To break the manacles of the poverty of injustice, we must invest not in profits alone but in dignity. Investing in ways to ensure all children have a quality education is investing in dignity....Changing the narrative around poverty means focusing on human dignity. It means building inclusive systems that recognize the benefits and costs of our actions on other human beings and on the planet as well. And recognizing we will not truly have dignity until all of us do.
That is an idea worth living for.
Jacqueline Novogratz
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In July 2020 we are launching the Dignity Project. Our hope is to have every child go to school with a new pair of shoes. There is nothing more likely to be used to unfairly measure your worth than your appearance, however unjust that maybe. As children we use it to judge ourselves: You measure how much you belong in a place by the way you look or by the way others look at you. As a child it determines even your level of participation in the classroom, and ultimately affects your learning.
A new pair of shoes puts you on an equal footing with everybody else. It restores dignity to self and makes you feel equal, the same as everybody else, and, that you can contribute as much as the next person in class.
Children should not worry about their self worth in class, only about their learning. The Dignity Project aims to provide quality shoes at a low price, made in Sierra Leone. This will end cyclic poverty: by creating jobs for those providing the shoes, and by providing an opportunity to focus on education to the ones who wear them.
Come join us in training shoe makers and hand crafters so we can supply high quality kicks for kids.