The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is celebrated every year on October 17 throughout the world. It was officially recognised by the United Nations, but the first commemoration of the event took place in Paris, France, in 1987 when 100,000 people gathered on the Human Rights and Liberties Plaza at the Trocadéro to honour victims of poverty, hunger, violence and fear. This call was made by Joseph Wresinski (1917–1988) founder of the International Movement ATD Fourth World.
The text engraved in the stone reads as follows:
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.Read more about International Day For The Eradication Of Poverty: Testimonies
Famous quotes containing the words day, eradication and/or poverty:
“The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore
The planters they came round us full twenty score or more,
They rank’d us up like horses, and sold us out of hand
Then yok’d us unto ploughs, my boys, to plow Van
Dieman’s Land.”
—Unknown. Van Dieman’s Land (l. 9–12)
“As to a thorough eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all accepted values—especially the moral ones—coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)