Publications

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Tapori is a worldwide network of children whose motto is “We want all children to have the same chances.” They work together to make this hope a reality.

This book, prepared by the Tapori Children’s Movement and coordinated by ATD Fourth World, is a compilation of testimonies of children on their learning experiences which form an essential and important part of their daily lives.

The book tells how children seek to make friends and learn together. In their own words, children from very different backgrounds express the importance of trust, in learning, working together and sharing knowledge with less able or disadvantaged children and the importance of trust in learning to go beyond first appearances.

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These stories show that poverty can be overcome and present a positive message in contrast to the continuous stream of negative news that has left many people feeling discouraged and powerless.

All the people involved, from different countries of south-east Europe and other parts of the world, were interviewed as a first step to writing together the story they wanted to make known. Their stories can inspire others to get involved with those who resist poverty in their daily lives.

This publication is available in 5 languages (Bulgarian, English, French, Hungarian, Romanian)

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A Handbook for Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

For perhaps the first time in history, a set of United Nations principles has been translated into concrete suggestions for everyday people to take action. Spearheaded by Franciscans International and ATD Fourth World, dozens of grassroots organizations worldwide, as well as individuals with a lived experience of poverty, have created a handbook to, as the title suggests, make human rights work for all.

This handbook is a practical tool for social workers, policy makers, civil servants, law enforcement officials, teachers, health care providers, and human rights advocates working at the local level to ensure that public policies reach people in extreme poverty and respect and uphold all their rights.

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Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty Volume 1 introduces partners in peacebuilding whose efforts have too often remained unrecognized. In Haiti, these are people like: Merita Colot, who lived in a “no-go zone” and made a point of opening her door for child development projects; Jean-Hughes Henrys, a doctor who refuses to leave for greener pastures and who fights brain drain by encouraging young people to remain despite hardship; and Michèle Montas, then Special Adviser to the UN, who sought out people like Merita and her neighbors so they could provide insights from their experience on how to rebuild the country in such a way that no one would be left behind.

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Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty introduces partners in peace-building whose efforts have too often remained unrecognized. Volume 2 shares stories of defending human rights in various places — in Lebanon, as Syrian refugees are welcomed; in the Philippines, as climate change displaces thousands of families; and in France, where poverty-based discrimination affects hiring, housing, and health care. This book describes how people living in poverty search for peace, go beyond violence, and build a sense of community.

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Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty introduces partners in peace-building whose efforts have too often remained unrecognized. Volume 3 recounts how young people in the Central African Republic continued organizing Street Libraries with children throughout the civil war that began in 2013. In the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and elsewhere, people living in poverty are victimized by stereotypes and feared as a source of violence; but the greatest violence is done to them. Participatory research leads to a new understanding about the choices people make to end the silence surrounding this violence and work towards peace.

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What happened after one of the most destructive and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history? What has changed, and how did families and communities overcome the difficulties?

In the months following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005, ATD Fourth World members based in New Orleans traveled the southern USA to reconnect with displaced members and re-establish a network of support. Following this project, Loyola University hosted a seminar where wider issues of extreme poverty were discussed. What emerged from the visits and seminar was a truly collaborative and original collection of first-hand accounts by some fifty co-authors.

The book features testimonies of families in poverty who experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina – read it now!

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In the US today, we are surrounded by poverty myths: misconceptions about poverty and people living in poverty that prevent real progress in the fight to end poverty. Whether it is that poor people don’t want to work, or that poor people use drugs – or even just the idea that poverty is a problem other people deal with and that I will never be poor – so many of our ideas about poverty fly in the face of countless studies and reports done on the subject.

But how can we overcome poverty if we don’t clearly understand what it is?

The poverty myths project uses census data and official definitions of poverty to expose the myths for the untruths they really are. The report focuses on four of the most commonly held myths about poverty and gives everyone the information they need to push back against them.

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Poverty goes much deeper than just income level. Poverty means having to swallow your pride when accessing a much-needed subsidy, knowing that your children are not receiving the same quality education as their peers, being trapped in a run-down community that lacks resources, being told to be grateful for the little bit you do have and being shamed if you are not. These are some of the essential aspects of poverty.

The Multidimensional Aspects of Poverty (MAP) research was the U.S. component of an international project conducted from 2016 to 2019 in six countries: Bangladesh, Bolivia, France, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Conceived as a partnership between ATD Fourth World and the University of Oxford, this participatory research sought to determine the various aspects of poverty as identified by people who live in poverty every day.

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In the form of monthly journal entries and letters to a friend, Ingrid describes and reflects on daily life in a New Orleans housing project where people struggled to survive discrimination and violence. Ingrid writes about her daily bible readings and her community life with two members of ATD Fourth World’s Volunteer Corps.

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Father Joseph Wresinski relates what he and the members of the Fourth World Movement have learned from the poor, as well as his hopes and fears for the poor and for the Church. He calls us all to see poverty not just as destitution or oppression but as social isolation. He believes firmly in the basic goodness of people, and holds out hope for the future. Anouil’s questions lead Wresinski to reflect on the poverty and violence in his own childhood, the early years when he first began founding ATD in the emergency housing camp of Noisy-le-Grand, and the philosophy behind his approach to overcoming poverty.

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An account of the lives of families in extreme poverty and young people in New York Manhattan’s Lower East Side, seen through the eyes of members of ATD’s full-time Volunteer Corps members, who spent more than twenty years living in their community and running learning projects with them.

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The search for useable knowledge of poverty and exclusion described in this unique book demonstrates the role that can be played in the formulation of that knowledge by academics, by professionals, and by people in poverty themselves. Here is a deeply serious and innovative effort to blend the special perspectives of academics, professionals, and disadvantaged people into a new and respectful synthesis.

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Fanchette Clement-Fanelli has chronicled the dialogue for building a national and international movement to overcome persistent poverty, a dialogue between the founder, Joseph Wresinski, and those involved in the United States. Recounting more than 20 years of correspondence, interviews, notes from meetings and visits, the author brings us the tensions, discoveries and convictions that emerged.

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A journey to six countries around the world: Guatemala, Haiti, Burkina Faso, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Written with funding from the United Nations, this report demonstrates that despite wide divergence in the geographic realities, in poverty many factors converge to separate children from their parents.

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