Children everywhere dream of a world where there’s no more poverty, where each child can live in peace and have friends. They don’t want to wait to be adults to take action.

Tapori shares this dream and supports them in their actions against poverty and exclusion.

During a trip to India in 1965, Joseph Wresinski, founder of ATD Fourth World, met a group of children who lived by themselves in the train stations of Bombay (now Mumbai) and shared with one another any leftovers they could find on the trains. They were called “Tapoori.”

In 1967 a children’s network was created within ATD Fourth World in solidarity with the children of the emergency housing camp of Noisy-le-Grand, in France.

Joseph Wresinski started to write regularly to children who wanted to be friends with the most excluded. Remembering his trip to India, Joseph wrote to them, “I often think about these children, who were so abandoned, but also very brave in getting by and helping each other. We can also be “Taporis” and use our own two hands to build a world with more friendship, where poverty will disappear.”

To honor the children in the train stations in Mumbai, this network of children is called Tapori. 

If you are interested in finding a Tapori group near you, or starting your own group, contact the ATD Fourth World team in your country, or visit en.tapori.org to learn more.