ATD Ireland 2024 in Review and Looking Forward
5 minute read time
By ATD Fourth World Ireland
A happy, healthy and peaceful new year.
As we begin 2025 we would like to wish you all a happy, healthy and peaceful new year. We wish to share our deep gratitude with all those involved in our work in 2024 and all those who supported us in any way. We made some very precious memories in 2024. However we also acknowledge that this was a year where many of our members struggled deeply, and continue to do so. It is our main priority to remain connected to families living in persistent poverty during these times. We are proud of our collective achievements in 2024 and how we are progressing on our strategic goals. Moreover, we are mindful of where we need to place more focus moving forward. Therefore, it is a timely moment to take stock of our actions through the lens of our strategic goals and provide an insight into our plans for 2025. We hope the below showcases the interconnected nature of our work from diverse modes of inclusion, advocacy and representation, etc. Highlights of 2024 include our Creative Pathways to Participation, meeting people through gatherings and open house days and fostering partnership through our advocacy work on socio-economic discrimination. Our projects aim to be diverse in nature, involving our ATD Ireland Community, and members of other groups and partners.
Goal 1. Deeper engagement with people living in persistent poverty
One area where we are very mindful of our need to invest more energy and creativity is in finding ways to meet new people living in poverty. Some of the highlights of 2024 are the moments we spent alongside families, especially our home visits and outings, particularly during the summer. We spent time going on nature and cultural outings this year. We hope to continue, and make more regular, this action in 2025. Watch here some short, fun clips from our days out. However, life has continued to remain very difficult for those facing persistent poverty. To remain present in people’s lives and to have our actions reflective of the reality of what our members are experiencing will be a core aim moving forward. These moments where we have the privilege to learn from people living in poverty are key.
“It’s nice to get around. It’s better than staying cooped up inside. It’s better to stay active than stay inside with nice weather”
– Jayden.
In 2025 we plan to experiment with new ideas to be attentive and proactive in outreach. For instance, through spending more time in the community, especially in places where we can meet new people through some activities.
Community Activists
Our Community Activists have done a massive amount of work across 2024, especially in public presentation both local and international. Many of our projects and activities are designed, developed, carried out and promoted with our activist group. We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank them all.
It will be important to continually take stock with our community activists in 2025 on the achievements and challenges of our continued public representation. ATD Ireland are committed to carrying out, and planning, our public facing work in partnership with Community Activists. Community Activists always have the freedom to take part in this work, and step back from it as they see fit and the team will encourage them to take these decisions mindfully, without any judgement. Creating a group dynamic, based on trust and peer support is so important. Encouraging hope and positivity is essential, yet recognising burnout and demotivation in the face of political inaction is vital. We are also attentive to supporting our activist group in training and self-development. We will continue to take moments to reflect together on both challenges and achievements of this work in 2025.
We always value the contributions of our community activists, recognising the context of where each person is coming from. The efforts made are often staggering, taking time to be on a zoom meeting numerous times from a hospital bed, finding strength to show up at an event while struggling with an important family issue, for example. It is our duty to ensure these contributions are taken seriously. The wellbeing of all Community Activists will always remain a top priority for us all in the ATD Ireland community.
Working through a series of one to one interviews with our Community Activists focusing on building up the confidence to speak out, in link with Critical Social Policy, has led us into an important collective reflection on the core values of ATD Ireland.
We hope this work will be published in 2025 after further involvement by our members leading up to our annual general meeting in May. This will support us in planning our work in 2025 and beyond, through understanding what is meaningful to Community Activists, which of our actions resonate most and give them strength.
We have managed to reignite some ties with families we have lost contact with and meet new people. The Creative Pathways to Participation project (funded by Coalition 2030) gave us the opportunity to reach out to families not often involved in our public work and created new partnerships. This project received international recognition and received a Creative Lives Award. Read here a reflection on Creative Pathways and the award by Community Activist Paul.
“A lot of the time our voices were not being represented, but rather opinionated on. Whereas now (in Creative Pathways to Participation), it’s our expression. They can have an opinion on it all they want, but that’s only cause they are reading it, they’re not writing it” … That book is us, for definite. People’s personalities, their character and their development, shown through the book“
– Paul.