- ATD Fourth World

The thread that binds together the contributions to this Letter is "We". It reflects the determination and need to unite to take action against intolerable exclusion and humiliation. When you are taking action to enable people living in poverty to demonstrate their dignity and their aspiration for freedom, you have to call on others for help: "Our project is certainly ambitious, but we must do something if we want to get this population out of extreme poverty. We also know that we cannot reach our objective alone."

Calling on others means opening up and broadening your approach to include other horizons, other ways of learning, other connections: "With five young people under 30 years of age, we work hand in hand on a mini-library project in a poor neighborhood. The town hall is giving us furniture, and the National Library, the Portuguese Cultural Center, and Caritas Cape Verde gave us books." "We welcome prisoners transfered from traditional prisons. We focus on promoting human qualities and on building self-confidence and self-discipline. There is no need for prison guards; they are replaced by the whole community of prisoners and staff."

Calling on others means wanting to place apparently modest actions at the heart of national and international policies: "This initiative was incorporated into the national education authority’s curriculum for nursery school education." "About 60 women of all ages take it in turns in groups of five to look after 60 children, on a voluntary basis. The school fees are paid each month by the parents… The initiative is supported by Unesco, Unicef and Ficemea."

Calling on others means seeking to adopt an approach looking to the future: "We like what we do but our project, which has been run intuitively up until now, needs more structure. So I am eager to exchange ideas on this subject so that we can improve the services we offer and ensure that they will continue." "I realised that we’re part of a people across the world who have the same hopes, the same deprivations, the same suffering, but also the same resistance. I understood that if we wanted to improve our lives, it was necessary for us to get involved as well and receive training."

Calling on others means having the humility to ask those who are excluded for the solution that will lead to a meeting: "Please, accept that I help you."

After the campaign entitled "Ending Extreme Poverty, a Road to Peace" (see Letter to Friends Around the World no. 68), the declaration "Striving Together to End Poverty: A STEP Towards Human Rights and Peace for All" will demonstrate, from one 17th October to the next, that an increasing number of men and women want to be able to count on each other in their search for justice and fraternity. Let’s hope more and more people will STEP up to the challenge and join us.

Huguette Redegeld

Vice President

Illustrations by Hélène Perdereau