Early in 1987, Joseph Wresinski met with members of ATD Fourth World’s Volunteer Corps at the Movement’s International Centre in Méry-sur-Oise. During that meeting, he shared his hopes for the year ahead, the year the Movement would celebrate its 30th anniversary.
This text, published in the January–March 1987 edition of Les Dossiers de Pierrelaye, records what he said.
As we prepare for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, it’s worth reading again what he said about the meaning of the day that would honour the victims of extreme poverty. At the time, the event was still being planned and the date of 17 October had not yet been set. He also spoke about the three moments the day might include.
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1987 will certainly be a very public year with events to celebrate the Movement’s 30th anniversary. This doesn’t prevent it from being a year for reflection as well. That’s all the more important if we want the Movement’s thirtieth anniversary to be well grounded and carry real meaning.
This year should be an opportunity for us to rediscover families living in extreme poverty and our responsibilities towards them. […] Over the past thirty years, we’ve tried to respond to their situation in the most appropriate ways. We’ve developed programmes for small children and their mothers, programmes for older children and projects with young people. But whatever we’ve undertaken, we’ve always sought to gain both recognition and respect for the whole family. We have always thought that any specific project should help the entire family move forward.
Through everything we do, we bear witness to a whole population, to its strengths and to its ability to play its full part in society. To do that, we also need a much deeper understanding of the society families live in and will continue to live in, recognising both the opportunities society offers and the dangers and distortions it can expose families to. We have a responsibility towards this population now and in the future.
Such renewed understanding, together with a clearer sense of purpose, should be the bedrock of our anniversary year. Publicly, the International Movement will focus its efforts on three specific areas.
First, the launch of the campaign to accompany the report Chronic Poverty and Lack of Basic Security, which will be presented to the French Economic and Social Council in February.
Second, the seminar in Latin America in June, organised by the Permanent Forum on Extreme Poverty in the World.
And third, a day of remembrance for the victims of human rights violations to be held at three levels:
- – A time of prayer which should take place at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris;
- – A ‘secular prayer’, a public act of remembrance that could bring together Nobel Prize winners, leading human rights figures and perhaps even the President of the French Republic. Our hope is that this day of remembrance will become a lasting tradition. And who knows? With patience and diplomacy, it might even become a national day in several countries.
- – Finally, a public celebration in the evening, held at the Palais des Sports in Bercy in Paris, with senior political figures in attendance.
In broad outline, this is the framework we see supporting this anniversary. […] If we can bring our strengths together rather than dispersing them, we can make this 30th anniversary a moment when we confidently affirm who we are.