Spring 2025 Newsletter: Marking Milestones
Letter From an ATD Fourth World Ally
Community heals, people grow, time weaves us together, step by step, and hope thrives.
ATD Fourth World pursues a noble goal of eradicating poverty and marks success in advocacy at the United Nations, participatory research methods with Oxford University, and innovative curriculum at the Aspen Institute. Yet, in its long-term engagement with communities, ATD Fourth World invites people experiencing poverty to leave the world of constant striving and gain where time is pushed ever faster toward accumulative success that not only demands linear speed, but that also requires the exhaustion of multitudes who seldom if ever cease or succeed.
An emphasis on speed and success, demanding quantifiable results, will never lead to the end of poverty. This truth has been reinforced over and over during my 50 years teaching adults mostly overlooked by institutional education, many traumatized and ostracized.
After years collaborating with ATD Fourth World, I recognize its genius of establishing spaces where all find refreshment, validation, and comfort through authentic intergenerational experiences.
ATD Fourth World invites people into Kairos - in Greek, it means a moment of opportunity and appropriate action moving toward fulfillment. Time is not counted, consumed, or paid for, but lived, and success is not measured but replaced by fulfillment. Nothing is earned, bought, accomplished, proven, or measured.
January marked 50 years since I answered the call to my vocation as a teacher. A milestone, so people presume I’ll retire. No. It’s just a milestone on the journey, not a destination. As a teacher, my understanding of time differs from those on other paths. I know learning cannot be divided into semesters, measured by test scores, or determined by grades, that diplomas might quantify knowledge but don’t qualify wisdom.
Learning reveals itself in persistent struggle, gradual understanding, willingness to change, and opening to possibility. It appears when one student teaches another, when a classroom becomes a sanctuary, students become family, and clock time disappears into the eternal now.
While I appreciate goals and success, 50 years has taught me to live more fully in Kairos, where the future is not attained by impatiently awaiting a desired result, but instead, cultivated in the present and nourished by the past. In Kairos, each moment roots me more deeply in the human story and immerses me in the miracle of time. I live in fulfillment and gratitude, rather than striving and impatience. Therefore, my profession and vocation are a part of my being an ATD Fourth World Ally: There is no separation of “work” and “volunteer,” they are the same vocation, the same call.
My students treasure our classroom as a beloved community, created and sustained through Kairos, that time where conversations cultivate connections; where questions, reflection, story, and celebration establish a wise and compassionate curriculum.
Whether in my classroom or an ATD Fourth World Story Garden, community heals, people grow, time weaves us together, and hope thrives!
Laura Binah Jijon
Member of the ATD Fourth World Communications Team
Albuquerque, New Mexico
