DTA Fourth World

The Movement DTA (Assistance to Any Distress) Fourth World was created in 1956 by the father Joseph Wresinski with families living in a Noisy-the-Large Bidonville with (Parisian suburbs). This shantytown had been installed by the Mouvement Emmaüs and its founder the Abbé Pierre. DTA Fourth World aims at the eradication of the extreme Pauvreté and as principle founder that those which undergo this situation must be the first actors of their own promotion. It calls upon the engagement of each citizen to transform mentalities and to pose concrete acts of solidarity. He also proposes to make a durable engagement of it while becoming volunteer-permanent. Today present in about thirty country at the level of the action and a hundred by the means of correspondents, he works at the same time on the ground, at the national and international level.

The Movement DTA Fourth World is present and acts in 29 countries out of the 5 continents thanks to 370 volunteer-permanent, more than 5000 combined and militants of Fourth World, 100.000 friends or correspondents. Created by a catholic priest (Joseph Wresinski), the Movement DTA Fourth World gathers, around the will to put an end to misery, of the women and the men of various denominational memberships (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Moslem), philosophical (atheistic, agnostic, humanistic) and policies, and of all social origins.

History

The father Joseph Wresinski was born in a family from poor immigrants. Whereas it could have forgotten the world of misery, it chooses to go back there; it joined in 1956 a camp of families without Noisy-the-Large shelter with close to Paris and lives 11 years this " provisional camp ". “I was haunted by the idea that never these families would not leave as a long time misery as they would not be accommodated as a whole, as people, where the other men discussed. I promised myself that if I remained, I would make so that these families can climb the steps of the the Vatican, of the Elysium, of UNO…” He is opposed to the soup kitchen and proposes to the families a kindergarten and a library. “It is not so much of food, of clothing which need all these people had, but of dignity, not to more depend on goodwill others” . A vault, workshops for the young people and the adults, a laundry, a living room of esthetics for the women will be realized little by little. With the families of the camp and some friends, an association is created which takes the name of “Assistance to Any Distress” (DTA).

Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz (1920-2002) meets the Joseph father in 1958, it finds in Noisy Large misery but also the fraternity which it lived while being off-set by the Nazis with the camp of Ravensbrück. To died of 2 children in a fire with the camp in 1960, it binds definitively to these very poor families and accepts as from 1964 until 1998 the presidency of association.

In the mud of the camp of without home, the Joseph father thinks that the access to the university world is a decisive stake for a true change. He asks Alwine Your van Steenwijk, a diplomat Dutchwoman come to meet it, to create an research institute: IRFRH (Research institute and of formation to the human relations). A first conference is organized with UNESCO in 1961. Studies show that a section of population remains in extreme poverty in the industrialized countries, in spite of the economic advancement. Little by little develops also an international mail with the creation of bond with isolated people, engaged throughout the world at the sides of the families in great poverty. It is the birth of the permanent Forum “Extreme poverty in the world” , of groups of friends.

Vis-a-vis the distress of the inhabitants of this camp of homeless person, vis-a-vis the emergency answers of the company ever followed by true solutions, the question is put to begin in the duration; among the men and the women of all horizons come to bring their assistance, some take the step to engage in the long run. A permanent voluntariate is created.

In 1966, with these first volunteers, the basic options of association are written. “Any man carries in him an inalienable value which makes its dignity of man”. To finish some with the terms of social cases, unsuited families, family-problems, Joseph Wresinski proposes a name carrying hope and dignity: the Fourth World. Today, the expression Fourth World expresses the gathering of the poor and the not-poor engaged in the same refusal of misery.

As from 1973, international gatherings are organized to affirm publicly the will of Fourth World to be listened, taken into account and especially to be useful for the company.

Within association, families among most underprivileged continue to be at the origin of new initiatives. By seeing refugee camps on television, they say to volunteers: “Everywhere where there are suffering and misery, Fourth World must be present” . Pushed by this interpellation, of the teams are established in developing countries in answer at requests of friends or institutions in various countries. Today the Movement DTA Fourth World is present in 29 countries with teams and has correspondents in more than 100 countries.

The February 14th 1988, the Joseph father dies. It is buried with Méry-on-Oise, in the international center of DTA Fourth World. The international center Joseph Wresinski with Baillet-in-France (95) prolongs its message by gathering its publications and writings, but also the whole of the writings of the members of DTA Fourth World throughout the world; its goal is to bring sources for a work of knowledge of the very poor populations and comprehension of the causes of misery.

The Joseph father leaves us in particular a tool of reflection: the " report/ratio; Great poverty and economic precariousness and sociale" presented to the Economic and Social Council and voted in 1987.

The reports/ratios with the Economic and Social Council of Joseph Wresinski in 1987 then Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz in 1995 transformed the design of the fight against poverty. It becomes an ethical requirement related to the equal dignity of any man. The human rights are indissociable to be respected. That implies a coherent and prospective general activity, on the level of the public authorities like managements and labor, by building a partnership with the very poor people, families and communities.

The two reports/ratios brought bases so that the mobilization of citizens and associations can involve the creation of the Minimum wages of Insertion, law of orientation for the housing of the people disadvantaged with the fight against exclusions, and the installation of a Couverture universal disease.

Aujourdhui, the movement is engaged in an action of lobbying so that is voted by the Parliament a text founding in France a right to opposable housing, right to define in the line of the 11th report/ratio of the High committee for the housing of the underprivileged people given to the President of the Republic in December 2005, and " the sales leaflet Right to opposable housing " who followed on February 17th, 2006. This sales leaflet rests on a simple principle: " In the absence of obligation of result for the public power, the right is without contents because it is without sanction" .

These very important legislative changes are not enough without the mobilization to all the citizens. A regular appointment is launched since the October 17th 1987 when following the call of the Movement DTA Fourth World, 100.000 people expressed their conviction that to link itself against misery is a sacred duty. A Flagstone affirming this message was posed on the square of the Place of Trocadéro, with Paris, the place where was signed the Universal declaration of the human rights.

This gathering instituted on October 17th: |World day of the refusal of misery (day recognized officially by the the United Nations since 1992).

Axes of Association

a family Movement

The most stripped are too often regarded and approached as individual cases, whereas the family is for them the ultimate place of resistance to misery. It constitutes the hope of a change and one better following day for the parents and their children.

a Movement of the Human rights and peace

To be able to nourish themselves and place themselves, to have the possibility of being heard and of being useful for different, are freedoms and basic rights. They are the essential conditions with the exercise of the responsibilities for each one. Poorest are private. So misery is a violation of the whole of the human rights. Extreme poverty deprives those which are victims of any solidarity, of any community life, very speech. To advance in the construction of a company without social exclusion, it is necessary that they can make hear their voice in the various authorities where their future is played.

the Priority with poorest the

The Movement DTA Fourth World with the firm will to go to the meeting of the most ravaged people by misery, the most forgotten; these last are the base and the measurement of all the projects.

Actions

For family, social and professional promotion

The Movement DTA Fourth World tried out cities of family promotion: to offer a housing in a small city HLM to families in situation of wandering, to accompany its members in their priority projects, to carry out a Community development action from the most stripped while being based on a dynamics of action with the children and the young people. The city of family promotion of Noisy-the-Large remains a project-reference of general activity today to make it possible poorest to live in family and to take part in the social life.

Other projects are developed around the same objectives:

- vacation centres family where one can take again breath, sometimes to find the contact with children placed, " to be free but not in the vide" to take again the expression of a participant; - family pre-schools where one creates key periods around the small children; the awakening of the toddlers is supported, the parents learn from/to each other and build their reflection of parents. In the fields of health and professional training, the Movement DTA Fourth World carried out various pilot schemes which it evaluated then relayed with others: to raise the financial obstacles of the access to the care, to animate " rooms of Wellbeing " , to create courses of access to a professional qualification, to try out the formation starting from a setting in situation of production…

culture in rupture with the Assistance

Libraries of street are animated throughout the year in many countries. Children develop to with it the taste to learn and the friendly relations around the books, in the cities, the abandoned shantytowns or villages. Young people initiate themselves with manual know-how or with new technologies and engage for the others. Everywhere in the world of the young people are federate around the network Tapori.

In the very underprivileged districts, the Movement DTA Fourth World also animates Weeks of the shared future. Artists, craftsmen, sportsmen and all those which have a passion are invited to come to divide it voluntarily and live new solidarity around the division of the knowledge. In the popular Universities Fourth World, men and women find the possibility of expressing themselves and learn how to do it; they deliver their opinion and exchange their experiment with citizens of other mediums.

The Movement DTA Fourth World proposes meetings around the Flagstone engraved on the square of the Place of Trocadéro (Paris) and its counterparts in ten country; the 17 of each month, of testimonys of engagement against misery are read there, the message left by the father Joseph Wresinski is repeated publicly.

Action near the Institutions

The international Movement DTA Fourth World has the general advisory statute near Ecosoc, and the advisory statute near UNESCO, of UNICEF, the the ILO and the the Council of Europe. In France, the movement sits in various organizations and institutions (Economic and Social Council)

To promote its action near the public and to enable him to call upon the gift in confidence, the Fondation Helps with any distress , federating various French associations of the movement DTA Fourth World and as a recognized non-profit-making association of public utility, adheres to the Comité of the Charter.

See too

External bonds

the official site of DTA Fourth World
the official site of DTA Fourth World France
the official site of the world day of the refusal of the misery whose DTA Fourth World is in the beginning.

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