January 28 2024: Talking about the Humanity Project’s emphasis on self-worth
The Humanity Project was founded in 2005 with one central focus: to promote individual self-worth. Despite our many changes in all those years, that goal remains our focus. Briefly, we’d like to explain why this is true.
Our stated mission is “instilling greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity.” And our trademarked motto is “Equality for Each, Respect for All!” How, then, is self-worth the focus of the Humanity Project’s work? Those statements sound as if our efforts involve social change more than individual change.
But here’s the connection, which some folks may not realize when looking over our programs: We promote social changes that result in the individual improvements we seek — that is, greater self-worth. For example, research has shown for decades that school bullying damages student psyches, lowering a child’s sense of value as a human being. Other kids are making fun of them, afterall, or even harming them physically. Obviously, this often makes bullying victims feel bad about themselves. So our acclaimed, nationally known antibullying programs help to stop the bullying, which is the immediate goal. But the true underlying intent of our programs is to prevent individual students from suffering psychological scars that may diminish their self-worth for a lifetime.
This underlying goal is also the reason the Humanity Project works as close allies of organizations in the LGBTQ community, whose individuals are disproportionately bullied and attacked, verbally and physically. And for the same reason the Humanity Project does whatever we can to promote the value of religious and racial minorities as well as all genders. By laboring for equality and respect-for-all, we’re really working to ensure that more people have the opportunity to feel good about who they are. That effort, that goal, is the fundamental “project” in our name — to create greater self-worth among our fellow humans. Or as many of us as we can reach, anyway.
Yes, equality for each, respect for all. Yes indeed, greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity. These are just lovely ways of saying that the Humanity Project wants each person to appreciate their own worth, which in turn allows them to appreciate the worth of other people. We hope to inspire a recognition of our individual humanity … and thereby, the humanity of everyone else. That’s the Humanity Project.
