we can’t ignore people who are living next to us, who are suffering like that.
October 17th in New market
We decided to participate in the October 17th event organised in New Market by a group called PACC (Poverty Action For Change coalition). It was taking place in a park and the few people who were there, welcomed us warmly.
Tom Pearson who was part, in 2007, of the evaluation of October 17th in Montreal introduced us to different people saying that the Fourth World Movement was at the initiative of the first Oct 17th.
As we had brought ribbons (Oct17th 2007) we asked if they were interested to use them. People were enthusiastic and they went to each person there to make them wear a ribbon. It was a way to read the sentence of the stone and to give some news of other October 17th in the world.
In his introduction Tom Peason mentioned the presence of the Fourth World Movement and said that Joseph Wresinski was the Founder of Ocotber 17th.
Then the Maire of New Market after a few words, unveiled a stone which commemorates the date of October 17th, international day of eradication of poverty.
I was stroked by a mother who came with her son to the stage to say what it meant to her family to live in perpetual emergency. She had to move several times because of the bad conditions of the apartments she lived in. She explained how it affected the health of her son. After having heard several people speaking, another lady came to the stage. She had prepared what she wanted to say on a notebook paper. She read very slowly what she had prepared to say: she said that she cried when she heard what the mom and her son had to go through and then said "we can’t ignore people who are living next to us, who are suffering like that." With her two sentences she had said what the day was about.
