- ATD Fourth World

He freed me from the inevitability of extreme poverty

It’s an entire life that led me to love Father Joseph. There are many similarities between his life and mine, many comparable experiences. All my life I knew of poverty. I always lived among the poor. It’s because I was born into poverty that I always knew there were others even poorer than us.
Very early in my life, like Father Joseph, I had to leave my parents to come and look for work to help support my family. I was part of a generation of shoeshines. We shined the shoes of foreigners and members of the military. I experienced something that I only understood many years later. General de Gaulle came and visited our country. For such an important event people like us, with no shoes, we were not wanted. There were students there, with banners reading “Independence Now”. We were given such a banner and were pushed up to the front. General de Gaulle spoke to us even before beginning his speech. “You ask for independence. Take it.” He was speaking directly to us, little Senegalese who didn’t even know what was written on our banners. It was only later that I understood, with the help of ATD Fourth World, that this message was for me.
The Movement, I got to know it after coming here, to Dakar. In my house, there was only one room. At night we could hear the cries of cats, rats and bandits. With other people from the neighborhood we wanted to help put the community on its feet. Having known that some Europeans had come to Senegal to help the poorest, we wrote to them to ask for an audience. They replied, “Don’t go anywhere, we’ll come to see you.” We prepared with what we had. There was not a house where we could really welcome them. We chose the one that was closest to the road. We found chairs, benches… When we saw the volunteer coming our enthusiasm cooled quite a bit. We were rather discouraged. He came with his bag all ripped up. He listened to us, asserted that he had no money but invited us to a meeting at the ATD office in Dakar. We were very well received. At the end of the meeting we were no longer thinking about asking for money, but we had heard many testimonies and stories of commitment.
Before getting to know Father Joseph I didn’t believe that one could fight extreme poverty. For me, it was act of God. He had created it. Us, there was nothing we could do. But Father Joseph said that since extreme poverty is the work of men, then men could cure it. To believe in this became my strength. He said that injustice didn’t need to exist, that one couldn’t see it and remain happy.
One day there were problems in the town. Some people were unable to pay their taxes. Some men came. They went to each house demanding that we open our trunks, where we kept any objects of value, like fabrics and jewelry. At that time, we had a dog. When these men wanted to come into our courtyard, we could barely hold our dog back, he was so angry. One of the men pulled out a pistol and killed our dog. They had to restrain my father who was furious and wanted to find out who had pulled the trigger. The men of the village all gathered around the palaver tree to talk. It is thus possible to not have enough to pay one’s taxes but to still want to fight against an injustice.
The world continues to create poverty. Some people keep intelligence, dialogue and diplomacy for themselves and make decisions for us, the poor, and speak for us.
For many, this way of going up to others by means of their needs, to listen to them, to help them according to what they themselves are already doing, has no meaning. Almost ten years were necessary for people to begin to understand us.
JEAN DIENE