World Day against Poverty
Liberation from poverty recedes year by year:
the evaporation of rights more unjust and painful
For 30 years now, the UN has recognised that there is a violation of human rights in poverty. The date refers to the anniversary of one of the best known and most important demonstrations against poverty: on 17 October 1987, one hundred thousand people responded to the appeal of the priest Joseph Wresinski – founder of the Human Rights Movement ATD Fourth World – gathered in Paris, the symbolic city where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948.
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT DEFEATING POVERTY
IS THE FIRST OF THE GOALS OF THE UN 2030 AGENDA
- Poverty is – for people – the lack of opportunities for choices that allow for a decent standard of living and, therefore, not only income poverty, but poverty in all the multiple headings that make up the notion of development (health, access to resources, self-esteem, social relations).
- Poverty is – at a time when the model of the welfare state is disappearing – also synonymous with involuntary social exclusion, precariousness and vulnerability to the negative effects of unforeseen traumas – redundancy, death of a family member, drought, wars, gender violence – that can undermine the fragile balance of subsistence, in the North as well as in the South.
Photo: www.comune.paullo.mi.it
“THAT NO ONE REMAINS ALONE IN MISERY”
(Joseph Wresinski, founder of the International Movement ADT-Quarto Mondo- promoter in France of the Forum of the Rejection of Misery).
Photos of the International 17 October Committee of the ATD Fourth World Movement (https://refuserlamisere.org/)
WHAT DOES ATD-FOURTH-WORLD MEAN?
In Great Britain, the Movement has chosen these words: ‘All Together for Dignity’. The board of the International Movement has ratified this change, which in French translates as ‘Agir Tous pour la Dignité’ and in Italian as ‘Agire Tutti per la Dignità’.
Today, in tune with the International Forum 17 October, we focus our attention on the challenge of poverty reduction:
– not only as a categorical imperative, pertaining to the realm of morality or selfless altruism
– but also a call to the civic conscience and sense of responsibility of each individual for the impact of our actions, within the global village.
As of today, let us prepare for World Day of the Poor next 13 November, which “returns again this year as a healthy provocation to help us reflect on our way of life and on the many poverties of the present moment.”(from Pope Francis’ Message for the 4th World Day of the Poor).
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/events/event.dir.html/content/vaticanevents/it/2022/6/14/messaggio-giornata-poveri.html
Jesus Christ became poor for your sake (cf. 2 Cor 8:9)
