Since the fall of 2023, we have been featuring some of the initiatives that ATD Fourth World has taken in the last ten years with children living in poverty.

We have shown how our members have worked on four continents with children, their parents, their schools, and their communities on projects ranging from simple initiatives such as street libraries to innovative responses to the appeal for justice that parents living in poverty make: that “our children should not have to live the same life as we do”.

Our series ends today with children in Ventilla, a marginalised area of Madrid. In 2015, Mariángeles, a mother living there, set up a Tapori group for some of the children in her neighbourhood. Facilitated by ATD Fourth World, groups like this bring children together once a week to develop mutual support, reflect on poverty and injustice, and build friendships that are stronger than their lives are difficult. They then share news and ideas with other Tapori groups around the world.

In the early days, none of that was possible for the children of the Ventilla group because their lives were too chaotic for them to complete any activity together. But over time, the children, their parents, and the facilitators worked together to create a group bound together by strong, deeply felt solidarity that transformed their lives. The facilitators describe the practices and skills they developed by working with the children, helping them to take more responsibility, to have more freedom, to engage in deeper reflection, and to live happier lives. They explain how they encouraged the children to support one another, to bring joy to the group, and to develop self-awareness and awareness of their social environment, always respecting the uniqueness of each person. Over the weeks, the facilitators found ways to empower the children, freeing them from labels and the effects of social exclusion. Without specifically planning for it, they succeeded in creating new initiatives, in inspiring very different people to get involved, and ultimately in reinvigorating ATD Fourth World in Madrid.

The account from Ventilla shows us what the future of our anti-poverty movement could be if we give children the means to contribute. In sharing it with you, we bring our series on education to an end. We hope that it will inspire you to start, to continue, or to reimagine your own initiatives with children living in poverty. And together we will keep writing the story.

If you work with children and need resources or advice to help them overcome poverty, or if you would like to tell us about your own experience, please contact us at enfance[at]atd-quartmonde.org