- ATD Fourth World

It’s not by simple chance that Rachel has been part of the ATD Fourth World volunteer corps since last January. After receiving her diploma in social science from Grenoble, her CV was only missing a bit of practical experience. In 2001 she decided to go to Mali on her own where, in exchange for lodging, she offered her services to a library run by a non-profit. “My goal was not to come to Mali to participate in a specific project but to observe, to encounter this culture.” During her stay she offered a few hours to an after-school program and to a family center in Bamako. At this center women could learn to sew, could take literacy classes… Rachel found herself confronted by the barrier of their dialect, Bambara. “Working with these women was difficult and I realized that I just wasn’t trained for this and it was very difficult to make connections, to interact.” What she experienced in Mali was very instructive. She realized that she wanted to return to France to work with people living in poverty and to discover what they experience. After six months of readjustment, she was hired as a “social and professional companion” at a work experience institution in the Hautes-Alpes, where she dealt with the activity of truck farming. As part of a team, for two and a half years she helped people in difficulty (from thirty to fifty-five years of age) to develop projects. Beyond the stated goals, what she appreciated the most was the opportunity to enter into a relation of trust with the twenty people she accompanied. “The projects were long-term, thus I was able to determine their needs from close up. The activities facilitated links, both within and with the group, during the work.” While Rachel appreciated the opportunity to see people regain confidence in themselves, she hoped to have this experience in a setting other than a professional one.

Enriched by this experience, Rachel decided to get involved with a non-profit that was more in line with her aspirations. She made contact with ATD Fourth World towards the end of 2004. Her first encounter with the Movement was a weekend spent with other people also just getting to learn about it. “Once I learned that the goal of the Movement was to work with people and not for them, I was interested. What was even more appealing was the principle of building a relation with the poorest, which was not at all the case in my previous job. I was immediately taken by this philosophy.”

In January 2005, Rachel began her path with ATD Fourth World. For three months she participated in the survey “France 2005” (a survey throughout France of 261 families who are or who had been in touch with the Movement), which she considered to be “a stroke of luck and a real good way of getting to know about the association”. “With this survey I was able to directly learn about people involved with ATD Fourth World. It was an enriching and fascinating initial contact.”

Since the middle of May, Rachel is in Colmar where she is discovering team life with other full-time volunteers in Alsace. Retrospectively, she understands how important it is to feel supported and to have a structure in her work. “It’s really what I was missing in Mali…”