English - oct17.org

Campaign Aims

 Support and put into contact those who are taking action and those who wish to take action with people in extreme poverty across the world, to build a different way of fighting against poverty. That is to say, a way which respects everyone’s dignity, which is firmly based on the thinking and suggestions of people in poverty, with the goal of ending poverty.

 Show that people taking action in this way are not isolated cases but already make up a social movement across the world. Certainly they are a minority, but a very dynamic one, creating real changes in all fields: access to housing, health care, education, work, training, new technologies, citizenship, culture, family life etc.
 Encourage new individuals to get involved to better understand the reality of extreme poverty and the ways of taking action, so that this social movement will develop. It is a matter of reaching all social circles and all age groups in as many countries as possible.

 Question common philosophical, cultural and religious thinking, and the academic and artistic worlds, so that they take into account this collective effort to struggle against poverty.

 Question public authorities at all levels - local, national and international - to ask them to recognise the energy of this social movement and to contribute to it.

Words from Eugen Brand, Director General International Movement ATD Fourth World

"The ravages of extreme poverty and exclusion are becoming more and more violent and destructive on earth whilst technical progress and an increase in wealth have given mankind the means to confront it.

Working on an economic level is not enough. It is evident that the regulation of the world by the power of money is widening the gap between those who have too much of everything and those who have absolutely nothing. We need to share more.

Working in the field of human rights is essential because as long as some people are condemned to live in extreme poverty, their human rights will be ignored. We need more justice.

But sharing and justice won’t achieve their aims if actions undertaken are not based on a lasting encounter between those living in extreme poverty and exclusion and those who want to work with them. We can’t work ‘for’ them, we must work ‘with’ them and to do that we need to meet each other, speak together.

Already across the world, many men, women, young people, children, poor or not, understand this and have been mobilized. They make up an informal social movement of people who meet to think and work together, and to encourage each other. When these meetings are ongoing, they produce new knowledge that can shed light on the struggle for a world without extreme poverty.

The objective of this worldwide campaign, “ Ending Extreme Poverty, A Road to Peace ”, is to make this movement known and to invite people from all backgrounds to join us. We have to seize the opportunity to transform our society by bringing together these experiences and new thinking, and contribute to “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want”."