Conceptual Framework

Human values can serve as a powerful force for drawing disparate and even opposing groups together to examine and address the largely unspoken realities of injustice in their local communities. The values that we have in common help us recognize and appreciate our shared humanity, highlighting those basic things that all people should enjoy, no matter where they live, or to what group they belong.

Human values are simply values that are essential for the flourishing—the well-being—of human beings and their societies and transcend particularities of cultures. Similarities palpable in human cultural experiences can be explained in terms most probably of the notion of human values, a notion that is at the base of the universal search for human fulfillment. -Kwame Gyekye, Beyond Cultures—Perceiving a Common Humanity, 1999

In a world torn apart by divisions, hatred and gross violations of basic human rights, Gyeke goes on to underscore the idea that “human values constitute the foundation of what are now referred to as human rights [which] originated from values and are therefore grounded or rooted in values.” (1999, p 24) Discussions about rights and wellbeing must be centered within those shared values that all human beings can identify with—values that underscore our connectedness and interdependency. Concern for human wellbeing is such a value and it can play an important conceptual role in efforts to promote justice, respect, equality, and non-violence. Unfortunately, human values are too often conceived and applied in a limited, even counterproductive, manner. It is therefore necessary to reclaim human values as a step toward building more inclusive communities.

This means that human values cannot just be articulated in the abstract, but must be actualized in people’s lived realities. While they might be universal in a certain way, they must also be negotiated in a manner that works for particular individuals and groups. Even as they materialize in the actions of individual agents, it must be remembered that broader institutional and structural contexts heavily condition how they are realized. They may be cited for a variety of ends, but their true purpose is to advance the wellbeing of all people.

Putting this vision of human values into practice requires a special approach: Those who have been marginalized within various living, learning, and working environments are brought to the center of the process. People from diverse backgrounds, bringing very different experiences, work together and touch each others lives in a profound and lasting way. Young people, including those who have been written off by society, play a leading role.

The phrase “transformative action” integrates two important ideas. The word “action” reflects the importance that HVTA places on community mobilization. The word “transformative” indicates that these mobilizations aim to concretely change social relationships and practices which perpetuate injustice.

We are informed by the pedagogy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who envisions a mode or learning in which “the oppressed” transform themselves from objects into subjects, emerging from the “culture of silence” to actively change the material and social conditions of their existence. Freire (Education for Critical Consciousness, 1994, p48) urges “an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in [their] context.”

Through this process, transformations occurring in individual lives and small groups—for example, the capacity to communicate across difference—are often similar to the broader community and social transformations for which we struggle. The transformations occurring at these different levels also feed into one another.

Ultimately, HVTA strives to draw linkages between “human values” and “transformative action” in everything it does. Too often, discussions around human values rooted in justice, respect, equality, and non-violence are successful in producing sharp critique, but do not translate into further collective action. And movements and initiatives devoted to “transformative action” are not always driven by a concern for human wellbeing in its broadest and fullest sense.

As part of HVTA, we thus continually reaffirm our grasp of the mission embodied in the organization’s name, renewing our commitment to effecting substantial social change that improves basic human wellbeing. In setting forth such a big objective, we also remind ourselves of the importance of starting small—of helping a few people in a given community to achieve greater agency in transforming their life conditions. For this, we believe, is the best way to gradually build broader initiatives and movements that help to forge the more humane society we envision.