to us by our colleague Sabine, who has now gone to work with refugee children in Egypt. She believes that; ‘Many people talk of changing humanity but few people think about changing themselves’.

Sabine’s rules for herself are:

To be someone with integrity you must

1. Be consistent
2. Use honest communication
3. Be transparent
4. Be humble
5. Put others first
6. Keep your promises
7. Have a servant spirit

We believe that these are great principles to aspire to and try to follow them wherever we can; in our interactions internally at Just for Kids, with the young people we work with and even with the professionals who often want to penalise them. We believe that if we can each individually take responsibility for improving ourselves then we can help to build a world  in which dignity is a right and securing others’ dignity is a responsibility.

As Robert F Kennedy said ‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’

We hope we can do justice to Dignity Day in the UK and  at the very least by the end of October there will be a few more people in this country who will hold their heads up high and feel their own sense of dignity.

If anyone would like to join us here in the UK we would love to have as many people as possible empowering themselves and the future generations.

Author: Shauneen Lambe is Founder and Director of Just for Kids Law, was named a Young Global Leader in 2010 by the World Economic Forum and is the UK Country Chair for Global Dignity.

Global Dignity is a Young Global Leaders Initiative, which was founded by HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Professor Pekka Himanen and John Hope Bryant in 2006. Since then they have worked with many Young Global Leaders and other partners in over 40 countries, hosting what are known as Dignity Days. This involves visiting local schools and communities around the world and teaching a “course in dignity” to youth.

 

Photo Credit: Global Dignity