- ATD Fourth World

What is the violence done to people in poverty that keeps peace at bay? And in the midst of that violence how are people opening the door to peace for themselves and others?

ATD Fourth World Movement is spearheading novel and essential research in this area. We need your financial support to continue this research and to bring the findings to the people and projects working against poverty that need to be nourished by this knowledge.

For the past three years over 1,000 members of ATD Fourth World in 24 countries have worked intensely on this research with the financial and moral support of partners such as UNESCO and the Center for Social Policy, at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Julia Tripp is a research assistant at the Center for Social Policy (CSP) and heads up its Constituent Advisory Group of people with a lived experience of poverty. She is also an artist and a student. Julia has been part of the ATD Fourth World’s work for the past three years and has involved other members of the Constituent Advisors Group in the research/action on violence and peace. I hold a fellowship at CSP, so Julia and I collaborate often on research and grassroots actions.

Recently Julia recalled the insights and encounters that have propelled her forward and sustained her, including her relationship with ATD Fourth World Movement.

Asked why it is important that people living in poverty have a voice in policy, she replied,

"For those of us who have survived [poverty], we’ve got to know something. There’s something we know. Too often no one taps that deep knowledge. What I see in institutions and agencies and companies is a sort of dismissiveness of people who don’t have academic credentials. It’s as if because they can’t frame things in very pretty or articulate ways, their struggle to speak isn’t important. They have answers. They may not know they have answers, but trust me, we do. Those of us who have come out of a hard place and are still standing know something about survival. We know something about transforming a negative into a positive. We know something about making it work for us, somehow, some way. I always thought that should be captured and put into a book on surviving, showing up, and taking your place in the world."

For Julia, this belief comes from a very deep place: "My lived experiences gave me so much information about exclusion. They drew me to relate to those most affected by conditions of poverty, a poverty profound and sometimes individual, but which relegated us to a place where we stumbled, struggled, stuttered, sputtered, and got stuck on the sidelines of life. I know this place well." When we think of poverty, we may think most often of physical violence, like hunger or fighting. Julia told me that getting stuck on the sidelines of life is another kind of violence that walks hand-in-hand with poverty. In the face of this kind of violence, she has found a way to work to bring peace for herself and others. Click on the link to hear the whole interview with Julia.

Julia and I will continue this work with other members of ATD Fourth World Movement from around the United States and the Center for Social Policy in early December, at a two-day dialogue entitled: "Poverty is Violence, Speak Out for Peace." Please help with the costs of this and other projects of ATD Fourth World that give a voice to people whose knowledge we all need by donating here.

Podcast Interview - Forms of Violence Done to People in Poverty

Interview of Julia Tripp (Constituent Coordinator and Research Assitant at the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts McCormick Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies) by Susie Devins (Fourth World Volunteer, Regional Delegate for North America, and Visiting Fellow at the Center for Social Policy)