Help for all distressed: ATD Fourth World is at the heart of volunteering.

"Together, knowing that we all are people, we can strengthen humanity by respecting each other", reflects Paul, a young Tanzanian from a community of very poor families who lived in abandoned ships in Dar es Salaam. Because his community could only be reached at low tide, and only those who lived near the local port knew they existed, both he and his message took a bit of effort to discover. But from his physical and social isolation, this young man was able to convey the commitment of the most excluded to ensuring that everyone has access to and can exercise the full range of human rights.

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In spite of the marginalization and near-invisibility of these families, an ATD Fourth World volunteer was able over time to develop a relationship with them. Through repeated visits, he learned about how the families lived in isolation from both wider society and basic social services such as health care and education. But through the relationship that developed with this young Tanzanian and others, the volunteer also learned that the very poor have the energy and ability to mobilize around projects that improve lives in their own community and in the greater world. For example, a group of poor youths in Dar es Salaam travelled from where they worked in a fish market to Mwereni Primary School in Moshi, where they helped to renovate a school for blind children. For some, this was their first encounter with education, and in testament to the impression made, one youth returned as an adult to teach at the school. Another said: "We ourselves live in a difficult situation, but we went there because we needed them [the blind students] to feel strong again ... to have the strength to face their difficulties. We may not have work or a place to sleep, but we volunteered our efforts."

Yet, no matter how much they strive to assume duties and roles as members of the greater community, their poverty keeps them in isolation. Extreme poverty is characterized by the accumulation of mutually reinforcing types of insecurities that tend to intensify one another. A man who lived on a ship illustrated how the many things he lacked, including adequate health care, productive employment and understanding from the outside world, work together to make his life difficult. "I worked the whole day for just one meal as compensation", he says, speaking of a month during which he suffered recurrent bouts of fever. "Other people pretend we are content living here. Do they know we dream of living in a real house?" Although he comes from the United Republic of Tanzania, the hope and insecurities he describes exist throughout the world, in developed and developing countries alike.

Fortunately, members of the international community are coming to understand that people living in poverty yearn to rise out of their insecure conditions and the continued existence of extreme poverty is proof that our efforts to ensure universal access to fundamental rights have fallen short. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these rights not only include the right to adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services such as education, for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family, but also the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and share in scientific advancements and its benefits. Everyone has duties to the community, the Declaration maintains, in which the free and full development of one's personality is possible.

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In order to uphold these rights, the first of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) pledges to halve the number of people living on less than one dollar a day by the year 2015. To see this commitment through, both Governments and the United Nations must take action to implement development projects that involve the participation of the poorest as genuine partners. In a recent presentation to the UN Economic and Social Council at UN Headquarters in New York, Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Millennium Project, stated that achieving the MDGs is "a question of partnership, not morality". He further emphasized that we should do "less blaming the poor, [and] more working with the poor to address specific, targeted needs". Clearly, only when we include the poorest in the development of projects, from the first stages on, will they-even the 50 per cent who the United Nations do not expect to have risen out of extreme poverty by 2015--have a real opportunity to attain positive change in their lives.

Families who face devastating struggles also hope for a better life and should have the opportunity to see their children thrive. Such hope was realized in San Jacinto, a rural district in eastern Guatemala, where a web of poverty-related deaths elevated the child-mortality rate for children under five to 140 per 1,000, mainly due to disease and malnutrition. When ATD Fourth World volunteers arrived in San Jacinto in the late 1970s, they strove to understand what kept families mired in the conditions that threatened their children and kept them from getting help. It is crucial to find ways to support rather than supplant the efforts of parents, especially in projects geared toward children. This is why volunteers spent the first few years developing relationships with poor families and health organizations there, including a non-governmental organization (NGO) involved on vaccination issues named Alianza, midwives, community members trained as health promoters and a health technician working out of the health post. Through talking with other groups in San Jacinto, working alongside the poorest in daily activities and writing down what was shared, the volunteers gained valuable knowledge about what kept families from benefiting from services in and near their community. The barriers included lack of money for medicine, inadequate child care, inability to spare time for scraping together vital resources, shame about looking dirty or unkempt, and losing children despite medical attention. Because all of these issues ran not only simultaneously but were at the heart of the family's survival, choosing one over the other was incredibly difficult and had serious consequences. To make matters worse, communication between most health care professionals and their patients was prone to misunderstanding and hurt feelings.

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Had volunteers not taken time to learn from families, they could easily have started a project that would neither fit the needs of the community nor take their feelings into account. But through relationships built on shared activities, which ranged from producing mango preserves to reading together and conversing openly and respectfully, the volunteers learned that a project focused on a child's malnutrition would not work and would bring sorrow and shame to the parents so that they would not want to participate. Parents, especially the very poor, yearn to see their children thrive. As Dona Matilda, a member of the San Jacinto community, expresses: "My children have a mother. I cannot give them wealth, but I can give them tenderness. Where do I find the strength to go on?--in my children. Who will struggle for them if I don't?" Consequently, in response to parents' wishes to support all aspects of their children's development, ATD Fourth World started a pre-school, a project that is stronger for being built on hope rather than on sorrow.

In the end, not only did those working in the school share with parents how their children were progressing both in health and creative development, but very poor parents found ways to build relationships with each other and with the community. For example, parents participated in health workshops where they exchanged ideas about hygiene and created a poster of a recipe for a rehydration drink that could be displayed for reference. Moreover, by using traditional Guatemalan sewing techniques for embroidery, the sewing workshops attracted mothers who were less poor to join, thus creating a place for women from different backgrounds to share in a creative, cultural activity. The project achieved success due largely to the multidimensional and constant involvement of the community and the long-term approach adopted by ATD Fourth World. It was a true partnership that was built on equality, open-mindedness and mutual respect. Ten years later, local health technicians reported that the initial drop in mortality rate, from 144 to 83 per 1,000, had been maintained, and that many of the poor families retained long-term benefits from linking health to culture.

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The pre-school is just one example of numerous projects that grass-roots groups, NGOs and other civil organizations have initiated for the poor to share their lives, unique insights and creative work while in partnership with others. As one woman involved in a project in rural France emphasizes, "listening is not the same thing as understanding. For me, we can understand each other when we can contemplate doing something together." Unlike projects which simply set up services for the poor, thereby ensuring they stay on the fringes of society, these initiatives bring to the fore their desire to contribute to society, thus strengthening the sense that their membership is real, valued and vital.

On 17 October 1987, some 100,000 people gathered at the Human Rights Plaza in Paris to celebrate the contributions of those living in extreme poverty and to commemorate those who had suffered and died because of it. Largely organized by ATD Fourth World, 17 October continues to be the day when all who reject extreme poverty and exclusion throughout the world gather in solidarity. In 1992, the United Nations recognized this date as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, when people may come together to share their commitment to ensuring that everyone's dignity and freedom are respected. In many places worldwide, the 17th of every month is dedicated to special gatherings. One poor parent from a rural community in Cote d'Ivoire shares how children introduced her to ATD Fourth World, whose volunteers held "Street Libraries" that provide the opportunity for children to read, build relationships with others and create art. "Thanks to our children, we are now meeting on the 17th of every month", the woman remarked. "The women of our group have discussed and decided to start a livelihood project to make soap. We who did not know each other before are now united for the benefit of all."

As the United Nations Development Programme 1998 Poverty Report states, people living in persistent poverty must be "the driving force in the condition of poverty eradication [because] they have the strongest motivation and the greatest stake in the outcome". Yet, a report published in 1989 by the United Nations Children's Fund indicates that 20 per cent of the people for whom poverty-fighting programmes are designed are not reached by them. This suggests that not enough is being done to connect with the most excluded and thereby learn from them what must happen before they can access their rights and reassume their responsibilities, with dignity, in the foreseeable future. A message from those who used to live in the streets on the outskirts of Poznan, Poland, demonstrates the strength and persistence of the poor in the fight against extreme poverty: "We are the people of perseverance. Tell everybody they must not give up the fight. Tell them we want to be in contact with them throughout the world, because when you realize that you are among many of us who are moving forward together, you keep your courage in order to encourage others."

By Anna Fagergren, with Vicki Soanes

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Anna Fagergren (left) is a summer intern with the ATD Fourth World in New York. She has also volunteered with several public-interest organizations, interned for legal service institutions and written short articles for the Long Island Press.

Vicki Soanes (right) has been a member of the ATD Fourth World volunteer corps for almost three years, and in April 2004 took on the role of representative to the United Nations. She has also travelled extensively and spent six months as a volunteer in a social development project in rural Zambia.