We Want Dignified Work for All: What it means to feel safe, respected and heard in the workplace.

This newsletter was originally published on Oct 4, 2023.

Dear friends, 

ATD Fourth World in New York City has the unique advantage of having one foot in the global - doing advocacy work at the United Nations (UN) - and one foot in the local, with communities having a direct experience of poverty. Sometimes, specific themes allow us to connect our experiences at the global and local levels, creating connections between people and across cultures. 

Working on “Dignified Work” allowed us to do just that:

In February 2023, when the UN Commission for Social Development focused on Decent Work as its priority theme, ATD Fourth World explored the topic through the dignity lens and presented our long experience developing work opportunities for communities affected by systemic discrimination. ATD Fourth World’s most recent initiative, Working And Learning Together – Electronics Recycling (WALTER), was launched last year in Brooklyn and is now developing successfully. Several such good practices for dignified employment were collected in our report entitled “Dignified Work for All.”

Then in April and May 2023, we celebrated the return of the Fourth World People's University (FWPU) which resumed in person after a break due to the pandemic. The theme was also Dignified Work for All. Bringing together youth struggling to find decent jobs, care economy workers, and practitioners in the field of recruitment and human resources, FWPU allowed for rich conversations with multi-level solutions (from company to policy). Dynamic tools such as Theatre of the Oppressed’s Forum Theater were used to act out situations of injustices and discrimination at work, and to find possible solutions together. Please see the detailed report here. 

Fast forward to today, the ATD Fourth World NYC team is now in full preparation for the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, on the theme ''Decent Work and Social Protection: Putting Dignity in Practice for All.” Activists with direct experience of poverty coming from Malaysia, Lebanon, India, France, and the US will be taking the floor at the United Nations to share not only their life experiences but also their learnings and recommendations about the informal economy, the need for better working conditions and recognition, and the importance of finding meaning in our daily work and lives.

We hope you join us at the United Nations this October 17: a global gathering to close a year of building and sharing knowledge from the local to the global, advancing the discussion on Dignified Work so it can become a reality, not only for New Yorkers, but also for people all around the world.

In solidarity, 

Jackie, Monica, Virginie, Alvaro and Marina