In preparation for attending our workshops, all participants are always kindly asked to make themselves familiar with the Appreciative Enquiry Frame that we use in our work. See an introduction created by Linda Hartling on November 21, 2023
(see also 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2015, 2014 (see also Pdf), 2012, 2011, and see An Appreciative Frame, written by Linda Hartling in 2005, and see also an early overview)

All participants were always asked to kindly learn about our Dignilogue (Dignity + Dialogue) Approach and Connection-Reflection Groups

All our workshops are invitations to explore how we can best deepen, grow, and practice the global message of dignity — now and far into the future.

If you wish to participate in our workshops, please send an email to workshops@humiliationstudies.org. Please kindly include your contact information and any other details you would like to share with our community (such as CV, papers, articles, presentations, video links, etc.).

Please know that you are always invited to spend the entire workshop with us, so that true dignity-family building can emerge. All our events are part of an ongoing effort to nurture a global community of people who wish to nurture more dignity in the world. The workshop series follows a format of organic growth, and is thus different from mainstream conferences. In all our events, our aim is to create a community — rather than having an "audience" listen to "speakers" or "presenters." All participants are warmly invited to fill out our Appreciative Introduction form (Word | PDF) and send it to us or bring it with them.

There is no registration fee, we share minimal cost according to ability. To cover our expenses, we always summarise the costs during the conference and invite participants to contribute according to their ability. This collaborative approach to financing allows us to keep the conference affordable for all. Our work is a labor of love and maintained entirely by those who give their time and energy as a gift. All our efforts are pro bono and not-for-profit endeavors. Everyone who participates does so because of dignity, because of their appreciation for our work for dignity. Nobody is there "for the money," nobody is being paid, there is no "paid staff." This is our way of walking our talk of "being the change we want to see in the world." We welcome all donations to this workshop, be it your time, your creativity, or, if you wish, your economic support (please see this secure link). We thank all participants in our conferences for being fully responsible for bearing the cost of their own travel, transportation, and accommodation arrangements. We also strive to organize our conferences as Green Conferences. Thank you for your loving support!

This page is part of our larger website that serves as a "virtual field journal" and an open resource, documenting all of our events and initiatives over time, always remaining available to our global dignity community. Our members regularly consider a variety of electronic options for sharing our efforts on social media (see, for instance, the Digniworld initiative), and we have found it beneficial to keep the main HumanDHS website organized by posting the contents of events on extended pages, with links to additional information both on other pages of our website and on external places. The entire website resembles a large "organism," a large web of content that weaves together our entire work since 2001.

During our conferences, we always ask all participants for their permission to have their pictures or videos posted on our website, however, if you change your mind later, either in total or for specific pictures/videos, please let us know! Thank you! Since we wish to walk the talk of dignity, it is very important for us to do our utmost in respecting everybody's privacy. We refrain from gathering written permissions from you during our conferences, since we value the building of mutual trust in relationships, and we also would like to refrain from contributing to an ever more bureaucratic and legalistic society.

• For previous workshops, see a compilation of all NY workshops and the newsletters written after these conferences.

• This workshop will be the twentieth workshop in a series that began in 2003. See an overview over all our previous conferences and see the workshops of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

Please click on the images to see them larger

• Please watch Linda Hartling explaining the use of the camera and microphone during this workshop (Video on Day Three of the 2021 workshop)

• Please note that all sessions are being recorded except for the Connection-Reflection Groups.
If you do not wish to be recorded, you are asked to please kindly turn off your video and microphone.

• In all our gatherings, we ask you to please kindly mute your microphone and turn off your video during plenary sessions
to protect the quality of our electronic connection. Thank you!

Carriers of Hope
Don Klein Memorial Lecture by Michael Britton, HumanDHS Board Member
(Video | Video recorded on December 6, 2023)

Michael is a HumanDHS Board Director, who has been part of the community since 2007. He has been our Don Klein Memorial lecturer since it was created, and is the recipient of our 2017 Lifetime Commitment Award! He is a co-founder of Dignity Now NYC which, thanks to Zoom, is now also global. He is Vice President of the International Psychohistory Association, and has lectured locally and internationally.


Michael uses Don's metaphor of a scrim, a transparent stage curtain, where one believes that what one sees is reality only as long as the light shines on it in a certain way: see Don's explanation.

Effecting Change:
Maintaining, While Venturing Beyond, Our Safe Circles
A Workshop within a Workshop facilitated by David Yamada, Director of the WDUi


(Video | Pdf)

The outcome goal of the workshop is to encourage future planning and action.

How many of us feel the tug between seeking safe and comforting communities of friends and compatriots, and wanting to be forces of positive change in response to the very fraught and often angry world swirling around us?
Communities such as HumanDHS provide support, affirmation, refuge from the figurative storms, and sounding boards to float ideas, opinions, and artistic expression. These safe circles are invaluable for maintaining our well-being. If, however, we wish to serve as change agents, then typically we must venture beyond those safe circles, often in a more public setting. These activities may involve, among other things:

• Writing and publishing • Performing (theatre, music) • Creating (artistic work in any form; groups & organizations) • Speaking, discussing, facilitating, and conversing (in any medium) • Designing • Running (as in for elective office) • Protesting • Leading/administering (organizations, groups, projects) • Testifying (in any venue) • Teaching (in any setting) • Organizing • Caretaking • Building • Inventing • Healing • Advocating • Negotiating/Mediating • …and otherwise putting ourselves “out there.”

These efforts and the responses they attract may be fulfilling, rewarding, and impactful. They also may be exhausting, frustrating, and possibly threatening. In some cases, they may trigger past difficult or traumatic experiences. In such circumstances, we understandably may seek to return to safer grounds, for brief or longer periods of time.
This workshop recognizes that duality. It will invite us to pose questions to ourselves, applying one of two frameworks for inquiry:

The first option is roughly adapted from a social action research model:
• Personal vision and assessment: What kind of change do I want to see? What can I do to help achieve it?
What personal and external resources do I have to engage in a change agent mode? What are my places of support and affirmation amid all this, and how do I nurture and maintain them?
• Specific actions: What specific actions do I want to take? How do I do them? How do I monitor my own well-being?
• Challenges: What personal barriers or obstacles might make it difficult for me to engage in the activity I
wish to pursue? How do I work through or overcome them?
• Evaluation: How do I measure success? How am I doing, personally?

The second option is a personal SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) model:
• Strengths: What strengths do I bring to this desired realm of activity?
• Weaknesses: What weaknesses do I bring to this desired realm of activity?
• Opportunities: What opportunities do I have to make a difference?
• Threats: What threats may present themselves as I engage in this activity?

Our Workshop-Within-a-Workshop Time (90 minutes): During our workshop-within-a- workshop, we will divide our time this way:

• Describe the purpose of the workshop (15 minutes): The modest goals of this time together.
• Release time (30 minutes): You step away, apply a framework for inquiry, search the Web, etc. (Those who do not have access to the internet can use the time to make notes and a develop a research plan to pursue once they do have internet access. They can then discuss their plans during the small group sessions, even if they are in a more tentative state.)
~Take notes! Especially if this theme resonates with you, the thinking you do here may lead to something much more substantive.
~With online searches, ask away! E.g., “How to start a podcast/blog/newsletter,” “How to create an online course,” “How to post comments on news sites,” “How to become a (fill in the blank),” “How to contact an elected/appointed public official,” “How to engage in self-care.”
• Small groups (30 minutes): Folks are invited to share whatever salient point(s) they wish from what they learned and/or planned via this exercise.
• Reconvene as a full group (15 minutes): Quick summing up.

* HumanDHS Board Member & WDU Director. Professor of Law and Director, New Workplace Institute, Suffolk
University Law School, Boston, MA. Email: dyamada@suffolk.edu.

Kindly consider also:
Storey, Valerie, and Roschanda Fletcher (2023). "Developing scholar activists: The role of the EdD." In Impacting Education, 8 (1), pp. 1–8. doi: 10.5195/ie.2023.277.
Abstract: A qualitative descriptive approach was followed in the research, starting with a theoretical conceptualization of scholar activism within doctoral education as a basis for further inquiry. Seventeen doctoral candidates described how they conceptualized and applied the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate's (CPED) Framework for the Emerging EdD Activist to their experiences in an online program. Study respondents gave accounts of growing confidence to engage in active, vocal advocacy, which they attributed to their new knowledge and understandings gained through participation in the program. However, for some mid-career students, increased vocal advocacy in the workplace was perceived as endangering career prospects. The data draw attention to the complexity of the professional learning process, calling into question the current input- output model of activism. Further research is necessary to develop a greater understanding of the relationship between a developing scholar-activist and the impact of the EdD and precisely how that can be measured. The findings from this study have implications for program developers and doctoral students wishing to become scholar-activists and agents of change.

David Yamada is a law professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where he has been doing important work on addressing workplace bullying and expanding the field of therapeutic jurisprudence. He has been a member of our HumanDHS Board for many years and recently agreed to become the director of the WDUi. Kindly learn more about the WDU initiative on our education page, in newsletter 12, in the 2021 workshop's Pre-Planned Dignilogue #4: Plotting the Future of the World Dignity University Initiative, or in the 2022 Workshop within a Workshop facilitated by David Yamada, Non-Degree Higher and Adult Education to Advance Human Dignity.

Carrying the Message Forward — Concluding Appreciations and Inspirations for
— Evelin Lindner, Linda Hartling, David Yamada, and Michael Britton
(Video)

Musical ending
In the spirit of our motto of Unity in Diversity, Fred Ellis and his young students have always contributed with singing songs from many cultural backgrounds
(Video 2018)

BYOP: Bring Your Own Pizza Party!
(Video)

A big thank you to all
film, music, movement, and poetry contributors
throughout the workshop!

• Zuzka Kurtz and Geoffrey Hug kindly offer their feature length documentary film titled Hudson, America, where they follow a group of Bangladeshi students in Upstate NY from 2016 – 2022! Thank you for this profound and crucially important work, dear Zuzka and Geoffrey! Thank you for offering a free link for our dignity community (upon request from zk@zuzkakurtz.com)!

• Francisco Gomes de Matos kindly composed a rhymed reflection as a contribution to this Workshop on November 7, 2023:

A world without a war
Humanity as never before
Peace opening every door
Let's wish that from our core

• Joanie Calem offers an old Jewish legend that there are always 36 sparks of holy light traveling around in different people to keep the world running right, and we never know where that spark might be, so we have to treat each other with the respect and dignity befitting that holiness... Joanie offers a video of the song and the story combined on her YouTube channel.
In 2021, Joanie Calem shared reflections (Video 2021) and thoughts (Video 2021). She also sang No Borders (Video | Video recorded on November 17, 2021)

• Bonnie Selterman kindly composed a poem titled No Such Thing, for this year's workshop (Video recorded in November 2023 | Pdf).
Thank you so much, dear Bonnie! Each year, you offer us your immensely dignifying creativity!

• Dearest Ella Autti, what a gift you are to our dignity work! You have so many talents! From singing to graphic design! Thank you so much for singing Over the Rainbow for us in our 2022 workshop (Video), and for contributing with Cover Me in Sunshine" to our 2023 workshop (Video)!

Anastasia Sarantos Taskin, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Anastasia Sarantos Taskin is a former private investigator and Massachusetts Public Defender, who has maintained a general criminal and civil litigation practice in Massachusetts and New York for more than 30 years and a commercial, bioethics and community mediation practice since 2015.

Thank you for beign a pillar of our dignity work since 2016, dear Anastasia!

Anna Strout, Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York City, U.S.A.

Dear Anna! We have many names for you, and all the names we have for you express our love, gratitude, and admiration for you! We have names such as Dignity Angel...!
How can we ever thank you enough for your wonderful presence, including your gift of photography! We cannot imagine our workshops without your presence anymore, since Zehlia Babaci-Wilhite brought you to us in 2012!

Thank you so much for jumping in and doing Zoom photography in these times of a pandemic where everything had to be virtual:

• Thanks so much also for sharing this Message to the World — Prevent Domestic Violence in our 2020 workshop! (PSA shared on November 15, 2020 | Small poster | Video)
(PSA = a public service announcement in the public interest disseminated without charge, with the objective of raising awareness)

Andrea Bartoli, New York City

Andrea Bartoli is the President of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, representing the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic association that was originally founded in Rome and now with a worldwide membership dedicated to social service and peacebuilding. He has been a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio since 1970. He is also the Executive Adviser of the Soka Institute for Global Solutions (SIGS). [read more]

Angelique Santiago, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

1. Dignity Education/Learning 2. Dignity through Dialogue 3. Conflict Transformation

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Angelique! We are very happy to have you with us!

Antony D'Oliveira, Global

Antony's YouTube channel says: "Be the guinea pig of your own experience"

Thank you, dear Ariel, for introducing us to Antony! A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Antony! We are very happy to have you with us!

Chipamong (Chipa) Chowdhury, or Bhante Revata Dhamma (monk's name, known in the monastic communities), Nomad Eco-Monk, with interest in Nomadic life, Buddhism/Cinema, Pali literature, Religion/Politics/global affairs

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Bhante Revata explained, "It reminds me of the words 'Agitate, educate and organize' by Dr. Ambedkar."

Thank you so much, dear Bhante, for your most inspiring life as a "nomad eco-monk"! We remember how you wrote to us in 2008 after you got to know about our work in the United Nations Indigenous Forum, in the Seventh Session “Climate change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: The stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges,” April 21 – May 2, 2008. Your wish was to participate in our 2008 Norway conference, however, you were ultimately hindered to join us, and we were delighted to have you with us in our 2008 workshop in New York City! From then on you have been a gift of dignity in every single of our workshops, every year! By now, you have grown to be a core member of our dignity nurturing team, and we thank you for being such a gift to the world and to our dignity community!

Thank you so much for initiating and co-editing this important and most touching book, and for writing the Preface:
Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael F. Britton, and Linda M. Hartling (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Thank you for contributing to this year's workshop with taking wonderful pictures!

Thank you also for your many generous and important contributions to last year's workshop:
• A Poem — Inner Dignity for Daily Meditation and Reflection shared on Day Two (Video)
• You offered a Bonus Session titled Pandemic, Inner Adventure, and Nomad Mindfulness! on Day Two of the workshop (Video)
• You contributed to Dignilogue 5 on Day Three with Buddhism Activism Democracy in Myanmar (Video)
• At the end of the workshop, you introduced your friends (Video)

You also contributed richly to the 2020 workshop:
• Bhante Revata Dhamma: The Nomad Monk (Videos recorded in 2020, brought together by Linda Hartling on December 3, 2020)

Elaine Meis, New York City

Elaine Meis is a political activist and a member of the New York City Dignity Now Group.

Message from Evelin Lindner: Thank you so much, dear Elaine, for being a pillar of the Digniplanning Team for this workshop and for hosting Dignilogue 5 both in 2020 and 2021!
Dear Elaine, Linda and I have recently discussed that we share a loving and tender affection for all living creatures, including us humans, something that can move us to tears when we see the beauty of it. For me, I can say that the joy of connection and loving care is what keeps me alive. Not all people seem to share this affection, YOU have it! We CELEBRATE you!

2020: Continuing Connections: Dignity Now Groups for Developing Ongoing Dialogue (Video)

Evelin Lindner, Global

"Dignity, for me, is the ability to stand tall with open arms, lovingly welcoming all others as equals in worthiness."

Evelin Lindner is the founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS). She has also developed the idea of the World Dignity University initiative and is its co-founder, including Dignity Press and World Dignity University Press. All initiatives are not-for-profit efforts. Evelin has a dual education as a Medical Doctor and a Psychologist, with a Ph.D. in Medicine from the University in Hamburg in Germany, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo. Her first book, based on her doctoral dissertation in psychology, Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict, was honored as "Outstanding Academic Title" by the journal Choice in 2007. She has since written five more books. She lives and teaches globally and is affiliated, among others, with the the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College, Columbia University. Please see her background at humiliationstudies.org/whoweare/evelin.php.

Kindly see, among others:
• Synopsis: From Humiliation to Dignity: For a Future of Global Solidarity. Lake Oswego, OR: World Dignity University Press, Dignity Press, 2022 (Pdf)
• From Humiliation to Dignity: For a Future of Global Solidarity – The Coronavirus Pandemic as Opportunity in the Midst of Suffering (Original | Pdf), in InterViews: An Interdisciplinary Journal in Social Sciences, 7 (1), 2020, pp. 30–50, doi: 10.36061/IV.7.1.20.30.50
• Bringing Dignity to Globalisation: A Psychologist’s Personal Experience as a Global Citizen - Evelin Lindner’s Global Life. Book proposal created in response to an invitation by Louise Sundararajan, Series Editor of the Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology, 2019

Fatma Susan Tufan, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Fatma Susan Tufan has been a member of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies since 2019. She holds a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Peace and Justices from Moravian University, Pennsylvania., U.S.A., and an M.A. in the Social-Psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. She also completed an Advanced Certificate Program in Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at the Morton-Deutsch International Cooperation and Conflict Resolution Center, Columbia University.
In her work, Fatma primarily focuses on sustainable solutions to drivers of conflict in human relations. She has 18 years of experience in Interfaith Dialogue. Currently, she is working on turning her dialogue and constructive conflict related real-life experiences into stories to share with the rest of the world. Fatma identifies herself as a global citizen. [read more]

Gay Rosenblum-Kumar, New York City

Message from Evelin Lindner: Dear Gay, your support for our dignity work since 2001 has been immensely enriching and of exceptional substance! Every fall, when I was in New York City, we met in the UN cafeteria for lunch and we shared past year's insights! And you joined our workshops in 2004 2007, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021!

Dear Gay, I learned so much each time you invited me to share my reflections:
• How Are Dignity and Humiliation Relevant in Our Lives, Our Societies, and for the United Nations?
The UN Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action cordially invited to a brown bag lunch event on Tuesday, November 26, 2013, 1pm – 2.30 pm at 1 UN Plaza (DC-1), 20th Floor Conference Room. The host is Gay Rosenblum-Kumar.
• Understanding and Addressing Humiliation and Conflict
Brown Gag Lunch at the UN Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action, December 2, 2010, 12-2.30 pm, convened at the United Nations, New York City, U.S.A., organized by Gay Rosenblum-Kumar
See pictures.
• These talks connected back to Humiliation, Conflict Management, and Policy Making, brown bag lunch at the Governance and Public Administration Branch, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, on December 15, 2004.

Harriet Jackson, New York City

Harriet Jackson is an educator, a historian, and an interlocutor, who connects educators, thought leaders and donors, while engaging in strategic thinking to build educational programs to overcome hate, racism, and antisemitism.

Thank you, dear Harriet, for supporting our dignity work all the way back to 2015!

Hua-Chu Yen, New York City

Hua-Chu Yen (Ed. D.) is an artist, educator and digital media specialist. She received her doctorate from the Art and Art Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research examines the intersections within digital media, emerging technologies and cinema through the prisms of philosophical ideas and artistic expressions. With her master degree in Art and Art History from Tufts University and in Interactive Telecommunications Program from New York University, Hua-Chu Yen has worked for museums, I.D. Magazine, and Art Science Research Lab, and taught photography and video at Teachers College. A native Taiwanese, Hua-Chu has published two books and numerous articles about visual art in New York for general public in Chinese-speaking communities.

Janet Gerson, New York City

Dr. Janet C. Gerson is the recipient of the 2018 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award.

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you? Janet's answer:
"Dignity is the core value of a moral society. Dignity is taken to be inherent in each and every person. Entitlements, in contrast, are what governments and societies give through laws, policies, and practices. These can be both given and also taken away, unlike dignity. Dignity is operationalized through respect, the ethical principle for interpersonal interactions. From a relational conception based on dignity, justice is what each person is due and what we owe each other (Dale Snauwaert). Justice is dynamic, always balancing moral and ethical norms with practical challenges and institutional (stabilizing) formulations. Solidarity is based on the moral understanding that we know that we need each other, that human beings are interconnected and interdependent. Solidarity can be operationalized as an ethical interactive principle like respect, but how is it further enacted? From a dignity-based perspective, solidarity must be grass-roots, inclusive, communitive, and based on willing cooperation of all those involved. It is necessary to state this because solidarity has often been imposed, engaging a domination-and-control model of social-political organizing.
Solidarity is possible through dialogic means engaging deliberation and consensus-based decision-making. In reality, solidarity is often made up of a willingness to participate together based on mutual respect and understanding. Rawls stated that reasoned argumentation can lead to a congruence of opinion, a recognition that an understanding and agreement has been reached that, nevertheless, does not mean that every participant agrees 100%. Instead, it implies that despite differences that continue to be respected, a congruence of opinion has been reached thereby enabling decision-making processes to move ahead. From these, policies and courses of action can be formulated and dynamized.

In our 2020 worskhop, Janet described dignity as follows, "Dignity is inherent in each person and is operationalized interpersonally as respect. Dignity is moral autonomy in which each person is an end in herself, recognized as the author of his own story, and as a subject in society where dignity is operationalized as equality, inclusion, freedom, fulfillment and well-being. Dignity is blighted when persons are treated instrumentally as means to ends, subjected to domination, humiliation and other forms of violence."

Thank you so much, dearest Janet, for being a pillar of the 2021 workshop in so many capacities! Thank you for explaining the Connection and Reflection Groups (Video), for hosting a Bonus Session for "newcomers" together with David Yamada, as well as hosting Dignilogue 1. Thank you for your wonderful contribution to Dignilogue 3, The Interrelatedness of Dignity, Justice, Democracy, and Peace (Video), based on your recent book, Reclaimative post-conflict justice: Democratizing justice in the World Tribunal on Iraq (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2021) co-authored with Dale Snauwaert!

Dr. Janet C. Gerson is a political theorist, writer, artist, and activist educator who has taught peace education, conflict processes, transformative learning, and futures envisioning. She is the Education Director of the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE), and former Co-Director of the Peace Education Center at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City (2001- 2010). She has collaborated with the Morton Deutsch International Center on Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at at Teachers College since 1996. Her research and writing focus on the interrelatedness of dignity, justice, democracy and peace.

Janet came to the talk titled Humiliation and the Roots of Violence that Evelin Lindner gave at the MD-ICCCR on December 17, 2001, 3.30 pm, upon the invitation of Betty Reardon, attended by Morton Deutsch, among others. She particiated in Evelin Lindner’s first conference that was hosted by Morton Deutsch at the MD-ICCCR in 2003, and she was part of Morton Deutsch's last project, titled Imagine a Global Human Community (Video, December 11, 2013 | transcript, see the pledge Morton Deutsch brought to the 2013 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 5-6, 2013).

As a Board Member of HumanDHS, Janet co-hosts Dignity Now circles in New York City since 2015, initiated by Michael Britton with Judit Révész and Chipamong Chowdhury. The first meeting took place in Janet Gerson's NYC art gallery home on November 14, 2015, on the occasion of Gaby Saab's return to the city.

Thank you very much for your important contribution to this book:
"Reclaiming Common Bases of Human Dignity." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael Britton, and Linda Hartling. Chapter 4. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Jean-Damascène Gasanabo, New York City, Kigali, Rwanda

Jean-Damascène Gasanabo (Damas) has a PhD in Education from the University of Geneva, Switzerland (2004) and his thesis pertains to the analysis of history textbooks and the construction of exclusive identities in Rwanda from 1962 to 1994. The Government of Rwanda appointed him as Director General in charge of the Research and Documentation Centre on Genocide, starting on May 21, 2012. The Centre is within the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide.

Kathleen Modrowski and Stephen P. Marks, New York City and New Delhi, India

Kathleen A. Modrowski is a social anthropologist. She is Professor and Dean at the Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities in the Capital Region of Delhi, India. She has been Professor and Director of the Friends World Program at Long Island University, Southampton Campus, New York. She is also an Advisor to the People's Movement for Human Rights Education. Kathleen Modrowski earned her B.A. from the University of Toledo, her Diploma of High Studies and M.A. from the University of Paris V, and her ABD from the Ecole de Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Laura McGrew, Washington, District of Columbia, U.S.A.

Laura McGrew, PhD, is an independent consultant and researcher. She earned her PhD in Peace Studies from Coventry University, Coventry, UK, with the thesis topic An Analysis of Reconciliation in Cambodia: The Role of Third Party Interventions. In 2023, she kindly wrote, "I have worked for more than 25 years in post-conflict countries (Cambodia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, etc.) on various types of human rights, reconciliation and coexistence projects. I completed a PhD in 2011, with a dissertation looking at community reconciliation in Cambodia, and have been doing a variety of conflict analyses, as well as research on transitional justice."

Mara Alagic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kansas, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Mara explained, "Supporting each other, globally and locally, ubuntu, being part of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies ... "

In 2020, Mara defined dignity as follows: "A way of human existence..."

Mara Alagic (2021)
A Pivotal Moment for the Future of World Dignity University (Video | Text)
Contribution to Dignilogue 4 of the 2021 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Virtual at Columbia University, New York City, December 9 – 11, 2021.

Dear Mara, we are so thankful to Adair Linn Nagata for bringing you to us in 2008! Thank you for being a pillar of our work since then, and for being a core member of the Digni-Planning Team for this workshop!

Thank you so much for your contribution to Dignilogue 1 in the 2020 workshop: Dignity Studies: Reimagining Learning in of World of Crises (Video)

Marlin Mattson, New York City

Marlin R. A. Mattson, MD, is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and prior to retirement was Associate Vice-chair for Compliance in the Department of Psychiatry for Weill Cornell Medical College. Trained in Psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Payne Whitney Clinic, he has spent his entire career at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Through this period, he has been actively involved with quality assurance, peer review, continuous quality improvement, patient safety, standards of care, accreditation, risk management, and utilization review.

Martha Eddy, New York City

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Martha explained, "Compassion compassion compassion and truthful dialogue."

Dignity (2020): "Dignity is internal — I know I have value and purpose. external — I can dignify others by being caring and curious without judgement."

Dearest Martha, what a gift that Pascal Rocha and Karen Bradley brought you to us in 2010! Thank you for offering a DigniStretch Activity to us on Day Two of this workshop (Video) and your "Message to the World" on Day Three (Video)! Thank you for pre-recording your DigniCalm and DigniStretch activities on December 4, 2020! Thank you also for contributing with your Rise Up: Cancer Survivor/Thriver Dance, created on September 29, 2020!

As introduction to your work, you recommend How to Be Alone...
Thank you for your profound global dignity work: Somatic Resources for Stressful Times | Global Water Dances Mission | Global Water Dances (GWD) YouTube Channel | Global Water Dance: Documentary, 3 minutes | Global Water Dance, 12 minutes

Peter Barus, Jacksonville, Whitingham, Vermont, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Peter responded by saying, "Connection. Being 'out here' with you."

At the 2020 workshop, Peter described dignity as "a question in which to live."

We are very glad, dear Peter, that our dear Howard Richards brought you to our global dignity community!

Thank you so much for sharing your reflections during the coffee break of Day Three of this workshop (Video) and for sharing more thoughts at the end of the workshop (Video)!

Thank you also very much for your touching and profound "Message to the World" in 2020!

Peter Pollard, Hatfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you? Peter wrote in 2021:
"I think it speaks to the notion that Dignity must be extended universally and unconditionally. While embracing a commitment to accountability for harmful actions, we must resist the impulse to "otherize" those who threaten or cause harm to us and those we love. Together, we must commit to humanizing those we disagree with or find threatening, while challenging harmful behaviors."

At the 2020 workshop, Peter described dignity as "positive self-regard — a birth right."

In the registration for this workshop, Peter wrote:
My work has been focused on supporting dignity and healing for those who have been exposed to violence and trauma, with a particular focus on males.
Several simple (though certainly not simple to implement), trauma-responsive guidelines for working with males have emerged. Most relate to emotional and physical safety:
• Promote dignity by eliminating shaming as a tool to motivate change.
• Provide males cover for walking in the door. Frame services around initially establishing safe, meaningful relationships related to something other than victimization.
• In our families and circles, self-consciously support norm changes in rigidity about masculinity. Expand the emotional survival options for men when they feel vulnerable or face conflict.
• Explore the many ways that fear has been an historic driver of harmful personal interactions, social policy and laws.
• Increase knowledge about positive, evidence-based, alternative solutions to motivate changes in behavior and encourage healing.
• Advise less. Listen more
"I believe the quest for dignity is the foundation of all emotions, behaviors and actions — both positive and harmful. When dignity is secure, the impulse to deflect vulnerability through dominance or violence diminishes. Openness to nuanced ideas becomes safe.

We are so glad, dear Peter, that Donna Hicks brought you to us, and we thank you for joining us in our 2018 and 2020 workshops! Thank you for sharing:
• 1in6 Thursday: "Good" and "Evil"...Not So Fast, by Peter Pollard, Joyful Heart Foundation, March 22, 2012 (Pdf)
• 1in6 Thursday: Decriminalizing Trauma: Some New Alternatives to “Fight, Flight or Freeze,” by Peter Pollard, Joyful Heart Foundation, October 23, 2014 (Pdf)
• "Fighting a Contagious Disease in Boston," by Peter Pollard, Social Innovations Journal, December 4, 2017 (Pdf)

Rachel Miner, London, New York City

In 2019, after working with the Yazidis in Iraq, Rachel Miner observed the humanitarian gap for religious minority groups that have experienced genocide, particularly in communities where freedom of religion or belief is violated, ignored, or deemed unimportant. Rachel founded Bellwether International in London, UK, to respond to pre- and post- genocide communities who have experienced severe violations of freedom of religion or belief: "Our model is to recruit locally and implement sustainably. As such, we rely on local partners and community project leaders to collaborate on holistic solutions that ensure peace and stability for years to come. Protecting freedom of religion or belief for one is protecting human rights for all."

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Rachel! We are very happy to have you with us!

Rebecca (Becky) Tabaczynski, Lexington, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you?
"When people are joined together, they create a barrier to humiliation and support dignity."

We are so happy to have you with us in our dignity community, dear Becca! Thank you for sharing your research on conspiracy theories in Dignilogue 2! The Threat of Conspiracy Theories (Video | Video recorded on November 29, 2021)

Rebecca (Becky) Tabaczynski holds a certificate in Global Post-Disaster Studies from the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters, under the Direction of Adenrele Awotona, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2017, Becky became connected to HumanDHS as student in the course: Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Sustainable Post-Disaster Reconstruction. Over the last year she has been donating her research skills as a gift to HumanDHS by studying conspiracy theories. She has a bachelors degree in nursing and masters degrees in counseling and business administration.

Sarah Efird, Bronx, New York City

Sarah Efird (pen name Refried Bean) lives in the Bronx and enjoys writing poetry, cooking, and volunteering. She has worked in a bookstore for twelve years and has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She mostly writes humor about food, animals, heaven, Christianity, and mental illness and has e-published several books of poetry, a book of stories, a novel, and three picture books.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Sarah! We are very happy to have you with us!

Shahid Khan, Brooklyn — Little Pakistan

Dear Shahid, you are a dear member of our dignity community since many years, and we are deeply thankful for your initiative to organize one of our future conferences in Pakistan!

Sharon Steinborn, Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Sharon explained in 2021, "Our belief/need to feel that we are separate, distinct, completely individualistic humans living on this planet leads to isolation and fear; an existential threat of aloneness and the resultant anxiety. That we are truly and deeply one and connected to each other physically, emotionally and spiritually is what leads to healing. What hurts one hurts the other. When I accept that truth it makes it more difficult to harm another. Dignity is a communal responsibility."

A very warm welcome to our workshop, dear Sharon!

Stefanie Overbeck and Mel Wymore, Lausanne, Switzerland, New York City

Stefanie B. Overbeck is an Innovative Architect 4 the CAREconomy, also "Pod of Gold" host, founder, impact investor, partner, spouse, friend, and listener. She kindly wrote on November 30, 2021: "As a trained architect I ran a green architectural firm for 15 years until I became aware that on the basis of our current prevailing financial system green architecture stays an illusion. I moved to NYC to co-found GameChangers NGO with my husband Mel. The basic premise of gamechangers is that early and on-going education about regenerative economics is essential to building a fair and sustainable world of commerce, one that reverses climate change and mitigates the looming effects of extreme disparity."

Mel Wymore has been organizing collective action for over 30 years. Mel holds a BS Math, BA Comms, MS Systems Engr., and is certified in Sustainable Business Strategy (HBS, 2022). In 2018, Mel and Stefanie Overbeck co-founded GameChangers, a nonprofit that develops games, workshops, and organizational tools that empower individuals and organizations to transform societal systems and maximize their positive impact on global well-being.

Susan Cangiano, Bronx, New York City

Susan is a Teacher at the New York City Board of Education, which is the governing body of the New York City Department of Education. She holds a Masters degree from the Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, New York City

Tiokasin Ghosthorse of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota is an international speaker on Peace, Indigenous, and Mother Earth perspectives. A survivor of the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud Lakota Reservations in South Dakota and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” Tiokasin has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He spoke as a 15-year-old at the United Nations - Lake Geneva, Switzerland. He is an active board member of Simply Smiles, Green Cross International, and The Center for Earth Ethics. Tiokasin frequently speaks at venues such as Yale University’s School of Divinity, Ecology, and Forestry focusing on the cosmology, diversity, and perspectives on the relational/egalitarian vs. rational/hierarchal thinking processes of Western society. Tiokasin was a 2016 Nominee for a Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Selected for 2016 Native Arts Cultural Foundation Fellowship, a Nominee for a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship 2018, National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee 2018, and 2019 Indigenous Music Award Nominee for "Best Instrumental Album" for "From the Continuum." [read more]

Tiokasin Ghosthorse says (at the end of the interview), "Intuitive intelligence is indigenous intelligence. There is no 'indigenous wisdom,' this pigeonholes us!"

Zuzka Kurtz and Geoffrey Hug, New York City and Upstate New York

Zuzka Kurtz is a producer/Director, a Czech born multi-media artist and filmmaker residing in New York City and Upstate New York. Zuzka and Geoffrey Hug kindly offer their feature length documentary film titled Hudson, America, where they follow a group of Bangladeshi students in Upstate NY from 2016 – 2022 (free link for the dignity community upon request from zk@zuzkakurtz.com). (Kindly click on the picture to see it larger!)

Albert Alejo, Rome, Italy

Jesuit Priest, Faculty of Social Sciences, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
Thank you, dear Adair Nagata, for having introduced us to Albert!

Dignity means: Human rights, indigenous peoples, ecology, peace.

Amy Jeu, New York City

Amy Jeu is a Geoscience Laboratory Technician at Hunter College in New York City, working in higher education.

Andrea Brenker-Pegesa, Weserbergland, Lower Saxony, Germany

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Andrea explained, "Dignity for me is as important as my engagement for the nature. When we haven't got any respect to ourselves and to the others, we are not really strong and able enough to solve the problems around us. To gain an aim means to listen to each other and to respect each other. That makes us strong."

Dear Andrea! Lovely contributions to our 2021 workshop from Hameln came true due to your untiring support:
• Dignity Now: Hameln Removes Plastic Waste from the Banks of its River Weser (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in September 2021, finalized on November 25, 2021)
• The Dignity Now Hameln Group sings Dona Nobis Pacem ("Grant Us Peace" in Latin) in the Chapel of Wangelist near Hameln (Hamelin) on November 8, 2021

2020 workshop:
Thank you, dear Andrea and Regina, for your amazing work with our DignityNowHameln group!
• Dignity Now: Hameln Presents Good Ideas from the Past and the Future for a More Sustainable Future. Thoughts Are Unchained (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in October and November 2020, finalized on November 21, 2020)
• Die Gedanken sind Frei / Thoughts are Unchained sung by the DignityNowHameln group
This is the contribution of the DignityNowHameln group that was recorded in October and November 2020, and finalized on November 21, 2020 (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)

Thank you so much, dear Andrea and Regina, also for sharing your wonderful art with us!
• Der Mond ist aufgegangen (Video of verse 1 on Day Two | Video of verse 2 on Day Three | Video of verse 1 + 2) Der Mond ist aufgegangen wurde 1790 vom Matthias Claudius als religiöses Abendlied geschrieben, vertont wurde es noch im selben Jahr vom Hofkapellmeister Johann A. P. Schulz. English: The moon has risen was written by Matthias Claudius in 1790 as a religious evening song, and it was set to music in the same year by the court conductor Johann A. P. Schulz.
• Hameln Sings (all vocal interludes brought together) (Video)

Angelyn Voss, Oregon, U.S.A.

In her registration for an earlier workshop, Angelyn wrote: "As a teacher and member of society, one must exude respect to all students and individuals. Promoting dignity opens the doors to acceptance, encouragement, peace, learning, and ultimately, love." Angelyn invites everyone to visit her website www.angelynchristyvoss.com. She is happy to donate a book or a piece of artwork if that could help.

Dear Angelyn, it was great to have you with us in our 2018 December Workshop and to honor you! (Video)
Thank you so much for your wonderful support!

Anna Hamling, Fredericton, Canada

Professor PhD Culture and Media Studies University of New Brunswick.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Anna Hamling! We are very happy to have you with us!

Antonie Dvorakova, Czech Republic

Social Sciences Researcher / Cultural Psychology Instructor / Indigenous Nations Psychologies Promoter/ Belonging, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Antonie!

Ariel Lublin, New York City

Negotiation Trainer and Management Consultant.

You are such a wonderful core pillar of our work, dear Ariel, since 2004! We have no words to thank you!

Azza Karam, New York City, Global

Dr. Azza Karam is the secretary general of Religions for Peace International and professor of religion and development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

A very warm welcome to our workshop, dear Azza! Your work is a shining beacon of dignity in the world! It is such a privilege to know you since such a long time, since our Cairo time in 1985!

Beth Boynton, Dover, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Beth explained, "We are creating a rippling effect of dignity throughout the world. A way of being together."

Thank you so much, dearest Beth, for always inviting us into "Dignity Movement"!

Thank you for offering a wonderful Bonus Session in last year's workshop, titled "Warm-up Activities for Engaging & Connecting Your Groups on Zoom" to us!

Thank you for sharing a few samples noting the learning context can vary:
• Building-situational-awareness
• Hello-goodbye-ease-into-improv-activities
• Dignity Exchange: An Experiential Activity for Promoting Dignity Everywhere

• Thank you for sharing also a brief update on your work on June 2nd, 2020. You and your colleague Liz Korabek-Emerson piloted a virtual field trip with Creative Mornings where you did an hour of mindfulness and improv.
• Thank you also for making us aware and commenting on this article: "Elevating Dignity as a Goal for Health System Achievement in the COVID-19 Era and in the Future"

Bonnie Selterman, Greater New York City Area

You are among our deepest and most complex thinkers and most loving nurturers of dignity, dear Bonnie! We cannot imagine our workshop series without you anymore! You generously joined us in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and now! Thank you for sharing your profound reflections also in this workshop, as always!

• No Such Thing, a spoken poem composed for this year's workshop (Video recorded in November 2023 | Pdf)

• Ways of Learning, a spoken poem composed for the specific theme of this year's workshop (Video | spoken recording on November 18, 2022 | Pdf)

• Dignity Through Solidarity — A Spoken Essay and Poem (Video | Text | Spoken recording on November 21, 2021)
…shall we see the light of possibility
Through ingenuity
Through human dignity
Respecting ecology
The life-sustaining
Strategy
Of solidarity?

• Escaping Complicity — A Poem (Video | Pdf | Spoken recording on November 21, 2020)
• Notes on Human Dignity as a Concept That Can Be Taught, reflections prepared in May 2019 for the 2019 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York City, December 5 – 6, 2019.

Message from Evelin Lindner: I am so thankful to Maria Volpe for bringing us together, dear Bonnie! Thank you for coming to my talk Understanding and Addressing Humiliation, December 2, 2010, 8-10 am, convened by our esteemed Maria Volpe at her monthly breakfast meeting (since 9/11 on the first Thursday of each month) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City (see the 2010 pictures)! I will never forget when you took me to hear Bill McKibben speak in the Tishman Auditorium at the New School University Center, on November 10, 2016, and our conversation afterwards. In the book that I am finalizing now, I am widely quoting you, among others from the questions you asked us in 2018.

Brian Ward, Christchurch, New Zealand/Aotearoa

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you? "It means the ultimate solidarity that equal dignity offers all humans."

Dear Brian, thank you SO MUCH for your gift to this workshop! Dignity Dialogue plaques!

Thank you so much also for sharing the poem The River of Life at last year's workshop, which you had composed at the occasion of the passing of your dear mother at the age of 101 (Video):

The River of Life
I float
I float on the river of life
I get washed under only to rise again
I bump into the bank only to bounce back
I can steer myself but cannot steer others
I can only show others how I steer myself
It’s wonderful I am part of the river
And once I reach the river mouth
I become part of the sea of everything
That make all journeys possible

Thank you also very much for sharing your thoughts at the end of last year's workshop (Video)!

We will never forget how generously you hosted our 2011 Dignity Conference in Dunedin!

Camille Butterfield Elliott, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Camille Butterfield Elliott kindly wrote in 2020: My name is Camille Elliott and I am a student affairs professional with 30 years of higher education experience. I am currently a mediator in training and have volunteered with conflict mediation firm assist consumers with fostering creative problem solving through colloaborative dialogue. I am also new to restorative justice practices for problem solving in healing in youth-based conflicts. 

Charlott Macek, New York City

Thank you so much, dear Charlott, for your untiring support to our dignity work since you began working with the MD-ICCCR in 2013, after your time at the book shop of Teachers College! Each year, you give us great courage! What would we do without your expert caring hand in the background and your wonderful presence!

Christine de Michele, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Dignity (2020): "Equity and a good life for all living beings."

Thank you so much for bringing your amazing art to our workshop every year since 2014, dear Christine! How happy we are that Anna Strout brought you to us!

Thank you so much for your contribution to the 2020 workshop:
• Christine de Michele Sings About the Black Community's Significance for Jazz Music on Day Two of this Workshop, in Honor of Tony Gaskew's Talk the Day Before (Video)

Message from Evelin Lindner: Dearest Christine, I will never forget how you lifted our spirits with just your voice, without words, in an interlude during our 2016 workshop!

Carol Smaldino, Colorado, U.S.A., Italy

In our 2020 workshop, Carol defined dignity as follows, "The right to be respected as a matter of being alive, human and otherwise. And to give that respect as well."

Carol Smaldino is a practicing psychotherapist working with parents and families, who writes on the connections between emotions and politics and loves to translate important concepts into practical possibilities. She loves to meet new people and is starting a podcast called Human Climate.

Message from Evelin Lindner: Your wisdom enriches us, dear Carol, since you first found our work in 2009! We so much appreciate your kind way of throwing light on our dark sides, on our shadows! Thank you so much for your brilliant contribution to Dignilogue 1 on December 9, 2021, titled Solidarity with Our Emotions in the Human Climate (Video)!

Your pieces on the platforms of Huffington Post and Medium are must-reads for everyone! Here are some examples:

• The Human Climate Facing the Divisions Inside Us and Between Us, Carol Smaldino's book published in January 2019 in Dignity Press
• "If They Had Only Known: If We had Only Known, and Now that we Do," by Carol Smaldino, Medium, December 1, 2021
• "Mental Health Awareness Month in a Climate of Denial," by Carol Smaldino, Huffington Post, May 11, 2016
• "In Every Generation: What Independence Day Means to Me," by Carol Smaldino, Huffington Post, June 29, 2017
• "Addressing the 'Toxins in Our Hearts': A Conversation with Mary Gordon, Founder of Roots of Empathy," by Carol Smaldino, Huffington Post, December 21, 2017
• "Cancer Comedy," by Carol Smaldino, Huffington Post, July 12, 2014

We are very proud to have your book published in Dignity Press:
Smaldino, Carol (2019). The Human Climate: Facing the Divisions Inside Us and Between Us (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press)

We cannot imagine our workshop series without you and your husband anymore, dear Carol, since you first joined us in 2010, then in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and now! Our deep gratitude goes to you!

And thank you for interviewing Linda and Evelin for your Conversations on The Human Climate on October 22, 2021!

Catharina Carvalho, Brazil and New Jersey, U.S.A.

Catharina Carvalho, Ph.D., SSP, is a Trilingual Psychology Clinician and Psychological Assessment Supervisor at the Trinitas Regional Medical Center in New Jersey, U.S.A. As a clinician from Brazil who studied in Texas and with a Ph.D. in Psychology, she works with children and adolescents and their families at the behavioral health unit in a non-profit hospital in New Jersey, serving the immigrant population, the uninsured, and the disenfranchised.

Dan Shapiro, Boston, U.S.A.

Dan is the Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. He is on the faculty of Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School's Department of Psychiatry. Trained in clinical psychology, his research and teaching focus primarily on the role of emotions in negotiation and international conflict management. Currently, he is working with Professor Roger Fisher on a book on how to deal with emotions in negotiation. [read more]

Dan Vaughan, Sedgefield, South Africa

Dan Vaughan is the Former Aide to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and the author of the 2022 memoir This One Thing: Journeying with Desmond Tutu, dedicated “To Desmond Mpilo Tutu, who taught us hope, and the world this one thing, to love” (book launch at the Desmond Tutu Legacy Foundation Museum, December 21, 2022). He is a South African, born in Cape Town, and in 1976, he was invited to join the staff of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) where he worked under Archbishop Tutu for 7 years, eventually as his Assistant General Secretary. He resigned after Tutu left the SACC, to work in the Order of St John (St John Ambulance) as Regional and National Director. In 2003 Archbishop Tutu asked him to join him in his office in Milnerton, near Cape Town. He served there as his travel aide and manager of his office until 2011 when Tutu retired from active involvement in international affairs.


Kindly click on the book cover to see it larger

Late Archbishop Desmond Tutu most generously contributed with a Foreword to Evelin Lindner's third book (2010), Gender, Humiiation, and Global Security, whose message was BIG LOVE. Dan and Evelin were in touch via email as far back as 2008.

Darcia Narvaez, Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A.

Darcia Narvaez is Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame who focuses on moral development and flourishing from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating anthropology, neuroscience, clinical, developmental and educational sciences. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, classroom music teacher, classroom Spanish teacher and seminarian, among other things. [read more]

David Yamada, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

David C. Yamada is the recipient of the 2015 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award. David is a professor of law and director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. David is a globally recognized scholar and authority on workplace bullying and worker dignity. At our annual workshops, he has frequently shared topics such as workplace bullying and abuse, dignity at work, and therapeutic jurisprudence. See this article in the journal of the American Bar Association, "David Yamada is fighting to end workplace bullying," by Amanda Robert, ABA Journal, December 1, 2021.

Thank you, dear David, for being a beacon of dignity in the world, a pillar of our global dignity work, and a pillar of this workshop series since 2007! We CELEBRATE you as the new Director of the World Dignity University initiative! HOORAY!

THANK YOU so much that you facilitated a Workshop within a Workshop, titled Non-Degree Higher and Adult Education to Advance Human Dignity, (Video | Pdf) in this year's conference that was dedicated to the World Dignity University initiative!!

Thank you so much for your many contributions also to last year's workshop! You were part of Dignilogue 3, you hosted Dignilogue 4, and you offered a Bonus Session for "newcomers" together with Janet Gerson!

• Dignilogue 3: Reframing Global Leadership in a Dignitarian Context (Video)
Yamada, David C. (2021). "Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment." In University of Miami Law Review, 75 (3), p. 660 (Pdf)

• Dignilogue 4: Yamada, David C. (2021). Advancing the Promise of the World Dignity University, November 2021 (version 1) (Video 1 | Video 2)

Thank you, dear David, for your wonderful post-2020-workshop blog "A welcomed online workshop helps to conclude a challenging year" (Link | Pdf). In 2020, you were a pillar of Dignilogue 1 and Dignilogue 2 in particular! And we had the privilege of enjoying your wonderful musical voice (Text | Video)! We have no words to thank you!

Thank you sharing this work in 2020, dear David:
• "Should Public Policy Center on Society’s Well-Being?" by David Yamada, The American Commentator, October 2020 (Pdf)
• Yamada, David C. (2019). "Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Intellectual Activism and Legislation." In The Methodology and Practice of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, edited by Nigel Stobbs, Lorana Bartels, and Michel Vols. Chapter 5. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. (Pdf)
• Yamada, David C. (2018). "On Anger, Shock, Fear, and Trauma: Therapeutic Jurisprudence as a Response to Dignity Denials in Public Policy." In International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.06.009 (Pdf). This article asserts that when policymaking processes, outcomes, and implementations stoke fear, anxiety, and trauma, they often lead to denials of human dignity.

Thank you also so much for your important contribution to this book:
"Growing Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies: Without Falling Prey to Neoliberal Norms." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael Britton, and Linda Hartling. Chapter 2. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Donna Fujimoto, Osaka, Japan

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Donna explained, "To me it means learning about the plight of others — not just second-hand through reading or documentaries--but by meeting with those who have lived experience and they can open our collective eyes to what is happening in our world."

Dear Donna, we are privileged to be connected with you! You kindly joined us in our 2014 Dignity Conference in Chiang Mai and, together with your husband, in our 2017 Dignity Conference in India. We miss you! Welcome back!  

Elenor Richter-Lyonette, St. Sulpice, Switzerland

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you?
"Dignity through solidarity means to me that I am ready to listen and to express support. This may be practical support or simple empathy."

A very warm welcome to our workshop, dear Elenor!

Elizabeth Sparks, Boston, U.S.A.

Elizabeth Sparks is the retired Associate Dean for Graduate Student Services, Graduate Admissions & Financial Aid at Boston College. Her research interests are prevention and intervention with children affected by community violence; multicultural issues in counseling psychology; the intersection of culture, race, and feminist psychology.

Elizabeth co-authored a paper together with Linda Hartling in 2002, Relational-Cultural Practice: Working in a Nonrelational World. Work in Progress, No. #97. Wellesley, MA: Stone Center Working Papers Series.

Elizabeth kindly wrote in November 2023: "My interest in the topics of dignity have increased over the last few years as we have witnessed such violence and unrest across the world. I want to connect to an organization that is working towards addressing compassion and peace throughout the world."

Dear Elizabeth, a very warm welcome to our workshop!

Ella Autti, Rovaniemi, Finland

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Ella explained, "The actions, words and language I take and use every day towards my fellow human beings."

In our 2020 workshop, Ella defined dignity as follows, "Dignity for me is very practical, treating other people with respect and with acceptance."

Ella Nygård Autti wishes to help healthcare organizations to have mutually respectful and humane work cultures. She is currently undertaking PhD research into shame and humiliation in healthcare work communities at the University of Lapland, Finland. She aims to pursue an understanding of the systems and dialogues that humiliate or cause shame in work settings. She holds a master's degree in social sciences and has a background in marketing and communications.

Dearest Ella, what a gift you are to our dignity work! You have so many talents! From singing to graphic design! Thank you so much for singing Over the Rainbow for us in our 2022 workshop (Video), and for contributing with Cover Me in Sunshine" to our 2023 workshop (Video)!

We simply love what you have created here:

Frederikke Hoffmann Schrøder, Malmö, Sweden

Frederikke Hoffmann Schrøder is an anthropologist and music educator interested in dignity, social justice, creative arts activism.

Welcome to our workshop, dear Frederikke, for the first time! We are very happy to have you with us!

Fonkem, Michael Fonkem Achankeng I, Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S.A., and Ruler of Atoabechied in the former British Southern Cameroons

What does "dignity through solidarity" mean to you?
"Working together for the dignity of all."

Dear Fonkem, we are in awe at the scope of your dignifying service in this world!
Thank you for making it possible for us to understand the difficult situation in former British Southern Cameroon:
• Achankeng, Fonkem (2013). "Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa: Engaging the Colonial Factor." In African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 13 (2), pp. 11–37.

• A summary of the situation in Cameroon: Cameroon Burning: The Unseen War, full documentary, BBC Africa Eye, June 25, 2018, "Hundreds of shocking mobile phone videos from Cameroon have surfaced in the past six months. They are coming from the English speaking part of the country, where rebels are fighting to form an independent state called "Ambazonia". BBC Africa Eye have analysed these films, shedding fresh light on who is responsible for the violence."

• Paradise Lost? A Political History of British Southern Cameroons from 1916 to 1972, by Nfor Ngala Nfor (Austin, TX: Pan-African University Press, 2020).

• The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon: The Change from Crisis to Conflict, and a Possible Way Forward to Resolution, by Billy Agwanda and Uğur Yasin Asal, 2021.

Francisco Cardoso, Portugal

Francisco Cardoso is a psychologist and professor at the Education and Psychology Department of the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) in Portugal. He teaches motivation and emotion at the experimental and clinical psychology laboratory, and clinical intervention in adults. With respect to general domains, his interests are the study of the interrelation between affect, cognition, and extended cognition. In clinical fields, he develops studies in phenomenological psychology, harm behaviors effects, such as humiliation, and new developments of psychotherapy, such as ecopsychotherapy. He is an invited member of the UNESCO chair on Geoparks at UTAD, the LOCUS group, and is honored to be invited to the Global Research Team of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) group. See ResearchGate for some of his publications. He has worked with Linda Hartling and her Humiliation Inventory.

Gabriela Hofmeyer, San Francisco, California

Gabriela Hofmeyer is a student at the Western Institute for Social Research (WISR). Her special areas of interest, study, or research are: Resilience and Community Education, Arts, Music, Fractal Studies, Domestic Violence Interventions, Child Abuse Interventions, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Science and Technology, Inclusion, and Disability Studies and Research.

Georg-Wilhelm Geckler, Hameln (Hamelin), Germany

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Georg explained, "I try to be in solidarity especially to those people who need it most."

Georg-Wilhelm Geckler is an engineer who worked in the oil and gas business and in planning depositories for radioactive waste. He is now helping Yezidi refugees from Iraq in Germany. He is a member of the DignityNowHameln and ambassador for the EU climate pact. Together with friends and relatives, Georg creates videos that offer established knowledge and hopeful visions to audiences wherever this is wished for or needed. His message is: Stop climate warming and burning fossil fuels and instead foster renewable energy, stop wars and humiliation and instead work for dignity world wide. Children and students should learn in dignity, because this prevents them from learning to harm other persons, which, in turn, can help to bring dignity to the world in the future.

At the 2020 workshop, Georg described dignity as follows, "For me dignity is a condition of a person who is respected and can live in freedom, peace, with good nutrition, a safe home, and without physical or psychical violation. Dignity could be the attitude of a person that is recognized by others as a proud and decent human being."

Thank you for for your important messages in 2020!
• "Message to the World" (Text | Video recorded on November 30, 2020)
• Reduce Overproduction! Hameln, Germany, November 2020

Thank you, dear Georg, also for your amazing work with our DignityNowHameln group, since 2019!
• Dignity Now: Hameln Removes Plastic Waste from the Banks of its River Weser (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in September 2021, finalized on November 25, 2021)
• The Dignity Now Hameln Group sings Dona Nobis Pacem ("Grant Us Peace" in Latin) in the Chapel of Wangelist near Hameln (Hamelin) on November 8, 2021
2020:
• Dignity Now: Hameln Presents Good Ideas from the Past and the Future for a More Sustainable Future. Thoughts Are Unchained (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in October and November 2020, finalized on November 21, 2020)
• Die Gedanken sind Frei / Thoughts are Unchained sung by the DignityNowHameln group
This is the contribution of the DignityNowHameln group that was recorded in October and November 2020, and finalized on November 21, 2020 (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)

George Livingston, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

A warm welcome to our workshop, dear George!

Gitta Ridder, Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

Gitta Ridder is a social activist, with eco feminist ideals. She kindly wrote in November 2023: "I have worked as a counsellor, consultant, teacher mostly regarding women's activism, around prevention & healing from sexual abuse & violence. Currently am running a series on Changing the Conversation around Life & Death. I am studying and working with the Pocket Project and Thomas Huebl regarding ancestral/collective trauma. The quote: activism is the rent I pay to live on this planet, resonates deeply with me especially in these times of transition. I develop and contribute when and where I can."

Grace Feuerverger, Toronto, Canada

"Dignity: compassion for oneself and others, reconciliation, an open heart and mind."

Message from Evelin: How wonderful that our dear Sharon Burde brought us together in 2002, dear Grace, and that I had the privilege of paying you a visit in your home in Toronto on August 26, 2002! What a gift you have been to us in our workshops in New York City in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2016, and our 2009 Dignity Conference in Hawai'i!

Thank you for your important work, dear Grace!
• Feuerverger, Grace (2001). Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel. London, New York: Routledge/Falmer.
• The "School For Peace": A Conflict Resolution Program in a Jewish-Palestinian Village (2005)

Gulistan Gursel-Bilgin, Istanbul, Turkey, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.

Dr. Gulistan Gursel-Bilgin graduated from English Language Teaching Department at Middle East Technical University in 2005 (BA FLE), and completed her master's degree (MA ELT) in 2009 in the same department. After serving as an English instructor in public and private institutions in Turkey for six years, Dr. Gursel-Bilgin went to the USA with a Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship.

Welcome to our workshop, dear Gulistan, for the first time! We are very happy to have you with us!

Hassan Keynan, Somalia, Norway, Bangladesh, U.S.A., Global

Hassan Abdi Keynan retired from UNESCO after more than 20 years in three continents. He served as Senior Programme Specialist in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya and Germany. Prior to his joining UNESCO, Mr. Keynan held the following positions: Senior consultant at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo, Special Adviser at Norwegian National Commission for UNESCO, Associate Professor at the Somali National University, and Secretary General of the Somali national Commission for UNESCO. In addition to being an educator, Mr. Keynan is an author and a poet. He lectured and published on a wide range of topics, including education and development in Africa, politics in the Horn of Africa, gender issues in war-torn societies, male roles and masculinity, and the African condition. Mr. Keynan studied at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Sydney. Currently, he lives with his family in the US and devotes most of his time to writing on issues closer to his heart, including freedom, equality and human dignity, especially for the cradle of humanity and its teeming masses.

Hayal Köksal, Istanbul, Turkey

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Hayal explained, "Individuals must learn how to be dignified persons in time but if this is realized altogether, with the support of others, the influence will be larger and the speed of success will be higher."

At the 2020 workshop, Hayal described dignity as follows, "The quality of being worthy of honor or respect. Being satisfied with self and working to bring sistership/brotherhood to the world people for the sake of happy and healthy future generations."

Dearest Hayal, we will never forget the loving care with which you hosted our 2010 Dignity Conference in Istanbul, Turkey! And then you came to New York City for our 2014 workshop! We are deeply thankful to you!

Thank you so much, dear Hayal, for the "Message to the World" of 2021 (Video | Video recorded on November 4, 2021), and your 2020 "Message to the World" that you recorded on November 28, 2020 (Video)! And thank you for sharing your paper on peace training titled Training Peace-Focused and More Qualified New Generation: Turkey Case, 2019.


Kindly click on the images above to see them larger

HeidiAne Steen Jensen, Ås, Akershus, Norway

HeidiAne is a mother and grandmother, a poet, a dancer, a peace activist. She is a member of Grandmothers for Peace (Bestemødre for fred) in Oslo, Norway.

Welcome to our workshop, dear HeidiAne, for the first time! We are very happy to have you with us!

Heidi Burgess, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

Heidi Burgess has been co-directing Beyond Intractability, with her husband, Guy Burgess for about 20 years, and was privileged to come to one of the first human dignity meetings, namely, the one in 2004. Since that time they have been trying to assemble information on what makes conflicts intractable, how to prevent that from happening, and how to transform intractable conflicts from destructive situations into constructive ones from researchers and practitioners from around the world, and make that information available for free on www.beyondintractability.org. They are currently (2023) primarily focusing our work on hyper-polarization and the way that destroys dignity and leads to escalating conflict and violence — and how to reverse those trends.
Heidi kindly wrote in November 2023: "I am deeply concerned about how the political conflict playing out in the United States (and, no doubt, in many other places around the words), relies deeply on the humiliation of the other side. This is true for both conservatives and progressives, but since I hang out mostly with progressives and listen to/read their materials, I am most aware of the ways that these materials humiliate the right. This just drives the polarization and escalation spiral and makes the political crisis in the U.S. worse all the time. We desperately need an understanding of the importance of dignity to take root among our social justice activists, as well as among the MAGA activists on the right."

Hélène Opperman Lewis, Barrydale, South Africa

Dearest Hélène, thank you so much for being with us in this workshop (Video)! We will never forget the loving care with which you hosted our 2013 Dignity Conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa! And then you came to New York City for our 2014 workshop! We are deeply thankful to you!

Congratulations on your book:
Opperman Lewis, Hélène (2016). Apartheid: Britain's Bastard Child (Cape Town, South Africa: Reach Publishers)

Huda Abu Arquob, Hebron

Huda Abu Arquob has been kindly introduced to the HumanDHS network by Libby and Len Traubman on June 13, 2014: "Dear Evelin, ... Huda Abu Arquob, our peacebuilding colleague from Hebron, West Bank ... is an extraordinary Muslim champion of engagement and empathy and dignifying others from her home in Palestine. If one of you would like to welcome her into your important community, Huda gets e-mail. Libby and me, Len, 20 Years of Palestinian-Jewish Living Room Dialogue 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.' - Margaret Mead"

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Huda! We are very happy to have you with us!

Peace Philosopher Howard Richards, Chile, South Africa, and California (Justine Richards)

Dear Howard! Congratulations with the 2021 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award!
Congratulations also with your new book Economic Theory and Community Development: Why Putting Community First Is Essential to Our Survival (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2022) (Video)

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Howard explained, "It is a good phrase for starting conversations. Among the meanings I would like to attribute to it is sharing surplus, devoting whatever we do not need to the common good, and in particular creating dignified work that does not depend on sales to be funded. For example I fund a young woman who is an expert organic gardener to work on our quinta. She also does education, teaching gardening in a local elementary school."

In the 2020 workshop, Howard described dignity as follows, "Respect, esteem, self-esteem, security."

Peace philosopher Howard Richards is one of the deepest thinkers of our time, and more — he has also put into practice what he teaches. We thank Alicia Cabezudo, who is also with us today, for introducing him to us in 2006. Dr. Richards is a philosopher of social science who is now based in Chile, where he, his wife Caroline and their daughter Shelley host the Chileufu dialogue home. . With Gavin Andersson he teaches once a year “Ethics, Macroeconomics and Organizing” in the EMBA program at University of Cape Town. With Gavin (who pioneered the unbounded idea) and others he co-founded the Unbounded Academy. It develops dignified and dignifying solutions for our currently unsustainable institutional structures and systems. His focus is philosophical and scientific support for an ethic of care. He holds the title of Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, USA, a Quaker school where he taught for thirty-five years. He was the founder of the Peace and Global Studies Program there and co-founder of the Business and Nonprofit Management program. [read more]

Thank you so much for your seminal work, dear Howard, throughout your entire lifetime!
• Howard Richards is being honored with the 2020 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award (Video of the Award Ceremony in full length)
• Message of Appreciation from Evelin Lindner (Video | Pdf)
• Award Acceptance Speech by Howard Richards (Video recorded on December 8, 2021 | long Pdf | short Pdf)
• Howard Richards' 3 Most Important Messages to the World (Video, 5th June 2013 | short version prepared by Linda Hartling on December 5, 2021)

Award Acceptance Speech by Howard Richards, December 10, 2021: "Hi ! I do not receive an award like this very often. So far in my life I have received such an award only once in 83 years. At the rate I am going I would have to wait until after my 166th birthday for another opportunity to explain such an important concept to such a wonderful audience. The important concept is structural humiliation." [read more, see also a long version]

Thank you for inviting us to comment on the key points of your upcoming book that you authored with the assistance of our dear Gavin Andersson, titled Economic Theory and Community Development, that will be published soon in Dignity Press. Thank you, dear Magnus Haavelsrud, for writing a great review of the book, "Economic theory and community development." In European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, DOI: 10.1080/23254823.2021.1976376.

Thank you also for being with us in the 2020 workshop and allowing us to honor you on Day Three (Video Day Two | Video Day Three). You kindly wrote on December 3, 2020, when you registered for the 2020 workshop: "I have written a lot of books and I wish people knew about them and would read them, Some are described in a Wikipedia article about me. Understanding the Global Economy is a google e book. Several are on the Dignity Press site. Several are on Amazon. I can also send PDF or word copies to anybody who sends me an e mail. I might also mention that I lived through the military coup in Chile and that I was a volunteer lawyer for Cesar Chavez when he first started organizing and that I have been a lifelong student at high prestige universities, starting with Yale."

• "Embrace Communities to Save Humanity and the Planet," by Howard Richards, TRANSCEND Media Service, Editorial #673, December 28, 2020.

• On Day Two (Video), Howard Richards recommended two appendices, one titled "ending poverty" and the other "a plan for peace" from his book Understanding the Global Economy (Santa Barbara, CA: Peace Education Books, 2004, Preface). He explained that these two pieces had been published independently in The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence.

• Howard Richards has published The Nurturing of Time Future in Dignity Press in 2012, and together with Joanna Swanger, and edited by Ivo Coelho, Gandhi and the Future of Economics in 2013.
• Following Foucault: The Trail of the Fox, lectures by Howard Richards with dialogues among Evelin Lindner, Howard Richards, and Catherine Odora Hoppers, Foreword by Crain Soudien (CEO of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa) and an Introduction by Magnus Haavelsrud, Stellenbosch, South Africa: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2018. The book can be ordered from the publisher. The book is based on "Against Foucault" – A series of presentations by Howard Richards, in dialogue with Catherine Odora Hoppers and Evelin Lindner carried out in Pretoria in 2013.

Ian Hughes, Dublin, Ireland

Ian Hughes has a background in physics and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. He is engaged in a project at the University College Cork, 'aimed at a deep reimaging of society to place limits on dangerous leaders and create cultures which better fit our humanity'. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Research Institute MaREI Centre, at the University College Cork, in Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork, Ireland. His writing on personality disorders has appeared on Psychology Today and Open Democracy. His blog disorderedworld.com focuses on dangerous personality disorders and their consequences. Ian lives in Dublin, Ireland. He is the author of Disordered Minds: How Dangerous Personalities Are Destroying Democracy.

Thank you, dear Maggie O'Neil, for introducing Ian to our dignity community! A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Ian! We are very happy to have you with us!

Ibrahim Muhammad Babangida, Niger State, Nigeria

Ibrahim Muhammad Babangida, Nigerian Bar Association NBA, is the Chairman/CEO of Online Dispute Resolution and Services in Niger State, Nigeria. He seeks dignity through conflict transformation and social justice.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Ian! We are very happy to have you with us!

Isabel Barroso, Tarragona, Catalunya

"Dignity: The only way to attain self-respect."

You have no idea how much we valued your participation in this workshop, dear Isabel, and we can't wait to read your doctoral dissertation titled The Concept of Self-respect and Dignity — Comparing the East and the West!

Thank you so much, dear Isabel, for offering your support for our planned Dignity Conference in Madrid!

Jennifer Schneller, Istanbul, Turkey

Jennifer Schneller is an educator especially interested in conflict resolution and peace education. She has run workshops/camps between various groups in Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. She has worked with the Boğaziçi University Peace Education and Research Center, and is a Community Involvement Program Course Instructor.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Jennifer! We are very happy to have you with us!

Jingyi Dong, Norway

Dear Jingyi, what an amazing privilege to have you with us!



Thank you so much for writing to us on December 12, 2021: Dearest Linda and Evelin: You have made miracle! The rainbow is beautiful because it has rich and diverse colors. HumanDHS Conferences are as beautiful as rainbows, thanks to your effort that puts all the colors together. It is so touching that you work nonstop, bringing beauty to this torn and wounded world. In so doing, you bring honor to human being. No language can express my gratitude to you!!! Your continuous effort reminds me of a figure in Chinese mythology, Jingwei, a princess in the far, far remote ancient times. She was drawn in the sea. Afterwards she became a bird, continuously carrying a pebble in her mouth and dropped it into the sea. She was determined to level up the sea so that no one would be drawn again. Jingwei’s dream was in vain because she was an aristocrat. Your dream has come true because, at a time of democracy, more and more people are being inspired by you to join the cause. Millions and millions of thanks to you, modern Jjingwei! Jingyi"

Thank you so much for sending us your friend Cameron Jin's Inspiring Song! You kindly explained on November 29, 2021: "He sang a song last year during the time of Covid-19. He refused to give up when he was stuck in a difficult situation. He sang the song to encourage himself and his friends!" You kindly add on December 5, 2021: "Cameron Jin was a rural university student. I got to know him when I was doing review for my dissertation. His family used to be extremely poor so that they had to live on wild vegetable, but he managed to graduate from college. Whenever I hear his song, I would recall how he managed to overcome difficulties all the way and I would get inspired. I hope his song will inspire more people."

Background: Thank you for downloading his song for us, dear Jingyi, so that we can include it in our YouTube channel with an English explanation and translation! Thank you for explaining that Cameron Jin offered his song on an online platform that is without advertisement, where people sing for fun and not for monetary gain unless the audience voluntarily send some “gift” to the singer.

This is the translation of the text: "At this moment, there are more choices, is it better to enjoy the rest of the time? Or to embrace the bright future to chase the morning sun? Or find a place to sit and talk to your heart? At this moment, are you still anxious about the long and misty road of human growth? Still have found the direction, enjoy the happiness of struggling at this moment..."

Joanie Calem, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

Dear Joanie, thank you so much for offering an old Jewish legend that there are always 36 sparks of holy light traveling around in different people to keep the world running right, and we never know where that spark might be, so we have to treat each other with the respect and dignity befitting that holiness... Joanie offers a video of the song and the story combined on her YouTube channel.
Thank you for your dignifying work!
www.joaniecalem.com and YouTube, and Spotify!

In 2021, you sang song No Borders (Video | Video recorded on November 17, 2021)! Thank you also so much for the reflections you so kindly shared during the coffee break of Day Three (Video) and your thoughts at the end of the workshop (Video)!

John Agberagba, Jos in Plateau State, Nigeria

John Tavershima Agberagba is a Nigerian from Benue State and a Lecturer at the University of Jos in Plateau State, Nigeria, interested in conflict transformation, social justice, and the integration of creation. He has a PhD in Conflict Resolution and Gender Studies from the Irish School of Ecumenics TC in Dublin, Ireland, and an MPhil in International Peace Studies from the University in Oxford, a PGC in Forced Migration, and a BA in Theology and Anthropology. He has worked with refugees from Sierre Leone and Liberia in Guinea Conakry and with the Indigenous People in Mexico.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear John! We are very happy to have you with us!

Joni and Bill Baird, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Bill Baird in 2020: "Dignity recognizes the right of individuals to be free to be who they are and to not impede the rights of others to do the same."
Joni Baird: "Dignity recognizes the inherent worth and equality of every inhabitant of our earth including all living creatures and the environment."

Message from Evelin Lindner in November 2023: Dear Joni and Bill, congratulations with the wonderful documentary film directed by Rebecca Cammisa: Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird ! It was wonderful to watch the film together with you both!
"In an America where more and more women and trans people are losing legal bodily autonomy, the history of Bill Baird’s long fight for women’s right to abortion is as relevant as ever. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa doesn’t just give us a portrait of Baird, but also creates a historical register of allyship and activism that those fighting to uphold freedom and choice can access, and perhaps emulate." – Bedatri D. Choudhury

Message from Evelin Lindner in November 2021: Thank you, dear Joni and Bill, for being equalists! Thank you for your life mission of working for equal dignity! In the book that I am finalizing now, I am widely quoting you, among others this paragraph:
"As Equalists, we believe that ‘labels disable’ and create ‘us versus them’ dynamics unnecessarily fragmenting movements. Therefore, Equalists focus on the content rather than the form of the world’s many imbalanced, fear-based paradigms. Equalists believe all human beings are citizens of Planet Earth and set multiple goals for their liberation. We believe that in order to be collectively harmonious, abundant and balanced, certain universal tenets apply. Those tenets are inherently feminist with regard to our desire to radically change the current domination paradigm (occupied by all genders) to allow for equal pay, freedom from aggression, child friendly work environments, and gender diversity. Through this shift, matriarchy and patriarchy are changed to ‘humanarchy’."

Judit Révész, New York City, Geneva, Switzerland, Hungary

Message from Evelin: Dearest Judit, I will never forget the day when you welcomed me to Teachers College, Columbia University, on December 17, 2001, just before I gave the talk titled Humiliation and the Roots of Violence at 3.30 pm, upon the invitation of Betty Reardon, attended, among others, by Morton Deutsch!

Since 2001, you are a pillar of our dignity work, and since the inception of this website in 2003, you offer your time and energy to reply when people click on the "contact us" button! Over the years, you often worked late at night for us, even while holding two jobs and being a student. Words will never suffice to express our gratitude and admiration to you! Your deeply deeply thankful Evelin!

Thank you so much for your important contribution to this book:
"Full Circle: With Gratitude to Our Dearest Evelin Lindner." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael Britton, and Linda Hartling. Chapter 14. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Julian Bodnar, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada 

Julian Bodnar offers Mediation, Arbitration, & Conciliation Services. He describes himself on Linkedin as follows:
Over the course of a law career of 40 years, my practice was to be negotiation and settlement focused. My inspiration to seek resolution and settlement of legal disputes whenever possible is premised upon my belief and experience that the best outcomes for parties, as well ensuring better respect for the human aspects and interests of a legal dispute, are more likely to be accomplished by using case appropriate conflict and dispute resolution techniques and processes rather than strictly relying on legal proceedings.
From 2012 to 2022, I worked with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission as a Lawyer/Mediator where I was assigned as a mediator of human rights complaint files, and also to represent it as counsel in its Directed Mediations. I also was assigned to work on the Commission's systemic initiatives.
I now offer consulting and advocacy services in conflict and dispute resolution, including mediation, arbitration, and conciliation.
As a person with lifelong experience of living with circumstances of disability, and now also seen as being an older person, I take personal and professional interest in advocating for improved acceptance and accommodation of both disability, and aging in society, through Disability, and Aging Awareness and Equality Training and Mediation Services.

Kaethe Weingarten, Mountain View, California

Dr. Kaethe Weingarten is a clinical psychologist, peace psychologist and family therapist who is the Director of the Witness to Witness Program at the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN). Until retirement, she was an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where she had an appointment since 1981. She is the founder and director of the Witnessing Project, which helps individuals, families and communities turn the passive witnessing of violence into effective compassionate action. She currently directs the Program in Families, Trauma and Resilience at the Family Institute of Cambridge. [read more]
Kaethe kindly wrote in November 2023: "I am a community psychologist who is a trauma expert. I take a collective approach to support and solidarity for those who suffer abuse and humiliation. I was affiliated with Harvard Medical School from 1981–2016 and am now directing the Witness to Witness Program at MCN. I have many publications about the witnessing model, many in Family Process. About 3.6% of the world's population is migrants who are treated with humiliation virtually everywhere. My organization has been working on behalf of migrants for over 37 years. Migrant Clinicians Network. I am the Director of the Witness to Witness Program at MCN and have been a member of this network from the beginning. I met Evelin in 2000–2001 in Cambridge, MA."

Kalen Young, Whitefish, Montana, U.S.A.

Kalen Young is an organizational change leader with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science who has earned her MA in Social Justice and Human Rights from Arizona State University. Kalen has extensive research and professional experience working on interdisciplinary research projects pertaining to sexual orientation, gender identity, public policy and hyper-masculine environments. Her research interests include radical pedagogies in praxis, humiliation as it intersects with trauma, and obstetric/traumatic fistulas through a human rights lens Her research grants her the opportunity to explore the complex matrices of socio-political impulses that perpetuate systems of institutionalized discrimination and violence. Her current research focuses on obstetric and traumatic fistulas as a nexus where trauma and humiliation intersect.

Karin Dremel, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A., and Heidelberg, Germany

Dear Karin, thank you so much for having shared your lovely poem First Imagined Day in 2020! (Video | Lyrics December 30, 2020)!

Karen Hirsch, New York City

Karen is a pillar of the HumanDHS network since 2009 and co-creates and co-facilitates zoom groups regarding antisemitism. She also volunteers with Riverside Language and Catholic Charities English Conversation programs
She works for dignity through deep listening, dialogue and kindness and writes in 2023: "When people experience openhearted, kind listening, it almost always contributes to their feeling more relaxed, valued, and open."

Kathy Beckwith, Dayton, Oregon, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Kathy explained, "Dignity through solidarity expresses to me an optimism and hopefulness about living in respect and appreciation of and with others, by experiencing the "wind beneath our wings" that comes through working and playing with and knowing others who share the same longing and vision."

In 2020, she explained dignity as follows: "The acknowledgement and kind celebration of our preciousness — each to the other."

Congratulations with your book, dear Kathy! You contacted us in 2014, and a year later, we had your book come out! What a gift to the world!
Beckwith, Kathy (2015). A Mighty Case Against War: What America Missed in U.S. History Class and What We (All) Can Do Now (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press)

Thank you so much for sharing so much of your creative dignity work both in 2021 and 2020, dear Kathy:

2021:
• You are Amazing, recorded on November 7, 2021

2020:
• "Message to the World — Dignity through Kindness, Respect, and Peace" recorded on November 26, 2020. Kathy kindly wrote on November 27, 2020: "If it would inspire just a few people to think of the potential for peer mediation and abandoning war, and "being nice first" it would be so worth our time..."
• Child of the Earth (Video on Day Three | Audio, recorded on November 5, 2020)

Kathy Goodman, New York City

Kathy Komaroff Goodman is a founding Principal at ACCORD, a collaborative of conflict management and resolution specialists serving individuals and businesses. Kathy received her M.S. in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University in 2013. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of California, Berkeley in both art history and psychology.  Ms. Goodman is a trained mediator and received her training from the New York Peace Institute (NYPI).  Her Master’s thesis took a comprehensive look at Engaging Emotions in Self and Parties in the Mediation Context.

Thank you, dear Kathy, for reading the summary of Evelin's father's path and how it influenced Evelin's life on December 5, 2023. The main lesson, the world can learn from Evelin's father, according to you, is the following: "Never again" is not enough! "Resist the beginnings" is what is needed!" "Never again" is about remembering, "resist the beginnings" is about preventing "once again"! You said also, it should be a film, with her father's story told in black and white, and, at the end, Evelin's story briefly in color.

Katrin Brubakk, Trondheim, Norway

Katrin Glatz Brubakk is a child psychologist and university lecturer at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, and a field worker for, among others, Doctors Without Borders. Brubakk has for a number of years worked for and with refugees in the Congo, Egypt, and Greece, and on rescue ships in the Mediterranean and in Lebanon.

Kingsley Okoro, Nigeria

Dr. Kingsley Okoro kindly participated in our 2012 dignity workshop. He hails from Uburu in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. He started his vocational career as an Anglican priest in 1994. He attended the prestigious Trinity Union Theological College Umuahia, where he obtained a Diploma in Theology and thereafter moved to the University of Calabar and obtained a BA (Hons) in Religious Studies, a MA in Religious Studies with special emphasis in Religion and Politics and a PhD in Religion and Society with special interest in Globalistics or Global trends. Dr Kingsley joined the Lecturing crew of Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki-Nigeria in 2006, and has made tremendous progress and impact in his career. He is a member of several International and National research associations, which include IPRA (International Peace Research Association). The aim of the association is to broker peace through painstaking research and education, the Peace Movement Trust, with headquarters in India, the Institute for Research and Development, in Nigeria, and the International Association for the Study of Religions. Currently he is nominated to join in the IPRA Special Interest Group (SIG) in Peace Research in Africa.

Thank you, dear Michelle Brenner, for having introduced Kingsley to our dignity community in 2011!

Kirsten Margrethe Kvam, Brøttum, Hedmark, Norway

Kirsten Margrethe Kvam works as Department Consultant and EU-Advisor at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Norway’s leading institution for applied ecological research, with broad-based expertise on the genetic, population, species, ecosystem and landscape level, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal marine environments. The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, NINA, is as an independent foundation focusing on environmental research, emphasizing the interaction between human society, natural resources and biodiversity, established in 1988. The headquarters are located in Trondheim, with branches in Tromsø, Lillehammer, Bergen and Oslo.
Margrethe has also been the Vice-President of The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) with National Sections covering every continent, an International Secretariat based in Geneva, and a New York office focused on the work of the United Nations (UN). WILPF is the oldest international women's peace organisation in the world. On 28 April 1915, during World War I, a group of 1,136 women from warring and neutral nations gathered in The Hague, the Netherlands, to discuss how to end the war and ensure permanent peace.
Kindly see also Margrethe's contribution to Evelin's 60th birthday gathering.

Kristian Laubjerg, København, Denmark

Kristian Laubjerg was born in a remote rural region of Denmark in 1948. He was the head of the Middle East and North Africa desk in the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) until 2001. This post provided him with an opportunity to gain close insight into how the United Nations and its agencies work. He completed his time with UNICEF by serving as head of three countries in Central Africa. After his early retirement, he founded a health care agency in Senegal. [read more]

Leigh Gage, U.S.A.

Leigh Gage is the father of late Melissa Gage, who attended Evelin Lindner's teaching in 2006, introduced by Milton Schwebel, Melissa Sweeney, and Tony Jenkins, a high school student in 2006. Her father is retired and is interested in self compassion. He kindly wrote in November 2023: " My daughter Melissa Gage was researching humiliation in 2006 and I’m interested in knowing more."

Leland "Lee" R. Beaumont, Middletown, New Jersey, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Lee explained, "When we can recognize that respecting the human dignity we are each born with provides the basis for moral reasoning and daily decision making, we can unite on this common ground."

Thank you so very much, dear Lee, for your life work! We are happy that you found our work in 2007, and that you came to our workshops in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010! Thank you so much for sharing your valuable work over all these years!

Dear Lee, how can we ever thank you enough! As a consultant in computer networking, you have single-handedly, you have built a monumental contribution to our World Dignity University initiative!

• Wisdompage: “I wonder how that works?” is the question that has propelled much of the life and career of Leland R. Beaumont. Expressed early on as an interest in science, math, engineering, and computer science, he obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering as he began his career at Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies.

• In your registration for 2021, you kindly shared an amazingly comprehensive graphical overview over the Causal Relationships Shaping Our Universe! Thank you also for sharing your ideas for future Dignilogue (Dignity + Dialogue) topics:
1) Seeking real good
2) Creating a Human Rights Olympics event
3) Moral reasoning

• Thank you for creating for us in the past years more than 60 pages of wise affirmations, a thought experiment that can help better understand the role luck plays in one's life, a course on problem finding, and on confronting tyranny. Thank you for offering an optimistic vision of the future, and a Wikiversity Possibilities curriculum.

• You wrote in 2019:
As a gift to you and the people of the world I have developed the Wisdom and the Future Research Center, where researchers are exploring the question How can we wisely create our future?
I have also developed a freely available course on Moral Reasoning."

Linda Hartling, Portland, Oregon, principle convener of this workshop, please see her bio further down!

Dignity? "A world without humiliation dignifies us all!"

Dearest Linda, no message of gratitude will ever be enough to express how we — the entire global dignity community — feel about your immeasurable work of love and dignity!
YOU nurtured also this workshop into being! See two rounds of appreciations for your efforts at last year's workshop (Video | Video). See also a message of gratitude from Evelin Lindner, recorded prior to the 2020 workshop on November 25 and December 9, 2020 (Video). And then see also our messages of gratitude at the end of the 2020 workshop (Video), where all participants expressed their deep gratitude and admiration for your leadership, as, after all, YOU make all our workshops possible!

Thank you so much, dear Linda, for co-editing this important and most touching book, and for writing the Foreword and the final chapter:
"Moving Beyond Humiliation: A Relational Conceptualization of Human Rights." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael Britton, and Linda Hartling. Chapter 15. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Lior Locher, United Kingdom

Lior (formlery Christine) Locher is an artist and creative arts activist, a coach and facilitator of conflict resolution. They have a portfolio career with work in learning and development as a day job, and their own coaching business and artistic practice. Lior is nonbinary (they, them, their) and has a background in psychology, communication, conflict resolution, systems thinking, psychotherapy, yoga, and art. They lived in 6 countries on 4 continents.

Lucien Xavier Lombardo, Virginia, U.S.A.

Dignity (2020): "An essence of our lives that connects with its meaning and others. It exists in experience and does not need to be judged, measured or defined. Unlike justice, equality, fairness, equality, dignity does not yield to power; it is not subject to measurement; it is not based on a judgment; it is not political! Dignity is!"

Thank you, dear Lou, for kindly writing in the registration for the 2021 workshop: "Working to integrate 'dignity' into world of children. Started working career as a teacher in a maximum security prison and from there, taught for 40 years act Old Dominion University, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Latest research involved implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Southern Cayuga Anne Frank Tree Project, National No Hit Zone Committee, Harriet Tubman Center for Justice and Peace, National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence It shapes HOW teachers and learners interact with the problems and material they are studying. Doing so as co-investigators — implementing Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Hope! Exploring how "a dignity perspective" can shape curriculum across disciplines at the college/ university level. Discussing how dignity can be integrated into the mission statements of public and private school systems! What would it mean? How would it look?

Dearest Lou, we are privileged that you found our work in 2013! Thank you so much for sharing your work since then at each of our workshops, dear Lucien!
• "Message to the World — Learning about Dignity" (Text | Video recorded on December 5, 2020)
Thank you also for:
• Human Dignity and Childhood, Workshop with Leadership Team, Auburn Enlarged City School District, Auburn, NY, November 18, 2019
• Finding My Way to Questions about Violence, prepared for Senior Scholar Lecture, College of Arts and Letters, November 4, 2006... Dr. Lombardo's Journey: It's Never Been Just Academic — Was It Following Me Around?

Maggie O'Neill, Ireland and England

What a gift, dear Maggie, that esteemed Ruth Lister brought you to us in 2005, and that you came all across the Atlantic to our workshops in New York City in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012, and 2013! How WONDERFUL to have you with us now again!

Thank you so much, dear Maggie, for your contribution to Dignilogue 1 of our 2020 workshop: Dignity Studies: Reimagining Learning in of World of Crises (Video)

Thank you for sharing your work with us, dear Maggie:
• Participation Arts and Social Action in Research (PASAR): Theatre Making and Walking in Research with Migrant Women, with Umut Erel, Ereni Kaptani, Tracey Reynolds and Maggie O’Neill, a short film by Marcia Chandra that shares the work and importantly the process, (Video | Pdf comment | PASAR)

• Walking Conversations with Maggie O’Neill, Arpad Szakaloczai, Ger Mullally, the Dingle Creativity and Innovation Hub and students and teachers from the Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne. Walking is a mundane activity but also fundamental to our way of being and sociality, taking a walk with someone is a powerful way of communicating about experience, we can become attuned and connected in a lived embodied way with the feelings and lived experience of another. Pioneering Anthropologist Tim Ingold talks about walking as the ‘art of paying attention’. Walking opens a space for dialogue, and embodied knowledge and experience can be shared, it is ‘convivial’ in the senses described above. This short film by Jan Haaken and Maciej Klich shares this work in progress and in process on walking conversations and the walking classroom. (Video | Pdf comment)

María Cristina Azcona, Buenos Aires, Argentina

"Dignity is the right to deserve respect from others and regarding social groups, it means respect to human rights. In the sense of children, it means respect to their bodies and not only their souls."

Dear María, so good that our Ada Aharoni brought you to us in 2005! All your life you have generously woven global dignity networks! Thank you!

Thank you for sharing the Mission of the Worldwide Peace Organization (English and Spanish) for this workshop, dear María!
• Education for a New Millennium, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2018
• The Education of Morality for Parents and Children, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 10, 2020

Thank you for sharing earlier:
• Dignity and Humiliation in Argentina, a paper written by María for HumanDHS in 2005

Maryam Talakoob, San Francisco, California

Maryam Talakoob is a 63 year old Iranian American who lives in San Francisco, California. Her day job is data analysis and statistics. She also holds a M.A. degree in Gerontology from San Francisco State University (December 2022) and volunteers as gerontologist and listener to people’s conflicts by validation. She is a mother and a wife and a multi-lingual speaker of English, Persian, and Spanish, and has prior cultural experience of living abroad and serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in economic development. She has been studying Spanish for 7 years and continues to learn the cultures of Latin America.

Maryam kindly wrote in November 2023: Dignity is "learning through dialogue," and it is "creative arts."

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Maryam! We are very happy to have you with us!

Michael Boyer, Hameln (Hamelin), Germany

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Michael responded, "Solidarity with your fellows should prerequisite dignified relations."

Dignity (2020): "Dignism!"

Thank you, dear Michael, for your amazing Dignity Anthem that you created in November 2022!
• the anthem as part of the Introduction to this workshop
• the anthem alone with big subtitles
• the anthem alone with with small subtitles
• the anthem alone without subtitles
• the text of the anthem

Thank you, dear Michael, for your loving support for dignity and your amazing work with our DignityNowHameln group! Thank you for your Digniworld initiative that you created in 2019 (Video): Digniworld WordPress | Digniworld Facebook | Digniworld Twitter | Digniworld Instagram | World Dignity Movement (on YouTube)

All these lovely contributions to our 2021 workshop from Hameln came true due to your untiring support:
• Dignity Now: Hameln Removes Plastic Waste from the Banks of its River Weser (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in September 2021, finalized on November 25, 2021)
• The Dignity Now Hameln Group sings Dona Nobis Pacem ("Grant Us Peace" in Latin) in the Chapel of Wangelist near Hameln (Hamelin) on November 8, 2021
Dear Michael, thank you for devising a lovely "script" for the introduction of the Hameln group during Dignilogue 5 of our workshop: Evelin describes the Group > Evelin to Michael > Michael to Regina > Regina to Andrea > Film - BUND Plastic Action > Andrea to Georg > Georg to Claudia > Claudia to Gisela > Gisela to Dorothee > Dorothee to Andreas > back to Evelin greeting Zuzana Lučkay Mihalčinová > Dona Nobis Pacem.

Thank you also for your wonderful contributions to our 2020 workshop:
• Dignity Now: Hameln Presents Good Ideas from the Past and the Future for a More Sustainable Future. Thoughts Are Unchained (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel, recorded in October and November 2020, finalized on November 21, 2020)
This is the contribution of the DignityNowHameln group that was recorded in October and November 2020, and finalized on November 21, 2020 (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)
See more in detail:
• 01 Marienhof (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)
• 02 Unverpackt Laden (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)
• 03 Song Die Gedanken sind Frei / Thoughts are Unchained (World Dignity Movement channel | HumanDHS channel)
• Dear Michael, thank you also for your wonderful vocal interlude! (Video at the end)
• Hameln Sings (all vocal interludes brought together) (Video)

Michael Britton, Highland Park, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Dearest Michael! What a gift it is to have you as a core pillar of our dignity work since 2006! Thank you so much for kindly accepting that we honored you with our 2017 Lifetime Commitment Award!

In the annual Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict that takes place each year at Columbia University, you hold the Don Klein Celebration Lecture in place of the lecture that Don Klein held each year until he passed away in 2007, titled The Humiliation Dynamic: Looking Back... Looking Forward

In 2022, this was Michael Britton's Don Klein Celebration Lecture (Video | Video recorded on November 21, 2022)

In 2021, this was Michael Britton's Don Klein Celebration Lecture (Video | Video recorded on December 5, 2021, edited by Linda Hartling on December 6, 2021 | Video recorded on November 30, 2021, edited by Linda Hartling on December 1, 2021 | Pdf from PowerPoint)

In 2020, this was Michael Britton's Don Klein Celebration Lecture: Video | Video recorded on October 18, 2020 | Video recorded on October 18, 2020, and edited by Linda Hartling on December 3, 2020
All of your Don Klein Celebration Lectures since 2007 are listed here

Message from Evelin Lindner: Dear Michael, I will never forget how we met on November 14, 2006, when you kindly attended my presentation titled Humiliation and the Roots of Violence: Human Conflict in a Globalizing World, to which our dear Philip Brown had invited me at the New Jersey Center for Character Education, Center for Applied Psychology, Rutgers University, New Jersey. I still have some pictures.

Thank you so much, dear Michael, for co-editing this important and most touching book, and for writing the Introduction:
Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael F. Britton, and Linda M. Hartling. Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019.

Michael Greene, Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Michael Greene, Ph.D., is a Senior Project Director at Rutgers University Center for Applied Psychology, a consultant for The Nicholson Foundation, and sole proprietor of Greene Consulting. Dr. Greene received his academic training in developmental psychology at Columbia University. He previously established two centers for the study and prevention of violence: the Center for the Prevention of Violence at Youth Consultation Service and the Violence Institute of New Jersey at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Miriam Pegesa and Moritz Engbers, Hannover, Germany

Miriam Pegesa is a high school teacher whose thesis was titled Eine qualitative Studie zu didaktischen Konzepten von Geschichtslehrpersonen zum Holocaust (A Qualitative Study on Didactic Concepts of History Teachers About the Holocaust).

Moritz holds a PhD in sustainability research and is a coordinator for transdiciplinary projects, a facilitator, and a gestalt therapist (in-training).

Michael Perlin, New York City, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Dear Michael! What a pillar of our dignity work you have been since our dear George Woods brought you to us in 2006! Thank you so much for kindly accepting that we honored you with our 2012 Lifetime Commitment Award!

Michael L. Perlin is Professor of Law Emeritus at New York Law School (NYLS), where he was director of NYLS’s Online Mental Disability Law Program, and director of NYLS’s International Mental Disability Law Reform Project in its Justice Action Center. He is co-founder of Mental Disability Law and Policy Associates, and has written 34 books and over 300 articles on all aspects of mental disability law, focusing primarily on issues related to criminal law and procedure. He has litigated at every court level from police court to the US Supreme Court, and has done advocacy work on every continent. He is the honorary life president of the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence and a member of that society’s current Board of Trustees. He is also a member of the Lawrence Township (NJ) Community Concert Band, the Temple University Night Owls band, and the board of directors of the Washington Crossing (NJ) Audubon Society.

Dear Michael, you wrote about dignity: "I have been writing about this for years. See my articles, among others, my chapter "Dignity and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: How We Can Best End Shame and Humiliation," in Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations 113 (Chipamong Chowdhury and Michael Britton eds. 2019) (Dignity Press); See more here."

Thank you so much for sharing:
• "In These Times of Compassion When Conformity's in Fashion": How Therapeutic Jurisprudence Can Root out Bias, Limit Polarization and Support Vulnerable Persons in the Legal Process (Video 2021)
• “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment,” University of Miami Law Review (2021)
• "Message to the World" (Text | Video | Video recorded on December 7, 2020)

Thank you in particular for your important contribution to this book:
• "Dignity and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: How We Can Best End Shame and Humiliation." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael F. Britton, and Linda M. Hartling. Chapter 6. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Mitra Visvesh, Oslo, Norway

Mitra Visvesh is an artist and social psychologist, member of the Global-MINDS programme in social and cultural psychology at the University of Oslo. Among others, she attended the seminar PSY4506 - Human Rights, Democracy and Reconstruction after Conflict; A community based approach, on March 9, 2023.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Mitra! We are very happy to have you with us!

Natália S. Viana Brasil, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

"Dignity means being respected and able to live with all natural rights."

Natália S. Viana Brasil studied law at the Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (Rede UEPB) and lives in João Pessoa, Brazil.

How wonderful it was, dear Nati, to meet you in São Paulo in 2012 through our dear Gaby Saab!

Noorit Larsen, Oppland, Norway

Noorit Larsen is a Communications Advisor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences in Oppland County, Norway. Noorit has graduated with an LLB degree from the University of Haifa, Israel. During her bachelor degree she developed a growing interest in human rights and related disciplines, as well as took part in the ‘human rights in society’ legal clinic. After finishing her bachelor degree she moved to Norway to live with her husband who is Norwegian. She has graduated with a master's degree in Medical Law and Ethics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Among her areas of interest and research expertise are: human rights, medical law, international healthcare law, distribution of natural resources, public international law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence and law and development. She hopes to do her Ph.D. in Norway in the latter subject; she believes the reciprocal relations between international law and international development are not only interesting and fruitful but from her perspective – inevitable as well. She also believes there is research in a relatively small scale in the area of law and development.

Nora Alfano, Punta Gorda, Florida, U.S.A.

Nora Alfano is a retired teacher, dedicated to fostering the dignity of the disabled through education of the students and the community. She has promoted social inclusion through sports as a Special Olympics volunteer. Nora has a B.S. in Education, Special Education from Fitchburg State University.

Özgür Basyigit, Bolu, Turkey

Özgür Basyigit is a Faculty member of the Faculty of Law at the Abant İzzet Baysal University in Bolu, Turkey, and a lawyer at the Istanbul Bar Association. He kindly shared in November 2023: "I was born in 1977 in Konya, Turkey and received my undergraduate education at Kocaeli University Faculty of Law. I did my master's degree on labor law at the same university and completed my doctoral education at Istanbul Kültür University, Faculty of Law. I served as a Gendarmerie in the Turkish Armed Forces and worked as a faculty member at Kocaeli University and Gaziantep University. I am currently a faculty member at Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University Faculty of Law and also a lawyer at the Istanbul Bar Association. I am working on labor law regulations within the scope of equality between men and women. I am also interested in the legal problems that refugees face and their employment structures within the scope of these problems.
I supported Syrian Refugees regarding their legal rights and assisted in employment-related processes for housewives who are among disadvantaged groups."

Paola Cruz, Honduras

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Paola explained, "Communal efforts for attaining equality for all."

Dear Paola, thank you so much for joining us for our workshop upon the invitation of our dear Bhante Revata Dhamma!

Peter Coleman, New York City

Peter Coleman, Director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR), Columbia University, Teachers College (TC), is the recipient of the 2020 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award. It is a great honor to have him contribute with his crucially important work to this workshop!

Thank you, dear Peter, for your brilliant contribution to this year's workshop, with The Way Out Challenge (Video)!

Peter T. Coleman is Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, where he holds a joint-appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. Dr. Coleman directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR), is founding director of the Institute for Psychological Science and Practice (IPSP), and is executive director of Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). His book titled, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization was released in 2021.

Morton Deutsch and Peter Coleman have been pillars of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) network since its inception, and on December 11, 2009, Morton Deutsch was the first recipient of the HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award. Peter Coleman is a co-sponsor of this event and our anchor at Columbia University. Without his support, there would be no workshop. He is a distinguished contributor since the inception of our dignity community since 2001, together with Morton Deutsch. It is a great joy and immense honor for us that he is willing to give us his time this December. Peter and his team are a shining example of putting ideas into practice, practice that transcends international and institutional boundaries. Our relationship with Columbia University is one model for our WDUi of working in concert with a degree-granting institution, rather than in competition.

Peter Coleman has been honored with the 2020 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award at the 17th Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict at Columbia University in New York City, December 10 – 12, 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this conference had to take place online.
• Award Ceremony (Video)
• Message of Appreciation from Evelin Lindner (Pdf)
• Peter Coleman's Remarks in Appreciation of the 2020 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award, recorded on December 11, 2020 (Video)
• See also Peter Coleman’s Life Story in "Fundamentals of Conflict Resolution, Instructor Peter Coleman Highlights #ScholarStrike," MD-ICCCR at Teachers College, Columbia University, September 11, 2020 (Video)

Philip Brown, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and New Jersey, U.S.A.

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Phil explained in 2021, "We need each other to build and maintain social cohesion rooted in a just, fair, and caring vision of civilization. Solidarity must be defined in a way that is distinguished from a tribalistic approach to survival."

At the 2020 workshop, Phil defined dignity as follows, "Opportunities for genuine connection with other's humanity under the umbrella of egalitarian principles and respect for all sentient beings."

Dr. Philip Brown is the recipient of the 2016 HumanDHS Lifetime Commitment Award. He is a Coach for the National School Climate Center, and is President of the newly reorganized International Center for Assault Prevention.

Thank you so much, dear Phil, for hosting Dignilogue 3 of the 2021 workshop, and for contributing to Dignilogue 5 with your important contribution:
Dignifying the Individual Has Both an Interpersonal and Institutional Context and Dimension: Solidarity can happen for good or evil purposes; without prosocial core anchors, it can lead in the wrong direction (Video | PowerPoint)

Phil Brown is a developmental psychologist who has worked to support K-12 education for more than 45 years. He has been part of the HumanDHS network since his doctoral committee chair, Don Klein, invited him in 2004. He is a devotee of intentional networking. He currently serves as President of the International Center for Assault Prevention and as a senior consultant for the National School Climate Center. His special areas of interest, study, and research are the conditions and work that is necessary to support prosocial school cultures, where character, caring, fairness, and equity are equally important as academic achievement.

Thank you, dear Phil, for being a pillar of our dignity work since 2004, when our esteemed Don Klein brought you to us. Thank for joining our 2004 workshop and for accepting that we honored you with our 2016 Lifetime Commitment Award! In 2008, you contributed to the Special Symposium Issue of Experiments in Education, "Humiliation in the Academic Setting", published by the S.I.T.U. Council of Educational Research. Professor D. Raja Ganesan, the editor of this Special Symposium Issue, has kindly prepared a "Message to the World" for this workshop on November 10, 2021.

Thank you for sharing:
• Summary of a Human Rights Based Child Protection Prevention and Early Intervention Program "Empowering Children, Parents and Schools to Be Safe, Strong and Free", The International Center for Assault Prevention (ICAP), October 2020

Thank you in particular for your important contribution to this book:
• "School Discipline: A Prosocial Perspective." In Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations: Essays on Dignity Studies in Honor of Evelin G. Lindner. Edited by Chipamong Chowdhury, Michael F. Britton, and Linda M. Hartling. Chapter 8. (Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2019)

Prue Cauley, Elwood, Victoria, Australia

Prue Cauley is a provisional psychologist, a qualified yoga and meditation teacher, and a mental health educator, with a research Masters in cross-cultural psychology. She has been living and working in diverse settings including humanitarian aid in Northern Greece, the mining industry in Australia and Papua New Guinea, and in mental health research in Norway. She has a particular interest in post-traumatic experiences of refugee populations, on which she has co-authored publications.
A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Prue! We are very happy to have you with us!

Qin Shao, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., China

How can we ever thank Michael Perlin enough, dear Qin, for bringing us together in 2014! Thank you for your loving and dignifying support!

Thank you so much for sharing, dear Qin!
• The Pursuit of Transitional Justice from Below: A Case Study from Shanghai, by Qin Shao, 2020

Rajesh Dixit, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

Professor Dr. Rajesh Dixit was part of the team that hosted the 2017 Dignity Conference in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. He is a poet, author, thinker, and orator. He is the Vice Chancellor at Renaissance University in Indore, state of Madhya Pradesh, Central India. Prior to that he was the principal of the Renaissance College in Indore. He has earned his doctorate from Vikhram University of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. His doctorate was written in Hindi, on Dr. Dharmvir Bharti, who was a great poet and novelist (Dr. Dharmvir Bharti ke Sahitya ka Samagra Anushilan). [read more]

Ream Dhaher, Erbil, Erbil Governorate, Iraq

Ream Dhaher is a project manager at the Eyzidi Organization for Documentation in Erbil, Erbil Governorate, Iraq. She has been an intern at The Nuremberg Human Rights Center (NMRZ) in Nuremberg, Germany, an independent, non-profit association that advocates for human rights at local, national and international levels.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Ream! We are very happy to have you with us!

Rebecca Nthogo Lekoko, Botswana

Professor Rebecca Nthogo Lekoko is an adult educator by profession and a full-professor who retired from the University of Botswana in 2021, having taught, researched, published and engaged in lifelong learning, community development, community empowerment, community-based, and participatory research. In 2023, she is working on a contract basis for the government. [read more]
Professor Lekoko has been educated in Botswana, Canada and USA, first as a teacher trainer then an adult educator. She graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a Doctor of Education in Adult Education, specializing in community development. Her professional practices weave together diverse and pertinent issues pertaining to community development such as education for empowerment, social mobilization strategies and participatory approaches.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Rebecca! We are very happy to have you with us!

Ronald C. Banks, Brooklyn, New York City

Ronald Banks is both a mediator and community organizer in Brooklyn, New York City, a member of the Greater New York Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR-GNY), and a member of the New York State Dispute Resolution Association (NYSDRA).
He kindly wrote in November 2023: "My primary interest is in areas of dignity through dialogue, conflict transformation and social justice. Throughout my career, I have always been committed to the improvement of the human condition, either as a community organizer, executive director of a community-based not-for-profit organization, or in my work in the political field on behalf of various representative. I have always promoted peace, and the preservation of human dignity in all my endeavors."

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Ronald Banks! We are very happy to have you with us! We thank Maria Volpe for making the work ACR-GNY possible and thus introducing you to our dignity work!

Roland Darroll, Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa

Roland Darroll is an attorney based in Newlands, Cape Town, who works with social justice.

Saanwari Sidhwani, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

Saanwari Sidhwani is the CEO of Word Dealers, the world's first all female localization company, serving in the fields of translation, lingual escorting and simultaneous interpretation (see also Vinita Raj). Saanwari is also a trained classical singer.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Ronald Banks! We are very happy to have you with us!

Sahana Sriskandarajah, Drammen, Norway

Sahana Sriskandarajah is an international citizen & an intersectional feminist advocating for social justice with aspirations to make changes in the world, whilst growing as a person and as a professional to help other people reach their goal. She is a programme coordinator at Future Leaders Global in Oslo, Norway, and is mentoring school-children and adolescents (from the age of 6 - 19) in various school subjects and in future education & career planning at MentorNorge AS.

Sandy Rea, Douglas, Queensland, Australia

Sandy Rea employs a qualitative case study approach in her PhD project at the James Cook University in Douglas, Queensland, Australia, where she investigates the journeys to recovery of high-profile persons who have suffered mental ill-health after the exposure of egregious acts (e.g., a faux pas, adultery, fraud) via mass and social media. Understanding the determinants that high-profile persons utilise to achieve recovery might provide insight into the recovery journeys of various populations and inform clinical practice and theory. Sandy is a practising psychologist and fellow of the College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists. She holds Masters degrees in Educational Psychology and Forensic Psychology. She contributes frequently to the media (television, radio, print).

Sho Albert, Buffolo, New York

Sho Albert is pursuing a two-year Master’s of Science degree in Creativity and Change Leadership, a program that is chaired by Gerard Puccio, Ph.D., at Buffalo State University.
Sho is interested in dignity education and ecology/climate crises. He was a student of Professor Jacqueline Wasilewski at the International Christian University in Tokyo. She introduced Sho Albert in 2014 as "an amazing person whom I can only call a human development specialist (martial artist, improv performer, sculptor, outdoor educator."

Stephanie Knox Steiner, San Jose, Costa Rica

Stephanie Marie Knox Steiner, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor and Academic Coordinator of the Peace Education programme at the University for Peace (UPEACE) affiliated with the United Nations. [read more]
•  Kindly see the Colloquium "Reimagining and Re-Enchanting Education", June 6, 2023.
•  See Steiner's dissertation titled Decolonial, Pluriversal, Vitality-Centered Pedagogies: (Re)orienting Education Toward Serving Life.

Susanna Pearce, Ithaca, New York

Welcome to our workshop, dear Susanna!

Sylvain I. Muller

Sylvain I. Muller advocates for a sustainable world (including Diversity Equality and Inclusion) and strives to overcome discrimination through his work's council capacity.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Sylvain! We are very happy to have you with us!

Takis Ioannides Panagiotis, Athens, Greece

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Takis explained, "Ιf the city is good as a whole, it benefits the citizens more than if everyone is happy individually and the city is shaken as a whole, because even if the person is happy individually, he is nevertheless destroyed together with his homeland if it is destroyed. Thucydides."

We are so grateful, dear Takis, for your dignifying support since ten years! So lovely to have you with us in our workshop, welcome!

Tamer Tolba, Egypt, Hamburg, Germany

Dr. Tamer Tolba is a physicist at the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Hamburg (UHH) in Hamburg, Germany. He is the Chair of the Dissemination and Exploitation Board of the ESSnuSB+ project, the principal investigator and country representative of Germany for the ESSnuSB and ESSnuSB+ projects, and was the representative from Germany to the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), action CA15139.

Tanveer Hussein

Tanveer Hussein, Advocate High Court, works for social justice and human rights.

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Tanveer! We are very happy to have you with us!

Thanos York, Toronto, Canada

Thanos York is a York University graduate, social justice activist, community leader and activist, and a creative arts activism (song and dance). He kindly wrote on November 2023: "I'm an anti-humiliation activist, I believe if society did not have humiliation, we would be an evolved human race."

A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Thanos! We are very happy to have you with us!

Uli Spalthoff, Southern Germany

When asked "What does 'dignity through solidarity' mean to you?" Uli explained, "For me, these are almost synonyms, as solidarity always implied recognizing equal dignity of others."

Ulrich J. Spalthoff, Ph.D., is the Director of Operations of Dignity Press and the World Dignity University initiative's digital platform, the HumanDHS Director of Project Development and System Administration, and a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors.

Dear Uli, we cannot imagine our dignity work without you. You have offered your dignifying support as a free gift for more than ten years now! On behalf of humanity, please allow us to express our deepest gratitude!

Since you got to know our work in 2003 and joined us in 2010, you and your wife have traveled all the way to come to some of our conferences — for instance, the one in 2011 in New Zealand, and the one in 2015 in Rwanda — and with your immense knowledge and expertise you have built up the platform for the World Dignity University initiative, including Dignity Press.

Thank you so much for introducing the WDUi Electronic Learning Platform to this workshop (Video)!

Thank you so much also for your great contribution to Dignilogue 4 on Day Two of last year's workshop, titled, My Experience with the WDU Platform (Video)!

Vinita Raj, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

Welcome to our workshop, dear Vinita! Our entire global dignity community is grateful for the 2017 Dignity Conference in Indore that YOU helped convene!

Walid Sarhan, Amman, Jordan

Walid Sarhan, MD, FRCPsych, IDFAP, is a Senior Consultant psychiatrist working in Amman, Jordan. He is the Chief Editor of The Arab Journal of Psychiatry, a Member and Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (FRCPsych), an International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (IDFAPA), and an honorary member of the World Psychiatric Association. He is very active in continuous medical education and public awareness building. He has been honored as "the best Arab Psychiatrist in the world" in 2022.

Wendy Jane Carrel, West Hollywood, California

Wendy Jane Carrel's areas of specialization are book publishing, senior care, mental health, integrative medicine, slow medicine, palliative care, hospice, and end-of-life planning. She engages in multi-cultural communications, compassionate healthcare coordination, quality of life issues, and heart-centered emergency rescue.

Dear Wendy, we thank our dear Carol Smaldino for introducting you to us! A very warm welcome to our workshop for the first time, dear Wendy! We are very happy to have you with us!