The Dignity Project

We invite you to join us in The Dignity Project, our movement within a movement, whose mission is to illuminate our common humanity and home, to uplift the global conversation as a whole, and to spark the dawning of a new era of dignity on Earth.

By dignity, we mean our intrinsic self-worth, as well as the recognition and honouring of that same innate worth in each human being, and in nature.

Dignity is that sense of one’s own value and wholeness that is the precondition for self-empowered choice, respect for others, and responsible stewardship.

So much of what we are witnessing today — hatred, poverty, wastefulness, the degradation of our environment, cruelty to living creatures, profligacy with our precious resources, and so on— all are the result of a critical loss of dignity.

In the larger global discussion, dignity has been largely overlooked.

If all of life is perceived as only having value once it becomes an asset on a balance sheet — which is only once it has been extracted and converted into a commodity — then not only is it not being accorded its proper dignity, that dignity is not even under consideration. This same kind of metric has been applied to valuing human beings, and to all of nature, and we are witnessing its effects now.

It is a shortsighted, insufficient and limiting worldview. It has abstracted as meaningless so much that deeply matters. And it has not produced the happy, healthy and flourishing world we know is possible for us.

That is why now is the moment for us to be bold and to claim, as a human family, a far more expansive, compassionate and inclusive view. We must act urgently, but wisely, to avert the great environmental crises we now face, as well as to resolve the crises presently unfolding in our social structures.

Many, many solutions to our challenges are already present; it is rather humanity’s habitual behaviours, attitudes and assumptions that must change, in order to make these solutions workable.

This is why the restoration of dignity is so crucial. It is difficult to move from survival mode into miracle mode — not due to a lack of resources, but due to a lack of feeling worthy.

Our dignity cannot be given, nor can it be taken away; it is innate. But it can be laid down, particularly if we believe something about our worthiness that isn’t true.

Fortunately, dignity can always be reclaimed.

It is time for us to come together and catalyze that

evolutionary leap so many of us have been feeling, to boldly accelerate our collective shift into the caring, compassionate, creative species that we know, deep down, we are meant to be.

As an organization, The PoEM is a stand for collaboration; hence we select, cultivate and partner with projects that restore dignity, and serve as templates that can be replicated throughout the world. We also initiate our own initiatives.

This is our heartfelt call to you, to come join us in taking timely, coordinated and effective action to put dignity back on the map.