Joseph Wresinski
1917-1988 20th century
Refusing to let poverty silence anyone; treating dignity as a right and not as alms.
Who was Joseph Wresinski?
Born in Angers to a Polish father and a Spanish mother, he grew up in a family the neighbourhood pointed at, an errand boy at thirteen, then a seminarian. Sent in 1956 to the camp of Noisy-le-Grand, where two hundred and fifty-two families lived under corrugated-iron igloos, he refused to hand out charity and founded with them what became ATD Fourth World. Thirty years later he had a stone laid at the Trocadéro declaring extreme poverty a violation of human rights.
In their own words
Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is a sacred duty.
That day I promised myself that these families would one day climb the steps of the Élysée, of the Vatican, of the United Nations.