🌻 Hello and happy summer! 🌻
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I know what we’re all thinking. It’s the beginning of June, and yet here at ATD Fourth World we’re sure we’re not the only ones still longingly gazing at the radiator… With northern winds blowing in from the artic, and gusts following from the south, Addington Square’s sweet-pea seedlings look like they want to retract back into the earth, and who can blame them?
However, we’ve got a couple days yet for the weather to get its act together before official UK summertime begins. And while we all collectively pray for that miracle, here are some highlights from the past few months to keep you occupied and optimistic!
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Some highlights from our website
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To thrive, we all need opportunities to be creative, build meaningful connections, and make our own decisions. Often, however, people seeking asylum lack access to these opportunities.
That’s why the ATD Fourth World team at Frimhurst Family House, together with Barnardos and St. Barbara’s Church, hosts fortnightly well-being mornings with people seeking asylum housed at a nearby hotel. While Barnardos offers families and individuals assistance with various administrative matters — such as filling out forms or learning about services in the area — the Frimhurst team provides a variety of activities and events for families to relax and enjoy a few hours away from the pressures of daily life. To read more about these mornings, and what they mean to those who attend, you can follow the link here.
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Since 2020, volunteers with the Community Matters Partnership have helped to care for and renovate our beloved Frimhurst Family House. In March, this plaque was unveiled to celebrate our partnership. You can read more about the projects that ATD Fourth World and volunteers from the Community Matters Partnerships have been involved in — including the ambitious renovation of Cedar House — here.
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In celebration of World Art Day on April 15, we took time to highlight some of the incredible artwork created by ATD Fourth World activists with lived experience of poverty, and shared the importance of cultivating creative spaces. Read this article for more on how we create spaces for all to express their creativity, and the difference it makes.
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In February, the SDG Lab — together with Rethinking Economics International and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) — launched a joint call for essays aimed at young people under 30. ATD youth activist Kaydence Drayak was selected as one of the top five essayists for her independent contribution, and consequently invited to Geneva by the UN to share her perspective with leaders and experts from the UN, Member States, academia, and civil society.
To read more about the competition, and to read all the winning essays, please follow this link.
You might also remember Kaydence Drayak from her contribution towards the creation of a resource geared towards helping young people understand their human rights. This was a collaboration between the young people of “Youth Voices”, which included Kaydence, and the BIHR. You can find the resource here.
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You might remember that in May 2022, parent activists poverty met at the centre of the International Movement ATD Fourth World in France to work on the theme “Thinking, acting, and advocating so our children have a future without poverty”. This work continued in June 2023 when a delegation of seven UK activists travelled to Brussels. Last November, it concluded at a conference in France, led by 50 activists from seven European countries. On the final day, they were joined by a dozen academics, including five from the UK, one of whom reflected on the event in this article.
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Well, the full final report from this two-year project, entitled “Building a future without poverty for children: parents and society together”, has now been published. You can read it here.
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Other highlights from this month
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11 April saw a webinar to launch the Action Research Journal's special issue on Transforming the Poverty Field. The articles, two of which were written by ATD Fourth World, reflect on projects that took place in Canada, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, the UK and internationally. During the webinar key points from the special issue were discussed by five activists living in poverty who have taken part in participatory action research.
To read two blog posts about the special edition of the journal, please click here and here, and stay tuned for forthcoming blog posts based on the webinar.
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On 6 June, we ran a seminar to celebrate the progress of parent advocacy. It was a very well attended hybrid event, with 20 people in the room at Addington Square and another 77 registered online — many of them social workers from a dozen different local authorities. For this event co-sponsored by ATD and the Parents, Families and Allies Network (PFAN), special guest speaker Dr. David Tobis joined a panel with three parent speakers: Nikki Hewson, who has been a parent advocate in Lewisham Council; Tammy Mayes, who promotes parent advocacy as PFAN's co-chair; and Tammy C., who recently trained to become a parent advocate. The panel was chaired by Dr. Simon Haworth of the University of Birmingham. All the speakers were excellent. To watch the full video recording and to see an article about it, please click here.
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We also recently interviewed Tammy C. about her new role as a parent advocate offering support to other parents, her experience with social service interventions, and being a mum. To read her interview, please follow this link.
“All parents need a bit of guidance, even if they’re experienced parents. And they still need a shoulder to cry on.”
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ATD was invited by the Let's End Poverty Campaign and Church Action on Poverty to join their "Dreams and Realities" exhibition with some of the artwork that we created last summer for "The Power of Creativity" to prepare for the UN International Day to End Poverty. The exhibition includes our entire exhibition of photography and resin bookmarks, and a selection of poems and collages. Activists decided that from The Roles We Play, we should display only presentations prepared by people who have sadly passed away since then: Derek, Rita, Diane, and Moraene. At the launch event on 9 June, many ATD activists took to the stage, some to honour Diane and Moraene, and others to read their own poems, or to speak on an issue they are passionate about. Angela, for instance, felt strongly that the audience of about 60 people, including the mayor of Camden, should hear her message about poverty and domestic violence. An article on the event will soon feature on our website, so keep your eye out.
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Don’t worry if you missed our launch event! The exhibition will remain open for another week, and Church Action on Poverty and ATD Fourth World invite you to savour the incredibly powerful art created by both ATD Fourth World activists with experience of poverty and Stephen Martin.
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Camden Town Methodist Church
10 June — 21 June 2024
Mon-Fri: 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Saturday: 12:00 to 5:00 pm
Sunday: closed.
For more information, please click here.
We hope to see you there!
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In our last newsletter we wrote about a session we organised on stigmatisation, disability, and racism as part of our series of study groups on poverty, social work and the right to family life. To read more about the session, click here.
Since then, we have published a new article about the fifth session in this series, which focused on language and communication. Participants discussed the corporatisation of certain words, classism in language, using language for self-empowerment, and much more. To read the article, click here.
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Remembering Faye Hamilton
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We were sad to learn that on 2 June, Faye Hamilton passed away. She was a Family Group Conference Coordinator with the London Borough of Camden Council who had been contributing to ATD's work since 2022, as you can see in this article about our study groups on poverty, social work and the right to family life. Using creative techniques and role play, Faye also facilitated Relational Activism workshops intended to highlight the importance of lived experience, culminating in a collaboration towards systemic change. Click here to read about her work with Camden Council.
ATD activist Tammy Mayes, who worked with Faye in the Parents Families and Allies Network, says:
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“Faye was an extraordinary woman and mum, and an amazing singer. She was always so bubbly, but unfortunately she lost her battle with leukaemia in June after fighting it for years. She leaves behind her beautiful little girl, who was her world and her legacy.
"Faye wanted to make a difference in this world to the broken system, and she did make a difference, and she will continue to make a difference. She touched so many people. Her legacy will live on, not just in Camden, but everywhere.
"If you ever got to meet her you would see that she would light the room up as soon as she entered. Her strength and bravery were a part of her. She will be missed. She was so loved, and I don’t think she realised how much.
"Rest in peace Faye. Gone, but never forgotten. We love you; fly high angel.”
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Thank you for reading, and we appreciate your continued interest in all that we do. Sending you and yours love and light from the ATD Fourth World team — talk soon! 🩵
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Now more than ever, your donation means everything. Please consider donating to us here.
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