In Defense Of Human Dignity

On April 20, 2023, the Humanity Project Board of Directors posted a public statement in defense of human dignity. The statement was unanimously approved by all ten directors as a direct response to attacks on educational freedoms as well as against the right of individuals to live as they believe best.

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On Human Dignity: Public Statement by the Humanity Project Board of Directors

April 20, 2023

As a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting “equality for each, respect for all,” the Humanity Project is deeply disturbed by the many recent attacks on human dignity in Florida and around the country. Our home state, Florida, has passed several legislative actions that limit what and how teachers can teach. We believe this infringes on educators’ ability to effectively apply their training and experience. We also believe efforts to ban lessons on gender diversity, sexual orientation and racial issues are antithetical to promoting a more just and peaceful world. Thoughtful, age-appropriate information allows young people to better understand themselves and to form compassionate bonds with others. Beyond these attacks on education, politicians in Florida and elsewhere continue to vilify our rich cultural heritage and gender non-conforming art, enacting laws that criminalize drag performance. History shows us that drag is a unique art form, long a staple of the theatrical world. We deplore the misrepresentation of drag performers as unhealthy influences on our society. And we stand by our friends in the drag entertainment community. Equally disturbing to us are efforts to restrict the reproductive freedom of Florida women. We believe that denying people control over their own bodies and health amounts to government bullying. The Humanity Project cannot idly witness the bullying of any human beings who ask only the opportunity to be who they are. Nor can we accept the undermining of school curricula in ways that diminish a realistic understanding of our world. By law, the Humanity Project is a non-political, non-religious organization. Our mission remains “instilling greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity.” We hope this statement of support for our schools and our fellow community members may contribute to that goal.

The statement also is available as a video read by Humanity Project Board members: Watch the video

Playlist For Educators

We have something new for both educators and students. The Humanity Project has assembled an “Educators Playlist” of inspiring videos for young people — all of them free, of course, and all available on our Humanity Project YouTube Channel.

You’ll discover videos that are appropriate for a wide range of kids: many for younger students, others for high school or even college-age youth. Some of these vids were made with the help of our Humanity Project students, others created solely by Humanity Project adults for younger viewers. We hope you may explore some of our awesome offerings … Oh, and here’s another link to share with any educators or guidance counselors or school media specialists you may know. This will take you directly to the Educators Playlist.

Again, it’s all free, all inspiring, all educational … and all of it, lots of fun. We believe both educators and kids will benefit from watching the videos on our new playlist. And we think you’ll enjoy watching them too.

#HeyAdults: Kids Tell How To Save The World

The Humanity Project invites kids of all ages to join our new online conversation. We call it #HeyAdults... The series of short videos features children giving their own advice to adults about how to make a better world. Our Humanity Project kids start the ball rolling in a series of videos talking about such problems as stopping climate change, ending war, reforming social media and more. If you are 18 or younger, post your own one-minute video with the hashtag #HeyAdults. If you know a child who may want to take part, please pass on the info. Maybe kids can figure out some things we adults have yet to grasp.

Sponsor A Child

Are you looking for a meaningful way to make a difference in the world? Our unique Humanity Club program uses the arts to teach diverse groups of young student leaders the values of respect, equality and self-worth. Now you can make a lasting impact on these children – and help them to share their important values with many other kids.

Your $10 monthly donation enables another young leader to work toward a society that truly offers "equality for each, respect for all." Though we can’t tell you specifically which child will benefit from your support, we promise that your money is an investment in the future of our students. Just $10 a month helps a youngster grow into a strong and confident leader who inspires positive change in the community.

Use this link to visit our “Sponsor A Child” page, where you can look over the options to directly help our kids. Join us in this vital effort by sponsoring a Humanity Club child today. **

**Your contributions are deductible for federal tax purposes. You can cancel your monthly donation at any time.

Golden Transparency

See that seal on this page, that coveted Gold Seal of Transparency? Yes, 2023 has only just begun. But the Humanity Project already has earned that 2023 seal from Candid/GuideStar, the highly respected national nonprofit information service.

We’re proud of that. It means the Humanity Project is open about our practices and our finances. And it means you can have confidence when donating to our diligent efforts to “inspire greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity”… our mission. For the entire 17-plus years of our existence, we’ve worked hard to maintain high ethical standards. We use the money from our great sponsors and individual donors in ways that further our mission. That’s one reason we get funding from important organizations such as State Farm and The Our Fund Foundation, among others.

Thank you, Candid/GuideStar for the latest show of support for the Humanity Project. As always, we will do our best to justify your opinion of our nonprofit and the vital work we do.

Finding Unity In Humanity

Today we officially welcome the talented Silvana Sanchez to our Humanity Project team. She is an award-winning graphic and web designer who lives in Costa Rica, working for an American design company based in Minnesota. Silvana and her colleagues just won a prestigious World Brand Design Society competition for their “Not on My Watch” campaign, which was launched to educate people about defunding the police following the murder of George Floyd.

Recently Silvana contacted the Humanity Project to offer us her services. “I LOVE what you are doing!” she wrote in her first email. Silvana also discovered something that had eluded us during our entire 17+ year existence: the letters for the word “unity” are included in the word “humanity.” Her original design for the Humanity Project below shows how cleverly and effectively she used that observation.

Silvana stresses that she wants no payment for helping the Humanity Project. With nearly all our funds going toward program-related expenses, we greatly appreciate her enthusiastic volunteer spirit. And we look forward to an ongoing and exciting creative relationship with Silvana Sanchez. We think our partnership can inspire more people to work for a world with “equality for each, respect for all.” Thank you, Silvana … and welcome aboard!

Pledge Your Humanity

The Humanity Project believes we have especially important work to do in 2023. As attacks increasingly threaten the rights and freedoms of many groups of people, our 17-year-old nonprofit promotes “Equality For Each, Respect For All!” We work closely with the LGBTQ community, with racial and religious minorities and with all genders to teach our positive values to anyone who needs to learn these lessons.

One of several ways we do this is by obtaining signatures on our Humanity Project “Pledge For Humanity.” In the accompanying image, you see a screenshot of our website’s pledge page. We already have hundreds of signers — and now we’d like you to take the pledge too. It makes you an official Humanity Project member at no cost. But more importantly, we believe it helps individuals to remember some key ideas and to apply them to their daily life more often. When we freely take a meaningful pledge, many of us regard it seriously — we have made a public commitment, afterall. Our Pledge for Humanity commits us to living with respect for others and ourselves.

We have one other request to make of you today: When you sign, would you send the link to five friends or family members, asking them to sign as well? This can expand our campaign and spread our values to many more folks who might not find us otherwise. We appreciate anything you can do to help our campaign for equality, respect and self-worth. If you agree with our pledge, please take a minute to sign it now. And share it. Thank you! Sign the Pledge for Humanity.

You Are Somebody

More than anything else, the Humanity Project stands for this value: self-worth. The belief that you and every other human being are important … and possess equal value to everyone else. You are somebody!

We teach this to kids through our Humanity Club and Antibullying Through The Arts programs, which we offer in schools, parks, libraries and any place we can connect with children. We then help those kids to reach their peers with the same message: You are somebody special … and so is everybody! Our approach includes lessons directly focused on self-worth and other lessons centered on the value of others, including videos, music, games, art projects and more about respect, diversity and equality. We find that the combination of these approaches works best: feelings of self-worth allow people to value others — and feelings of respect for others contribute to a sense of self-worth. One concept reinforces the others.

You might enjoy seeing two new videos created by our Humanity Club kids at two different schools. They express some of the lessons learned in our programs. The first is by the great kids at Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary under their teacher Piper Spencer: Watch the video, Respect Feels Good.

Then there’s this cool vid by the wonderful Humanity Club at Dania Elementary under Elysia Page and Claudia Fortoul: Watch the video, Raise The World.

We think you’ll enjoy both brief videos. And perhaps get some better sense of the values we teach at the Humanity Project. “Equality For Each, Respect For All!” And as the basis for it all, self-worth. That’s what the Humanity Project is really about.

Serving Our Children & Families

Thank you, Children’s Services Council of Broward County. Again.

CSC has been a highly valued partner of the Humanity Project for more than 15 years… and counting. That important tax-funded agency has just approved money for our Humanity Club program so that we can bring together more young students and teachers and parents to expand our garden at Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary School in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Last year, you may recall, we built a lovely Humanity Garden at this school. Now we can make it bigger and better, an even more welcoming place for reflection, relaxation and learning about the values of equality and respect-for-all. We’ll hold a community event this winter to do that with our new CSC funds.

Pics from our 2021-22 Humanity Garden

The mission of Children’s Services Council of Broward County, in their words, “is to provide leadership, advocacy, and resources necessary to enhance the lives of the children of Broward County and empower them to become responsible, productive adults through collaborative planning and funding of a continuum of quality care.” CSC funds more than 100 programs that assist kids and families. They also support kid-friendly and family-friendly policies as well as help bring together those who work toward better lives for children and parents.

We want to make sure to thank Cindy Arenberg Seltzer, President and CEO of Children’s Services Council of Broward County. Her strong staff includes folks such as Dr. Sharetta Remikie, Chief Equity and Community Engagement Officer, and Andrew Leone, Director of Communications and Community Engagement along with too many others to name. We are grateful to each of these dedicated community activists — and to CSC Broward. We can’t do it without you.

The Giving Season -- Please Help

Since at least the time of Dickens, this has been the season of giving. To quote that master writer’s A Christmas Carol: “At this festive season of the year … it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute.” We couldn’t agree more. But with the passing of many years, the holidays have become a season of helping other kinds of charities and nonprofits as well. Now there’s even a day dedicated to charitable donations, “Giving Tuesday.” This year Giving Tuesday happens on November 29.

We hope you will consider the Humanity Project as you mull your holiday contributions.

You may already know that we have earned the Gold Seal of Transparency from GuideStar/Candid, the highly respected nonprofit information service. And perhaps you’re also aware that our acclaimed programs help both kids and adults for free — we never charge for our programs or other materials. You may not realize, though, that nearly 100% of our funding goes toward program-related expenses. That’s very unusual in the nonprofit world and we’re proud of it.

You might like to read a few of the many many testimonials the Humanity Project has accumulated during our 17-year history: Read testimonials. Or look over our programs, videos, writings, blogs and more on this website. Maybe you’d also like to sign our popular Pledge for Humanity. Then, we hope, you may consider visiting our safe secure online Donate page: Visit our Donate page.

We believe the Humanity Project is a special organization of dedicated and experienced individuals working toward a highly valuable goal: “Equality For Each, Respect For All.” And we are deeply grateful to the companies and foundations and other organizations as well as all the people who make our work possible through their contributions. If you can, we hope you’ll join us.

Our Kids Helping Hurricane Victims

Holy cow! Look at that number on the big check our kids are holding: $1,192 … money they raised to help victims of Hurricane Ian. Impressive, isn’t it?

We want to thank our Humanity Club student leaders at Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary School in Pembroke Pines, Florida for their amazing fundraising efforts. It was spearheaded by the wonderful Piper Spencer, a Humanity Project Board Director and teacher at that school. Piper helps us lead weekly meetings with the Pines Charter Elementary Humanity Club. At her suggestion, our kids held fundraising events that pulled in some big money for hurricane relief efforts. The money is going to our friends and partners at Neighbors 4 Neighbors, a South Florida nonprofit founded in 1992 to aid folks hurt by Hurricane Andrew. We’re told our Humanity Project money will go toward mental health services for Ian’s victims as well as first responders and social service workers there. Bravo!

Humanity Club is just one of the Humanity Project’s acclaimed programs. And thanks to a generous grant from Our Fund Foundation, Humanity Club will be in more schools and other locations than ever before in a single year. We work with young student leaders on the values of self-worth, equality and respect, then guide them as they share what they’ve learned with schoolmates and other peers.

So a big thank you to our Humanity Club in Pembroke Pines for caring enough to show respect for people in desperate need — in this case, respect in the form of dollars that can make a genuine difference.

A Foundation Of Goodness

Our Fund Foundation has grown into a national presence: Our Fund now is this country’s third largest LGBTQ foundation. This amazing organization under the leadership of the dynamic David Jobin supports, in their own words, “people who care, causes that matter.” The Humanity Project is proud that Our Fund is one of our longtime major sponsors.

Our partnership has become even stronger in recent days, with important generous new funding that allows the Humanity Project to expand our acclaimed antibullying programs with a focus on key human values — equality, diversity, respect-for-all, self-worth. This means we reach many more kids, influence many more lives through Our Fund’s vital support. And stop the bullying that disproportionately damages young LGBTQ students.

One of our many Humanity Project kids, delivering an important message

At a time when schools are under political assault, including Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, the Humanity Project knows it’s more important than ever to connect in meaningful ways with students about core values. Values that help prevent bullying, encourage common decency and teach the central significance of healthy relationships with others and with oneself. That’s what our Humanity Club and Antibullying Through The Arts programs do. We are lucky, very lucky, that the good folks at Our Fund understand this too.

Our Fund continues to progress as an organization, efforts that include their new strategic plan. Kudos not only to David Jobin, then, but also to wonderful people such as Obed Caballero, Mark Blaylock, Ted Vasquez, Wendy Flores-Bravo as well as Board Chair Scott Bennett and too many others to name. They are a great team. And together they make this community a much better place. Thank you, Our Fund Foundation, for helping the Humanity Project to do more and be more. We would not be the same without you. (Check out our new Humanity Project video: “Thank you, Our Fund!”)

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(Fables and some music are copyrighted by the author, Robert Spencer Knotts.)

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