ATD Fourth World

The International Movement ATD Fourth World is a nonprofit organization which aims towards the eradication of chronic poverty through a human-rights based approach. It works in partnership with communities across the world to end the exclusion and injustice of persistent poverty, and focuses on learning from and supporting families living in poverty, through grass-roots presence and involvement in disadvantaged communities. Although founded by a priest, Fr. Joseph Wresinski, ATD (All Together in Dignity) Fourth World is an organization with no religious or political affiliations. It runs projects in 32 countries on five continents, and is in touch with individuals and small non-profits in 146 countries through the Forum for Overcoming Extreme Poverty. History ATD Fourth World was founded in 1957 by Joseph Wresinski in a shanty-town of Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, France. The Founder and Foundations of ATD Fourth World Joseph Wresinski was born to immigrant parents in 1917, in a detainment camp for nationalities considered suspicious during World War I. He grew up living in great poverty and social exclusion. He was ordained as a priest in 1946 and in 1956 he was assigned to be a chaplain to 250 families placed in an emergency housing camp in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, France. The families lived in quonset huts erected in a muddy field with just four public spigots providing water for all of them. Joseph Wresinski was opposed to the soup kitchen there, and closed it, stating that "it is not so much food or clothes that these people are in need of, but dignity, and to not have to depend on other people's goodwill". With the parents, he created a kindergarten, a library, then a chapel, a laundry, a workshop, and a beauty parlour. He and the adults created an association that would become ATD Fourth World. Joseph Wresinski used this term as one that evoked the aspirations of creating a new world order, and that held promise and hope for families living in extreme poverty. He wished "to get [people living in poverty] to appear in public, in the places where future is shaped". He stated that he would get "[his] people to climb the steps of the UN, the Elysée and the Vatican". Expansion in France Joseph Wresinski’s firm purpose was to unite all sections of society around people living in chronic poverty. With this aim he met leaders of state, religious groups and international bodies from all over the world.