ATD Fourth World

The people of Haiti are not cursed

2010-03-11T16:57:44Z

Prayer is an enormous source of courage and strength for people in Haiti as it has always been for many people around the world. At the same time, ATD Fourth World's team in Port au Prince says that the prayers and songs they hear shouted through megaphones regularly are mixed with religious condemnations of sin. In the US, just a day after the earthquake, the evangelist Pat Robertson blamed the catastrophe on the Haitian people, saying they had made “a pact with the devil” in order to throw off their French colonial rulers.

The group of American Baptists who were arrested for trying to arrange for the illegal adoption of 33 Haitian children have said: “God has laid upon our hearts the need”; while a pastor who supports them says that those who stopped them are making “the accusations of Satan.”

ATD Fourth World strongly unites with all those who refuse to accept that a whole population be accused in such a way. Max Beauvoir, a chemist who leads Haiti's national federation of voodoo priests, says of the American Baptists, “They were trying to buy souls. There are many who come here with religious ideas that belong more in the time of the Inquisition. These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves. We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid — not just aid going to people of the Christian faith.”

Some light in this shadowy confusion

It is important to remember that in every part of the world there are people of different religions, including evangelical Christians, who find ways to be close to and supportive of people living in extreme poverty. This was the case at an ecumenical gathering on 12 February on the Champs de Mars in Port-au-Prince where a minister showed his sense of community by asking everyone present to pray for the person next to them, to look one another in the eyes, to ask each other their names, to embrace each other and to exchange addresses. This was his way of creating the unity that Haiti needs in order to rebuild without leaving anyone behind.

This attentive gesture by a religious leader is one example of a way to bring people together, whatever the cultural differences that shape each of us. There are many different ways of showing solidarity to be found in the diversity of religious and secular practices: spending time with people who are ill; celebrating life's milestones, building a community together, appreciating the beauty of the world… So much wisdom unites us, whoever we are, in a common humanity.

But we also know that religion remains a source of conflict in the world today, and that in these conflicts people living in extreme poverty are highly vulnerable. Those who feel called to make known their religion or political ideology can be tempted to exploit people who are vulnerable or living in extreme poverty, either to make them scapegoats, or to manipulate them in favour of a religion or ideology. This happens not only in countries facing huge challenges, as Haiti is now, but also in the low-income neighbourhoods and prisons of industrialized countries.

Let us show our solidarity with all Haitians and in the name of all people

ATD Fourth World is currently looking for innovative ways to build a more long-term dialogue on religion, public life, and extreme poverty, by associating people living in extreme poverty together with people from other social backgrounds, people from different religions, as well as those who are secular. The urgency of this dialogue is underlined by the megaphones in Haiti and elsewhere, and the damaging effects of some of the views they broadcast, which cause suffering to so many Haitians, including those whose religious beliefs are at the core of their existence.

ATD Fourth World remains on the side of the most excluded people, who are wrongly blamed by some religious or moral approaches for many of the world's challenges: over-population, environmental damage, or the failure of development programmes. This is why we are reaffirming our conviction that the Haitian people is not cursed and must not be accused in the name of religion. Haiti needs to be able to count on all of us, whatever our beliefs and practices.

"They have to have a voice in their future, in the future of Haiti"

2010-03-11T08:37:58Z

They have to have a voice in their future, in the future of Haiti

The International Movement ATD Fourth World

2010-03-08T09:09:39Z

Created in 1974, this organization's main objective is to make the voice of the poorest heard at the heart of international institutions, as well as in places where ATD Fourth World is present without yet having a legal existence, and to officially give credit to the Movement when necessary. It is thus recognized as a non-governmental organization by international institutions (UN, UNESCO, ILO, EU, EC, etc.) and received general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) in 1991. Its members are mainly ATD Fourth World's national organizations and foundations. The International Movement ATD Fourth World is a lawful French nonprofit organization (according to law 1901). The board of the International Movement ATD Fourth World currently includes:

President, Nina Lim Yuson (The Philippines)
Vice President, Marco Ugarte (Peru)
Treasurer, Paul Maréchal (France)
Deputy Treasurer, Dominique Foubert (Belgium)
Secretary, Thierry Viard (France)

Director General, Eugen Brand (Switzerland)
Deputies Director General, Diana Skelton (USA) and Isabelle Perrin (Belgium)

To see the Report 2006 - 2009: Click here

The International Movement ATD (All Together in Dignity) Fourth World

Two PowerPoint presentations about Haïti

2010-03-01T16:15:14Z

Haiti January 2010 Presentation For Kids

View more presentations from ATD Fourth World.

Haiti Version For Event About Families

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Moving towards Guiding Principles On Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

2010-03-01T10:14:19Z

The draft guiding principles « Extreme poverty and human rights: The rignts of the poor » is the first international document which sets out clearly the implications of existing international laws in relation to the human rights of that they themselves are the first to act to change their situation and taht of their families. - Human Rights

The UN Human Rights Council adopts a resolution on the draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

2010-03-01T09:35:06Z

At the end of its 12th session, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on the draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights (A/HRC/12/L.30/Rev.1).

In this resolution, the Council recognizes that there is “a widespread commitment to advancing the project of elaborating guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights,” and invites the independent expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty, Magdalena Sepulveda, to “submit a progress report presenting her recommendations on how to improve the draft guiding principles … no later than its fifteenth session” (September 2010). The Council will then “take a decision on the way forward with a view to a possible adoption of guiding principles on the rights of persons living in extreme poverty by 2012.”

- Human Rights

Storytell with me

2010-03-01T08:27:30Z

Over several months and centred around street libraries operating in four districts on the outskirts of Dakar (Sam Sam 2 and 3, Guinauw-Rail North and Xelcom), helpers and volunteer leaders worked with the children to create a story: “Mbale Picci”.

The story is based on the children's own lives and was brought to life after a weekend's introduction to storytelling given by the Senegalese storyteller Mr Babacar Mbaye Ndakk.

The story is part of a much wider project on the rights of the child, coordinated by the street library organisers. Over 8 months of work, the children and their parents were able to articulate their vision of the rights of the child in voice and with pictures.

The children created their own illustrations for the story in their home districts.

Funding from the Spanish Embassy to help “Senegal's vulnerable children and young people to valorise their non-material heritage” also meant a book could be created.

To give a fitting end to the project, it became clear that the children should perform the story and exhibit their work. It was a great challenge to coordinate the efforts of thirty children from the four districts where ATD Quart Monde carries out its work. Today, the song “wichi wacha” and the name of “Mbale Picci” resound in the districts, even far away from the centres of the activities, as a quiet note of hope, pride and joy.

The children's exhibition, their work around this story and their rights, and their theatrical adaptation were presented at the Blaise Senghor Cultural Centre last December 23rd to an audience of almost 300 people, including the Minister for the Family, other members of its services, and the representatives of a good twenty associations.

Once the curtain raised, the children, their parents and organisers spoke about their lives and struggles.

The parents explained: “because of the floods our children are unwell. We have to leave from where we are living because the land doesn't belong to us. We are now living on a reprieve. Not having a house is one of the hardest things for the family.”

Speaking on behalf of the project's leaders, one of them explained: “There is sometimes anger in these districts, life gets critically difficult. Poverty leads to the children witnessing things that they shouldn't even have to know about. These are not easy places to raise children. Despite all of that, parents push their children to go and work, or to study, or they send them to better-off relatives so they can seek a different future.”

The children meanwhile highlight the importance of having friends. “With friends, life is easier. With friends we learn to help each other out, to share. When there's an argument, it's friends who calm things down and separate the people who are fighting. And when you're ill, it's of course good to go to the hospital, but what's better is to have friends who come and visit you in the hospital and to know that you are not alone.”

They added: “It's important to us to stay with our parents, even if it's difficult for them, even if some days there's nothing to eat. Because it's not that our parents don't love us, but that they don't have anything to bring back that day. Is eating a right? We children ask to stay with our parents, and to be able to live in a house where no one will tell you that you have to leave.”

With the support of the dedicated organisers who remained at their sides, the children went on to express through their work to everyone who is prepared to listen that, when lives and an entire group of people are disregarded, the respect of the rights of the child is impossible.

In conclusion to the day, a call was made for these children's communities to be supported so that they can meet their responsibilities towards children: to their children.

Together Now and in the Long Run

2010-02-26T15:09:00Z

ATD Fourth World has been present in Haiti since 1981, committed alongside families in hillside hamlets and urban districts, joining forces with communities and local partners, working together for all people to have access to knowledge, health services and training, and creating places for people of all backgrounds to come together in the struggle against poverty.

Just after the tragedy that shattered Haiti and the world, Eugen Brand, Director General of ATD Fourth World, entitled his press release, “Haiti: Together Now and in the Long Run.” By doing so, he expressed a hope and expectation held by Haitian people and all of us. He wrote: “Once again, Haiti has been battered in its progress towards a better future for all. We know the Haitian people, and we know that they should be a guiding reference for the world. Their courage, wisdom and solidarity are stronger than the misery and catastrophes gripping their country.”

A guiding reference for the world: According to Dany Laferrière, that's the very role of Haiti's poorest people. In an interview granted on January 15, 2010, to an AFP journalist (Agence France Presse), he stated: “What saved this city is the energy of the poorest people. Trying to help, to look for something to eat, all these people created a great energy throughout the city. They gave the sense that the city was alive. Without them, Port-au-Prince would have remained a dead city. (…) It's time to go directly to the people and to finally do something audacious for this country.” Dany Lafferière, Haitian writer and winner of a major French literary award, le Prix Médicis, in 2009, was one of the guests at a literary festival to take place from January 14 to 21 in Port-au-Prince.

In Haiti as elsewhere, families living in situations of the most extreme poverty show solidarity with others, day-in and day-out, despite the countless tragedies they have been through. Will they be at the heart of their country's reconstruction and future?

The testimonies included in this edition of the Letter to Friends confirm a central point: In Haiti and around the world, the poorest people are inviting us to take part in a historic occasion to shape the future of our common humanity. Let's seize this opportunity.

Huguette Redegeld

* * * * *

In this issue of the Letter to Friends (click below to download it), you will discover concrete efforts being made in Benin, Argentina, Portugal, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, New Zealand, India and Colombia.

Would you like to regularly receive the Letter to Friends Around the World by email? Contact us.

The youths believe it!

2010-02-26T13:16:23Z

They come from different areas of the town of Bangui or its surrounding villages. For just over a year now, they have been getting together to quench the children from their neighbourhood's thirst for learning and to create friendship between the children.

For the past few months, one of them has been running a group called Tapori: “In my neighbourhood, we bring together children of different ethnic origins, religions and backgrounds. There are parents who have attacked me, blaming me for perverting their children. I told them that on the contrary, I was trying to put their children on the right path. Now, even the parents themselves think about it. They see their children coming together, and they say that they themselves can also be together.”

Another told how he took home seven children that he had met on the street. He took them as his younger brothers, gave them advice, and promised to give them a little job. “Today, one of them has a business. Each time that he sees me passing by, he calls to me. He says nothing else. He calls to me. It's his way of saying thanks.” This young man added that since he has been involved in running the street library, there has been no end to the silly questions: People see me with the whites and they think that I am earning money. But we are searching for a way round this obstacle.”

Another young man from the group explained how he started a school for children living along the river on Bongo Soa Island. “This is a part of the capital, but it has been abandoned: there are no schools, no hospitals, … nothing.” He had the opportunity to find a job in a school in Bangui. But he passed it up so he could continue doing what he had started doing with the children, who are cut off from everything.

During an encounter, one of the young women thanked the ATD Fourth World Movement, because, according to her, “it is not a Movement that creates division. It tries to bring everyone together, regardless of whether you are rich or poor. If you are slim or fat, big or small, the Movement accepts you.”

At a time when the ATD Fourth World Movement has chosen supporting youth commitments as one of its five ambitions, the project in Bangui opens a very exciting the path. “I have taken this commitment as a responsibility. Even if there are difficulties, I am the one who got myself involved.” The Movement's responsibility to support these youths is deeply rooted in what their elders have passed on to them: “the movement has helped me to help my country”, one of the elders told them, because “the permanent volunteers have made me understand the importance of sharing my knowledge with those who have less. “And this sharing, this transmission of knowledge, helps to put the children on the right path. It is its way of helping the country. A country with a thirst for learning. “Our country is rich in natural resources, but it is poor, because there is no work in the country, and young people are suffering.”

Becoming a servant of your community is a long process. But, the youths of Bangui and its environs are very sturdy.

Report 2006 -2009

2010-02-25T14:11:09Z

Overview
Human Rights and Poverty: Developing a culture of human rights
Promoting global citizenship: Coming together to eradicate extreme poverty and exclusion
Building knowledge on poverty: Raising awareness of extreme poverty through knowledge accumulation and dissemination
Partnerships to end poverty: Building partnerships with international institutions
Finances and Structure
Getting involved
Africa
Asia
Europe
Indian Ocean
Latin America and Caribbean
North America