Is Anybody Out There?

Mobile phones, text messages, Wap phone, the Internet, email, phones in watches, cable, satellite, the world is being brought ever closer by leaps in technology. Or is it? Only one person in ten in the world has access to the Internet. The bold possibilities of the electronic age is rapidly passing by the other ninety per cent.

The greatest suffering for the poor is not to be heard, are the memorable words of Joseph Wresinski, the late founder of the international voluntary organisation, ATD Fourth World.

He started his work back in 1957 in a shanty town on the outskirts of Paris, France. He found families who had been waiting years for permanent housing and had basically been forgotten down the end of a muddy path. There were charitable organisations handing out food and clothing to those in greatest need, but Wresinski realised that this wouldn’t change anything in the long term. What these families needed was to have decision makers listening to, and acting on, what they had to say about their lives and their dreams for the future.

This is still one of the main thrusts of ATD Fourth World today, and many other Non Governmental Organisations have the same concern, that the people at the receiving end of social policy bring an essential contribution to policy discussions.

Yet, how can anyone take part, if they are not even being invited to the table or don’t have the means to get there?

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