In October, as a member of the International 17th October Committee Community Activist Andrew travelled to Dakar, Senegal. The October 17th Committee and ATD Fourth World organised an international roundtable “I WAS BORN — I EXIST — ADD ME TO THE LIST”. This event highlighted the consequences for many who do not have access to legal identity documents. The meeting in Dakar involved a meeting with the mayor of Grand Yoff, a hybrid webinar conference and thereafter a Declaration at Goree Island.
“My name is Andrew last October I went to a place called Dakar, Senegal in Africa. The flight over, I left Ireland and it was really cold and when I got there the heat was something else. Before I left I had to get injections to stop yellow fever and other stuff. The first day the heat really got to me I had to leave the gathering and go back to the hotel but after that day I was alright we got to meet loads of people .
It broke my heart that some of the people I met literally didn’t exist. Why I say that, to me there was a person standing in front of me, but on paper they had no birth cert so I start to wonder is poverty made by other human beings? I mean everyone on this planet deserves to have an identity what gives a person the right to say you don’t matter you don’t exist?
So I hope everything that I did by speaking out on Goree Island, the work as a team, we did to redefine the declaration of Goree islsnd that it makes a difference. Because I’m lucky enough to have a life, to have an identity, that even though I still go through poverty that I exist I’m already on the birth cert list. So I’ll speak until I’m weak.
I got to sign the Golden Book of Goree Island, but I will also like to say thank you to the group ATD for making this possible and most importantly thank you to my amazing wife Lorraine for supporting me on this journey called life.
“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”.
So I ask after this statement how do people that don’t have any human documents to exist how do they have human rights?”
