Making Human Rights Work: All of Us Have a Role to Play

Download our new handbook: Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty.Did you know that ending extreme poverty is a legal obligation under existing international human rights law? And it's not just a legal issue; it means real issues in people's lives. A lot is misunderstood about how to work with people living in extreme poverty though, so last year ATD Fourth World and Franciscans International launched the guide, Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty.With this guide in hand, we are now training government officials and community organizers from non-governmental and religious organizations. On January 22, we hosted a training for United Nations and non-profit representatives. The workshop started with all the participants describing a situation where the human rights of the population they were engaged with were violated. Their examples came from all over the world: a lack of freedom of speech in emails in Belarus, the exploitation of indigenous peoples' land in Peru, discrimination against the Dalit population in India…the list went on and on.These issues don't just touch those living in other countries though. In a training with ATD Fourth World members in New York City, Cristina noted that many professionals who work with people living in poverty talk about poverty in terms of statistics and numbers, while people who actually experience poverty tend to see it as a loss of self-confidence rather than just a lack of money. We agreed that these different perspectives on extreme poverty all need to be taken into account when creating programs and policies to overcome it.Through this work we see that all of us have a role to play in ending extreme poverty and there are ways we can help local, state, and national authorities more effectively respect human rights and include people living in extreme poverty when making policies that affect them. Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty is a great tool in this process. We hope you'll download your free copy and share it with anyone you know working to build communities without extreme poverty!