- ATD Fourth World

EDITORIAL

How can we eliminate extreme poverty without first and foremost recognizing as our equals those who live it on a daily basis? To recognize each other as equals, is to stand together against the excessive burden of suffering engendered by extreme poverty - made even worse by natural catastrophes such as the Tsunami. It is to understand the strength and the grandeur of the daily acts such as that of Fabio, who, in the hell of the sugar cane plantations, still manages to support his family as well as to study. It is to become committed to making such unknown acts the spearhead for building a more just and brotherly world.

“We continue to feel very small in the face of the enormity of the poverty here,” Gertrude from the Democratic Republic of Congo states very humbly. “We believe in the capacity of the poor to be agents of a new life,” affirms the founder of the San Vicente Organisation in Uruguay.

Father Joseph Wresinki would tell the permanent volunteers of ATD Fourth World that “To be a volunteer is not only to be at the service of the poorest of the poor in order to learn from them, sometimes with great amazement…it also means that we have become their brothers and sisters. Their children are our children.”

Therein lies the difference between relieving the burden of poverty, and placing at the centre of our societies those who are now excluded.

HUGUETTE REDEGELD VICE PRESIDENT