Summer 2024 Newsletter: Our 60-Year Journey
New Orleans Street Library 2011
Please support the history of poverty resistance đź“Łđź“š
Marina at Story Garden in Gamerco, New Mexico
I am grateful for the impact Story Garden has had on my son's life, and today I am very proud to say that he will be starting college.
-Lorena, an ATD Fourth World Activist at the ATD Fourth World Community Lunch in New Mexico.
Dear Friends,
We celebrate with Lorena for many reasons. We are all so proud of her son and the whole family, and we are very grateful for the relationship that ATD Fourth World has built with them over time. As we said in our previous newsletter, it all starts with developing trust. The lessons learned with this family, about trust, about relationships, about being victorious over poverty, need to be preserved and included in a collective history of poverty resistance.
Recently, as part of a process marking the 60 years ATD Fourth World has been in the USA, a few members shared the impact our movement has had on their lives. We heard stories of presence, of programs, and in many cases, of relationships.
An ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps member told a story about reaching a family when she was in Africa, “I always remember that feeling of what it takes to get there. I don't remember what we talked about. I don't remember if there was a goal or a project. I just remember that that was already half of the process - just being there together…. I could tell the same story here (in Gallup).... There's a journey of building trust.”
An ATD Fourth World Ally said, “ATD helped me cross the bridge.” The “bridge” being the one we often find difficult to cross to connect with a person different from ourselves.
Throughout these six decades, the members of our movement have kept a trace, with photos, reports, letters and artistic creations, of all we are learning together about reaching the hardest to reach, crossing bridges, building trust and finding solutions to poverty. One member said about their writing, “It's a way to capture learning along the way, especially intense moments that are very tough situations.”
The archive of this vital history, currently collected in Chicago, will be transferred in October to the Joseph Wresinski Archives and Research Center in France, which was recently added to UNESCO's “Memory of the World Register.” A Spanish ATD Fourth World member with firsthand experience of poverty who, upon discovering all the history collected with such care and professionalism at the center, said, “No one will be able to erase us from history anymore.”
Moving these documents comes at a significant financial cost. Can you support the history of the resistance of people living in poverty in the USA joining the global history of the struggle for a world without poverty?
Thank you,
Marina Mingot
Deputy Director
ATD Fourth World USA
Happy 60th Anniversary, ATD Fourth World USA!
This year marks sixty years since ATD Fourth World sent the first Volunteer Corps member to the United States in 1964. Over these sixty years, profound relationships of friendship and solidarity have been built with and amongst people and communities most isolated by persistent poverty. Generations of families who were shamed and discriminated against have formed the foundation of ATD Fourth World USA, supported and accompanied by ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps members and Allies.
We have had a team of ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps members in New York City throughout the sixty years. There has been a team of Volunteer Corps members in New Mexico for twelve years. In other places, Volunteer Corps members have come and gone but ATD Fourth World continues in the work of local Fourth World Activists and Allies. Let’s not forget the hundreds of allies, partners and friends throughout the country. Read more ATD Fourth World USA history here.
In 1966, ATD Fourth World founder Joseph Wresinski traveled around the United States to meet communities and people struggling with poverty and civil rights groups. Watch the story of his journey here.
Joseph Wresinski (left), New Mexico 1966
Timeline
This timeline indicates when the first ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps member arrived to live in each area.
Support ATD Fourth World Archives!
Our archives are vital for learning from people with firsthand experience of poverty and the solutions developed with them.
Your tax-deductible donation will contribute to:
Boxes and labeling materials
Salaries for Chicago Archivists
Rent for Chicago climatized storage and office
Transportation of the national archives to the international archives in France: truck to boat to truck.