This is How We Live, Listening to the Poorest Families

1995 - 170 pages - $ 12.00

Very poor families from the U.S.A. , Guatemala , Thailand , Burkina Faso , and Germany tell their stories, stretching back over several generations. These stories form the basis for the discussion of key elements for better family policies put forth in the second half of the book.

Each of the monographs presented in this work was written, with the family’s participation, by a team of volunteers who have known the family for a long time. The authors relied on several years of daily written records to which were added testimonies given on the occasion of specific events, interviews with members of these families and transcripts of their remarks during meetings. Finally the texts were reread by the families themselves. In this way, they were able to contribute their creativity, their thinking and their views about programs needed to ensure progress for them and their communities.

In the second part, the Fourth World Volunteers analyze lessons we learned from these stories. The families presented here differ from one another in their ethnic, geographic, and religious origins. In spite of this diversity we can recognize common factors in terms of what families have to endure as well as their strengths, hopes and aspirations. They all ask first for respect. But they also ask others to recognize their efforts, often unseen, to keep their family together, and to support these efforts.

"We must be respected even if we are poor and people must not say 'look at him. He is antisocial… We have nothing to do with him, we don’t need him!' It gives you such a blow to the heart that you just want the ground to swallow you. To be respected, that means to be considered, to be taken into account, that people treats us like anyone else."

Their voices break new ground in poverty policy. To be successful, programs need to be initiated, implemented and evaluated with the poorest themselves. Poor people must be considered the principal partners in their liberation.

This study was done with the support of the United Nations Secretariat for the International Year of Family.