Excerpts from the International Leadership Team’s mandate
As members of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, in our neighbourhoods, our cities, our towns, our countries, we realize that our common work is challenged by a worldwide economic and political context where efforts to increase security for some lead to less security for others. At the same time, the organization is called on, expected and encouraged to bear witness to this even more strongly than before and to propose its approach with greater audacity.
For this reason, the International Movement ATD Fourth World and its International Leadership Team for the next four years are invited to strengthen their action on two levels:
By contributing to building a world of peace among all, including individuals, peoples, and institutions, echoing the spirit of the World Day to Overcome Extreme Poverty initiated by Fr. Joseph Wresinski on October 17, 1987. This calls for reinforcing a daily presence among those who are discriminated against due to poverty. It calls for intensifying meetings and partnerships between these people and others from all segments of society (artists, politicians, economists, displaced populations, young people, those at the grassroots and others). Together, we can reveal the capacity for innovation and the "productivity" of a world where each person is valued.
By ensuring the long-term commitments of the organization.
— To rely on the initiatives of various regions around the world in shaping a single cohesive organization that can:
- Support the commitment made by each person, individually and collectively, by searching together for what gives wholeness to one’s life, and for the means to take on responsibilities steadily and for the long-term.
- Create conditions that prepare members of the organization who have made a long-term commitment to sharing overall responsibilities as part of team.
— To rely on the inventiveness of all members to reach out to society; and to encourage friends and allies to open up new channels for dialogue and partnership.
– To work, among members of all generations and with the support of the International Joseph Wresinski Center, [1] to understand one another as a movement of people who recognize each other in our history and in our differences, and who are seeking, together and with others, to eradicate extreme poverty.
[1] This center, outside Paris in the town of Baillet-en-France, is a repository of photographs, artwork, video footage and writings that retrace the history of Wresinski and the organization he founded.
