ATD Fourth World’s projects are shaped by our goals: relationship-building with people in poverty to transform ourselves, our communities, our organization, and our society at large. All our programs are designed to reach out to and engage with people living in persistent poverty in ways that uphold the dignity of each person.
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What we do is flexible and designed to adjust to local context, culture and community needs, aspirations and initiatives, while always holding the core values of our approach. That approach is to create settings where, firstly, interactions build bonds and relationships and unleash individual and collective potentials. Then, with these relationships and those unleashed potentials, people take action together that is impactful and transformative for themselves and the community.
Rooted in a strong culture of reflective practice, what we do is constantly evolving. All individuals involved in the projects, whether as participants or facilitators, benefit from the relationships that are formed. The priority is to continually reach out to people whom poverty excludes most and to be led by our practice of learning from what is experienced together, developing programs accordingly.
ATD Fourth World creates the conditions for people living in poverty to show others their strengths, their knowledge and what they do every day to overcome the injustices of poverty. What we do together as a community and as a movement evolves from these first-hand experiences.
The phases of our actions, below, are not a theory. They emerged from our reflective practices and are fundamental to our organization. Each of our projects prepares and leads to other programs in the next phase. At the same time, each of these four phases belongs to the internal development of each project making it both an impactful action in itself and a vital part of a wider approach to creating a culture without poverty.
The 4 Phases of Our Projects
Our Projects
STORY GARDEN
Participatory Education in Social Professions
FOURTH WORLD PEOPLE’S UNIVERSITY
Participatory
Practices Training
ADVOCACY
new mexico
New York
INTERNATIONAL