About Dignity Now!
Dignity Now! is dedicated to empowering more people to live with dignity and to change the laws so that people’s dignity is protected.
Our Team
Dignity Now! also benefits from the contributions of a number of students from the United States, France, India, and elsewhere.
Collaborations and Partnerships
We are currently working with NGOs, academic institutions, and legal organizations in Brazil, Congo/Tanzania, Haiti, Ireland, Nepal, and the United States to bring dignity to life.
Please reach out if you’re interested in our partnership opportunities or consulting services.
Dignity Now! was founded by Erin Daly. For nearly 20 years, Erin has been studying and exploring how the law is recognizing, protecting, and fostering human dignity. She has worked with partners in many different countries to help build awareness of the rights we all have to protect our own dignity. Her body of work includes Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions and the Worth of the Human Person (2020) and Dignity Law: Global Recognition, Cases, and Perspectives (2020) (co-author); she is the author of the forthcoming book, Dignity in America: Transforming Social Conflicts, and the editor of a forthcoming book of essays on cutting edge issues in dignity studies. She is a Fulbright Specialist and Professor Emerita at Widener University Delaware Law School, where she directs the Dignity Law Institute and the Dignity Rights Clinic. She is currently working with the Global Campus of Human Rights on a Micro-Learning Series on dignity law and co-teaching a Dignity Clinic at NALSAR in Hyderabad, India. Read more about Erin in this Interview in Cylindr.
Our Dignity Now! Intern is Mika Broder. Mika is a second-year student at the University of Toronto, pursuing a double major in Peace, Conflict and Justice, and Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. Her academic background, along with her personal and lived experiences, has cultivated a strong commitment to social change, social justice, and human rights advocacy.
Why dignity? Why now?
Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
“They treat us like we’re trash,” said the 10-year old boy, looking around him, his hands showing me the scenery all around him. Mounds of trash, 5 or 6 feet high, much taller than the kids who scampered up and down the slope. The trash has been there so long, untouched, that plants grow on it. The kids tread carefully, avoiding sharp edges and watery slush that would squish between their toes. But they play too. Three smaller children run down the hill, drawing little trains behind them, beat up cans tied together with a long string. Down along the path, two girls giggle and sing a song.
Yes, these kids play and laugh and sing, but they also know. They know what dignity is, and that it’s missing from their lives. They know they’re treated like the trash that is the landscape of their lives. They know that the world has turned a blind eye to them.
That was five years ago. These kids know more now.
Just like kids in the war zones of Gaza and the Ukraine, kids in refugee camps in Tanzania and Congo, kids living in destitution on the streets of most cities on earth. They know too.
Dignity Now! grows out of a desire to prove them wrong. To show them that the world does care, and that they have not been forgotten or ignored.
And it grows out of a desire to prove them right. To affirm their inherent human dignity. To treat them with the dignity they deserve, and to value their lives. To ensure that they are seen, and not forgotten. Because their lives, their needs, their hopes for the future matter just as much as anyone else’s. Recognition and protection of their dignity is long overdue.