7th YGL Annual Summit 2011– Dalian, China Blog #4

Dignity

The last session of the first day of the YGL Summit discussed values. The YGL Community is a group that has come to especially appreciate a few values in particular: justice, equity, and dignity.

The conversation then transitioned to the Dignity taskforce that was started in 2005 by H.R.H. Prince Haakon, John Hope Bryant and Pekka Himanen.

Haakon spoke about how the concept of dignity came about. It all started in 2005 when the first group of YGLs met in Zermatt and spoke about the ways to become our best selves. He went on to tell us that when he and other YGLs boiled down the essence of giving back to society, it came down to one value, dignity. Then and there they launched Global Dignity.

 Their organization focuses on Global Dignity Day, which is celebrated on October 20^th and now takes place in more than 50 countries. He asked any of us who are interested to join in the effort to jump in. Then he posed the question: How will you use your power to increase the dignity of others? What is your dignity story? He defined it as a story about doing something meaningful for someone else, or someone doing something meaningful for you.

At the end of the day Professor Schwab joined the YGL Community and told us his story. He told us how and why he started the Forum of YGLs and added that the Global Dignity project is one of the achievements of the World Economic Forum that he is most proud of. 

 He expressed his wish that we share our dignity, insights and impacts, as well as learn from the latest community created by the Forum, the Global Shapers, which is curated by a team of YGLs. He left us with this quote:

“If we want to have dignity and respect dignity, that bridge is service. When you are in business you are measured by the balance sheet. In business it’s important to take more than you give, which determines your profit. But we need to conduct our lives in the opposite way. At the end of our lives, we are measured by how much we have given, not how much we have taken.”