International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: why October 17 matters

When you want to make a problem smaller, you reduce it.

When you want to make a problem easier to live with, you manage it.

When you want to make a problem disappear forever, you eradicate it.

Think about that last word.

The United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty could have been called the International Day for the Reduction of Poverty. Or the International Day for Addressing Poverty. Or even the International Day for Fighting Poverty.

But it wasn’t.

October 17 is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

What is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty?

To answer that question, step into the World Vision Canada time machine and go back to October 17, 1987:

• La Bamba by Los Lobos was the number one song on the Canadian RPM chart.
• Fatal Attraction was the top movie at the North American box office.
• The Minnesota Twins beat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the 1987 World Series.

But something else happened that day that no chart, box office or scoreboard could measure.

More than 100,000 people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris with a message:

Poverty isn’t just a hardship. It isn’t simply a misfortune. And it isn’t only the result of bad luck or bad decisions.

Poverty is a violation of human rights. Those living in poverty aren’t just experiencing it. They aren’t simply its victims.

They are far more than that.

The story of the priest, the muddy field, the stone and October 17

In 1956, Father Joseph Wresinski arrived in Noisy-le-Grand, outside Paris. Before him lay a muddy field stretching across 13 hectares (32 acres). He saw precarious huts sinking into the muck. He saw families the world had forgotten.

He said:

• « D’emblée, j’ai senti que je me trouvais devant mon peuple. »
• “Right away, I felt that I was standing before my people.”

This was poverty at its worst. To Wresinski, it was familiar. They were familiar.

He had grown up in poverty himself.

In these families, he saw his mother, who fought for dignity while struggling to put food on the table. He saw his brothers and his sister, humiliated and shunned. He saw the loneliness and grief and shame that accompany poverty.

He saw himself in all of it.

The “Fourth World”

During the Cold War, the world was often divided into three “worlds”: the capitalist West (“First World”), the Communist Bloc (“Second World”) and countries aligned with neither (“Third World”).

Wresinski spoke of a "Fourth World." Not a group of countries, but a group of people. Not defined by borders or geography, but by shared experiences of extreme poverty, marginalization and exclusion.

He also believed that those the world had pushed aside had something to teach it. As Wresinski once said:

• « Les plus pauvres sont nos maîtres. »
• “The poorest are our teachers.”

That conviction shaped his life’s work. In 1957, he founded ATD Fourth World alongside the families living on that muddy field.

Thirty years later, that work brought him to the Trocadéro in Paris.

The Trocadéro: October 17, 1987

The Trocadéro is a plaza across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. Beside it stands the Palais de Chaillot, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948.

On October 17, 1987, over 100,000 people gathered there.

Some were high-ranking government officials. Others were ordinary citizens. And others were living in chronic poverty.

Those who lived in poverty spoke. Those who had the ability to enact change listened.

They all stood together as Wresinski honoured those who suffered and died from extreme poverty.

And finally, he unveiled a commemorative stone bearing words that have become inseparable from October 17:

• « Là où des hommes sont condamnés à vivre dans la misère, les droits de l'homme sont violés. S'unir pour les faire respecter est un devoir sacré. »
• “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 our solemn duty.”

Five years later, in 1992, the United Nations officially designated October 17 as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Why the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty matters

The stone doesn’t ask us to reduce poverty or manage it. It says poverty violates human rights and calls us to end it as a solemn duty.

In French, October 17 carries another name:

• « Journée mondiale du refus de la misère. »
• “The World Day for Refusing Extreme Poverty.”

Refusal is where eradication begins.

Helping starts with listening

Almost 10 per cent of the world lives in extreme poverty, including more than 330 million children. The cycle of poverty is complex to untangle.

No one understands poverty better than the people living in it. They should help shape the solutions and not just receive them.

Father Joseph Wresinski said:

• « Apprendre à écouter les personnes en situation d’extrême pauvreté requiert une grande humilité. Ils ont tant à nous dire, bien plus que nous ne l’imaginons. »

• “Learning to listen to people living in extreme poverty requires great humility. They have so much to tell us, much more than we imagine.”

Before deciding how to help eradicate poverty or to give where it’s most needed, we should take his advice to listen and learn first.

To understand what poverty truly is. To understand how conflict drives poverty. To understand the root causes of poverty. To understand the hidden consequences of poverty in children.

Poverty isn’t something we should reduce or manage. It’s something to be eradicated.

And that starts with listening.