This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Dignity, by Jacqueline Novogratz.
Dignity is more important than wealth. It’s going to be a long, long time before we can make everyone on earth wealthy, but we can help people find dignity this year (right now if we choose to).
Dignity comes from creating your own destiny and from the respect you get from your family, your peers and society.
A farmer able to feed his family and earn enough to send his kids to school has earned the respect of the people in his village—and more important, a connection to rest of us.
It’s easy to take dignity away from someone but difficult to give it to them. The last few years have taught us just how connected the entire world is — a prostitute in the slums of Nairobi is just an important figure in your life as the postman in the next town. And in a world where everything is connected, the most important thing we can do is treat our fellows with dignity.
Giving a poor person food or money might help them survive another day... but it doesn’t give them dignity. There’s a better way.
Creating ways for people to solve their own problems isn’t just an opportunity in 2010. It is an obligation.
Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder of the Acumen Fund and author of The Blue Sweater.
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