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Training is essential to ATD Fourth World members in their commitment to overcoming poverty. To this end, we invest in local, regional, and international training sessions.

In April 2025, our international training team organised the “Renfort 1” session at the ATD Fourth World International Centre in France.

The session brought together Volunteer Corps members from different regions around the world who have two or three years of experience full time with ATD so they could get to know one another, grow together on the basis of their shared experiences, and reinforce their understanding of our movement.

To start the session, participants learned more about the story of ATD Fourth World through organised visits to some key places. They went to the neighbourhood of Noisy Le-Grand that was the birthplace of our movement in the 1950s; and they went to Baillet-en-France to visit the Joseph Wresinski Archives and Research Centre, which preserves written documents, photographs, audio clips, and videos as historical records of the resistance of people crushed by poverty.

Volunteer Corps members from Africa, the Americas, and Europe collaborated and learned from one another as they discovered the context of each person’s responsibilities. Among them, Betzabé Orozco from Guatemala and Fanny Laime from Bolivia shared some insights that have reinforced their commitment.

Feeling that we are not alone

“It was important to feel and to know that we are not alone in our efforts, that it’s not only our country going through this, but that there are many other people, including young people, who have taken up the cause, and that today they too have responsibilities to other people in the places they live, and that they are joining the work to overcome extreme poverty by making a commitment to change.”

Betzabé

“We are not alone in our work (…) I believe that that unites us in one single belief, that power unites us, the strength of each individual, because I believe that each individual is important.”

Fanny

Learning about other people’s lives

“Having this time together allows us to discuss our experiences, to speak about our responsibilities within the teams, and to remember that we are often absorbed in our own situation; or when we are in a team living alongside families in poverty, we feel exhausted with our own daily lives. And this type of session allows us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, to motivate ourselves together, to feel that we aren’t alone, and to learn new things.”

Betzabé

“Getting to know our movement on an international level has made me see that there is indeed poverty everywhere — that [many families] have difficult lives, that they struggle, that they are afraid, and that they experience insecurity and many injustices.”

Fanny

Getting together motivates us

“Meeting other people who are so diverse motivates me and reinforces our understanding of the perspective that we have here at ATD Fourth World. We will never stop learning from one another because it helps make us stronger and able to move forward.”

Fanny

“Above all, it leads me to take action to enable change, to feel the impact that those actions have on the lives of the families most affected by poverty, to question what we do and how we do it, and how available we are to take things on and learn new ways of living and creating alongside other people.”

Betzabé

Connections across borders

Volunteer Corps members are constantly taking on work that brings them face to face with new challenges. That is why it is important for them to get together, share experiences, learn and support one another in order to build a global movement, with each person contributing from where they are. Also, training sessions help them forge links across borders as they learn to work together and open up to new horizons.

“I have found friendship among the new Volunteer Corps members I met. That is something that you build every day. For me, it’s always about listening to one another, learning together, walking together.”

Fanny

“These sessions allow us to meet in person and get to know one another, something that virtual meetings don’t allow. I think they make us feel we belong together — we have some fun times, we make friends, and we recognise one another as complete human beings.”

Betzané