There’s something about Joseph Wresinski, ATD Fourth World and October 17 that I can’t quite explain. It feels like we were meant to be. What do I mean by this? Well, let me start with October 17.
October 17: A particularly lucky day
I would never have imagined that this one day in the year could become so significant and yet it has turned out like that. It's one of those stories in which you choose one direction, but unknown forces combine to take you on a slightly different one, a better one. For me October 17 is one of those stories. One question you often get asked at ATD is what October 17 means to you. My immediate response almost always is that I got married that day - Friday 17th October 1997 to be exact. Sure enough, we didn't choose to marry on a Friday. We chose Saturday 18th October, but different forces combined to prevent us from our chosen date and our wedding was eventually held on October 17th. We now thank our lucky stars for the way events unfolded as the 18th of October was a day of intense floods whereas the 17th was a day of glorious autumn sunshine. How October 17 blessed us! At that time, I didn’t have a clue about ATD Fourth World or the date of its foundation on 17th October 1957, exactly thirty years before, nor did we have a clue about the first World Day for Overcoming Poverty exactly 10 years prior on 17th October 1987. I would also never have imagined being invited to serve as a member of the International Committee for October 17 and later as its President. In short, I guess October 17 and I were meant to be.
ATD Fourth World: where I am meant to be
There’s also something about ATD Fourth World that I can't quite explain. It also feels like we were meant to be. I chose a slightly different path, explored other organisations but now with ATD I feel that I am home, exactly where I’m meant to be. Also, I never met ATD’s founder Joseph Wresinski. Unlike many in the movement, I never had the chance to be in the same room, breathe the same air or feel his energy, compassion or charisma and yet I feel that he was my guiding force all along. He was always the little voice of consciousness in my head and a towering inspiration in my life. The more I discover, the more admiration I feel for his revolutionary thoughts, for his humility, his service to the most disadvantaged and the impressive network of friends and allies. I am at awe with his incredible capacity to inspire and mobilise. He was ahead of the times in his thinking, achieved so much in his lifetime and yet the goal of ending extreme poverty remains unattained.
As for me, my entire professional and life commitment has centred on the most iconic quote for social justice inscribed on the October 17 Commemorative Stone “Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure these rights be respected is our solemn duty.” I spent a good part of my life trying to understand and later help others to understand why poverty is a human rights violation and answering his call for action.
From 1998-2001, I had the chance to work in the secretariat of the Council of Europe’s Globalisation without Poverty public awareness raising campaign. My main responsibility was to coordinate the Global Forum for Poverty Eradication of October 1999. I feel that the three key recommendations from this global gathering are ones that Joseph Wresinski would have written himself. Firstly, extreme poverty is a violation of fundamental human rights and efforts to end poverty must be undertaken using a human rights framework. Secondly, people living in poverty must be supported to participate meaningfully in policies and decisions that directly affect their lives. Thirdly, just like there is a global human rights movement called Amnesty International that successfully promotes and defends civil and political rights, there should be a Dignity International to promote and defend social and economic rights on par with civil and political rights as all human rights are universal and interdependent. People living in poverty, denied of their social and economic rights are also often the ones unable to exercise their civil and political rights. Thus my journey began relating everyday struggles for food, education, housing, decent work to human rights, making the complex legal jargon associated with human rights accessible and embarking on the dream of Dignity International - all human rights for all.
Joseph Wresinski: the man behind universal, indivisible and interdependent rights
In his writings and speeches Joseph Wresinski talked so much about human rights and tackling poverty from a rights perspective. He understood well that human rights include all rights not only the widely promoted civil and political rights (rights to speak, to vote, to be free from torture etcetera) but also the neglected economic, social and cultural rights (rights to housing, decent work, social security, education, healthcare etcetera). After learning more about the conversations he had with the UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar, it was clear to me that we have a mission to restore the universality, the indivisibility and the interdependence of all rights. Civil and political rights are not more important than economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. All rights need to be promoted and defended for everyone.
By framing poverty as a human rights violation, Joseph Wresinski makes clear that extreme poverty is not a personal failure of people living in poverty, but the failure of policies and practices that keep people impoverished. The deeply entrenched discriminatory socio-economic structures perpetuate poverty and make it almost impossible for people to liberate themselves from its vicious cycle. The prevailing political structures deny power and meaningful participation of the people in the margins and serve to preserve or enhance the power and privileges of the already powerful and privileged. Framing poverty as human rights transforms power relations and ensures informed and meaningful participation of people living in poverty as a fundamental human right. By framing poverty as a human rights issue, Wresinski shifts alleviating or ending poverty from an act of charity to that of rights realisation. He transforms unequal power relations by moving people living in poverty from a position of weakness to that of strength, from a position of powerlessness to a position where people in poverty are empowered. Human rights go beyond political declarations and Sustainable Development Goals. They provide the moral and legal basis for transformation. They are the best tools we have and despite all the setbacks, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that human rights are the way forward. Unfortunately, despite their potential, human rights are far from being realised. There is a risk that human rights are shelved away or become a dead body of law, left to rot. We need to appreciate them as living instruments - breathe meaning and life back into human rights by knowing, using and claiming them. In an age of rising corporate power and erosion of fundamental rights, our work is all the more urgent. We need to step up our efforts to make sure that human rights of human beings take priority over corporate ‘rights’.
I feel it was a huge loss that Joseph Wresinski passed away soon after the first commemoration of October 17 in 1987. I strongly believe that he would have done a lot more about promoting and defending the forgotten ESC rights. The Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2012 is indeed a huge achievement but it's not enough. It's important to engage actively and effectively with the UN human rights committees, particularly the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on ESC rights. Governments have a legal obligation to realise our rights and are required to report to these Committees regularly on their progress. Members of these human rights committees are not government officials but experts who are passionate about our human rights. They act in our interest as rights holders and make recommendations to push governments in a good direction. However, their work is not well known, and we are not making enough use of their expertise and the excellent recommendations they make. I hope this will change.
Dreaming of a Dignity International
Recent experience of ATD UK gives us hope. In February 2025, for the 7th periodic review of the UK government by the Committee on ESC rights, ATD-UK and partners raised concerns about the brutality of the children's social care system for families living in poverty. It was the first time the Committee has ever considered the impact of poverty on the right to protection of the family and supported our call for coordination between anti-poverty policies and social work policies. ATD activists pointed out that even when policies are supposed to protect people, they quite often fail to be applied in practice. Inspired by the words of our activists, the Committee’s final report used the term “in law and practice”, a positive step forward in urging the UK government to regularly consult people with lived experience of poverty to find out what's actually happening on the ground. Engaging like this with the UN human rights committees is new to ATD and the positive experience shows that we should do more of it and use the committee’s recommendations to strengthen our advocacy back home. What the UK team has done is breathing meaning and life back into human rights and making human rights work for us.
Over the past decades, ATD has built up a strong army of activists, people who are impressively articulate and who above all have the legitimacy to speak. They must be heard more at the human rights committees. You can already see from the recent UK example, the difference it can make. I ventured with the dream of Dignity International and I feel that Dignity International has always been with ATD Fourth World, perhaps its next chapter - an ATD, stronger in human rights advocacy at the UN and in countries where ATD is present - an ATD affecting policy and legislative change in line with human rights obligations of governments and making a difference to lives of the people. In 1977, Amnesty received the Nobel Prize for its work on civil and political rights. ATD has yet to receive such recognition for its work. By continuing with full energy and determination with our activists, volunteers and allies, we will get our ultimate prize. The end of poverty.
For my part, I pledge commitment to Joseph Wresinski’s human rights vision and his call to action. I commit to the important day of October 17, and as an ally of the movement, I commit to doing all that I can to contribute to Wresinski’s unfinished work. As I said earlier, there’s something about Joseph Wresinski, ATD Fourth World and October 17 that I can’t quite explain. I know for sure that we were meant to be.