Help prepare the next UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty !

The Irish 17 October Committee and ATD as one of its members is looking for volunteers to support the preparation of the next UN Day for Eradication of Poverty Gathering on Custom House Quay in Dublin. You want to support the events marking the next UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Friday 17 October? You are interested to discover the history of this UN Day and its impacts worldwide? You would like to know more about how people experiencing severe and chronic poverty can act as experts and have their say in policies for a just and sustainable world? Write…

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ATD supports an open letter to the Irish Government on ESC Rights

A call for the Government to accept the recommendation of the Constitutional Convention that economic, social and cultural rights be given enhanced protection in the Constitution ATD with many organisations gathered by the Economic, Social and Cultural (ESC) Rights Initiative  wrote on 26 September 2014 to the Taoiseach and to the Tánaiste. On 31 March the Constitutional Convention recommended to the Government, by an overwhelming majority of 85%, that ESC rights be given enhanced protection in the Constitution. The Government was due to respond to the recommendation by the end of July. Disappointingly and in breach of the Conventions’ terms of…

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In Record Time! Children will be able to make complaints to the UN within 3 months

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan TD, signed and ratified the Third Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in New York on 24th September 2014. The Children’s Rights Alliance and its members have campaigned for Ireland to sign and ratify this important procedure since 2012. This is a tremendous achievement for Minister Reilly, Minister Flanagan and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs who have worked tirelessly to get this protocol ratified in record time. Now children’s rights will be protected at the highest level. Ireland is one of the first countries in the…

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Overseas aid works and is widely supported – stop cutting the aid budget, say NGOs

Irish overseas aid agencies called on the Government to ensure it made no further cuts to the overseas aid budget and to set out how it will meet the 0.7% ODA/GNI target it had originally committed to achieving by 2015. The call was made by the members of Dóchas www.dochas.ie, the umbrella group of 62 Irish Development NGO and global justice groups, as they presented their 2015 pre-Budget Submission to the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan TD. Presenting the submission, Hans Zomer of Dóchas said: “Ireland’s overseas aid is effective. It makes real and positive differences to the lives of millions…

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Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty released online!

ATD's latest book was just released online as a free e-book download. The book is titled Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty, and it grew out of the participatory research on the violence of extreme poverty that showed just how much people living in poverty do to search for peace, to go beyond violence, and to build a sense of community. The text began its life as part of ATD's submission when Federico Mayor nominated ATD for the Nobel Prize in 2013. You can download a free copy of the book here: http://ebook.atd-fourthworld.org This represents the culmination of a lot of work on…

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