- ATD Fourth World

The delegation, comprising youth delegates from Belgium, France, Poland, Switzerland and the UK, was led by the Director General of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, Eugen Brand. It took place in Strasbourg within the framework of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and the European Parliament’s commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Mr. Ban had been invited by the Parliament’s President to address its members.

The ATD Fourth World delegation, which included young people who themselves experience poverty and exclusion, delivered their appeal to Mr. Ban and Mr. Buzek in which they asked European and world leaders, as well as citizens from across the continent, to join them to make their vision for a fairer world possible:

"As young people from across Europe and in solidarity with young people the world over, we live in a world where money is more important than people. This world excludes some of us and breaks others. It leaves us feeling disgusted and angry. (…) We are of all ages and from across Europe. We dream of a fairer world. We must come together to make it possible."

In his response to the youth delegation, Mr. Ban congratulated them on their leadership in tackling questions of poverty. He encouraged their expression of solidarity to build a world free from poverty and reminded them of the UN’s shared commitment in this field, most recently reaffirmed at the Millennium Development Goals summit in New York.

Eugen Brand thanked Mr. Buzek and Mr. Ban for having met the delegation. He expressed ATD Fourth World’s support for Mr. Ban’s aim for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to focus on striving for those hardest to reach in the hardest to reach places. Mr. Ban was also presented with a request to support the carrying out of impact assessments to gauge the extent to which the very poorest populations have benefited to date from the MDGs. The assessments would find ways forward, through the active participation of people living in extreme hardship, for this section of society to benefit from the Goals by the 2015 deadline.

The Appeal is the fruit of a process that has brought European young people together over the past year, in which each person was listened to and each point of view was respected. As one young person expressed after the event, "When we began the process of writing this Appeal, I could never have imagined that we would end up reading it to the UN Secretary-General!"

The meeting had taken place as a result of a joint initiative by the European Parliament’s "Intergroup Extreme Poverty and Human Rights – Fourth World Committee", chaired by Mr. Iñigo Méndez de Vigo and by Mrs. Pervenche Berès, chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. The delegation subsequently met with Mr. Méndez de Vigo and fellow Intergroup member, Ms. Sylvie Goulard to discuss further matters regarding poverty and young people in Europe.

Read the full Appeal and express your solidarity with the European young people’s message

Read the full text of ATD Fourth World’s request to Mr. Ban Ki-moon concerning the Millennium Development Goals

Untitled from ATDFRA on Vimeo.