- ATD Fourth World

For The Fourth World Movement, the act of going door to door to get to know people and families who live in deep poverty and exclusion, without asking something specifically from them, is essential. These visits are a first, crucial step if one wants to develop projects involving the most fragile people, those most timid, and most marked by poverty. As the projects grow, those members return to knock on the door of each family as a way of verifying that the action in which they are engaged is working for those for whom it is meant, or at least that they agree with it, even if they don’t participate themselves.

One Volunteer Corps member remarks: “I knocked many times on the door of one family before beginning street library in their neighborhood, although I could never enter. Often, no one responded, even if I could hear noises inside suggesting someone was there. Sometimes the door opened just enough to let the two children through who I had gotten to know in the street over the weeks and who waited impatiently every Wednesday to come read books and draw. They were two sweet, calm children, greedy for knowledge, but withdrawn, and very protective of one another. Over three years, I never managed to talk with their parents, aside from a very quick hello over the heads of the children passing through the door, which immediately closed. Why did I insist so much? Of course, I wanted to invite the children. But I insisted probably also because of this door, in which traces of many acts of violence were etched in scratched wood and irreparable gashes. I could see that this family lived a life of great hardship, sometimes attacked by adverse visitors. This door explained to me a little of why it never was opened to a stranger, which I still was in this neighborhood. On rare occasions, I could see the mother heading to a shop, a basket in hand, looking from a distance at her two children reading books, and who slipped away as soon as someone looked at her. After three years, I had to leave, and the Volunteer who came after me continued to knock on this door. Shortly after I left, the door finally opened. The mother apologized to this Volunteer. “We had so many problems that we couldn’t open our door. But our children were so happy to come read with you, and you insisted so much that we said to ourselves, “these people cannot wish us ill.”

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