- ATD Fourth World

Movement ATD Fourth World is present in some thirty countries and acts in the following areas:

• It gets in touch with people in deep poverty. We try to meet individuals, families and groups struggling with poverty, wherever they live or work.  We take the time and make the effort to discover what life is really like for them.  Without giving money or material things, we make contact with them and gain enough of their confidence to be able to work together on projects that are important to them. Also, we make contact with people or groups who are already involved in the fight against poverty.

• It promotes access to knowledge, culture and education. We start activities aimed at stimulating everybody’s access to knowledge, culture and education without usurping the position of schools or cultural institutions.   We create activities that show that every child can learn, everybody has some knowledge to share and some skill to use. We try to build bridges between people in poverty and institutions, particularly schools.

Some examples : Children meet up through poetry ; Street Libraries in Poland

• It leads pilot projects to guarantee everybody access to their fundamental rights. We establish partnerships to find new ways of exercising fundamental rights: the right to decent jobs, the right to learn, the right to decent housing, the right to medical assistance, and the right to participate. We work especially hard to prevent bonds between parents and children being broken by poverty and we speak out for the right of people in poverty to live as a family.

• It informs and mobilizes citizens, civil society, the authorities and institutions. We try to take part in public discussions and decision-making meetings to give information and to invite individuals and institutions to unite in creating a world without poverty.

• We conduct research to expand knowledge. We have developed a program of understanding, research and training that takes into account the know-how and experience of the poorest segments of the population. We are in dialogue with the leaders of contemporary opinion through publications, seminars and partnerships, especially in universities.

Some examples : The Research and Training Institute ; Conference "Exclusion, a Challenge to Democracy."

• We work for participation by, and representation of, disadvantaged population groups within local, national, and international bodies. We work for the full recognition of people in poverty as equal citizens. We try to ensure that normally excluded groups have a voice, and that their hopes and aspirations are taken into account. We insist on the full participation of the very poor in the decision-making processes of local, national and international bodies.

Some examples : Representation at the European Union ; The United Nations Secretary-General receives the results of the Call To Action campaign in New York. .