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LSE: Public lectures and events
Joyful revolution: poverty, social justice and a pioneer of participation
01:11:50
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to the LSE Events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.
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B
So I'm now going to welcome everybody again here in the auditorium and welcome our online audience who join us now. This is Joyful Revolution, Poverty, social justice and a pioneer of participation, which is our event celebrating Mary Rabaglioti. And I'm going to take that a little bit more slowly so as to try and get the right syllables and pronunciation. New biography written by Diana Skelton, who's here on my right. My name again, Tanya Burkhardt. I'm Associate Director at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion here at the London School of Economic and Political Science and I'm delighted to be chairing this event this evening, which is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science and is co hosted by CASE and ATD 4th World. In a moment, I'm going to hand over to Kate Evans, also up here on my right, who's a writer and a member of the ATD Fourth World Trust, to tell us a bit more about ATD and about the book. Then Diana and I will have a dialogue for about 20 minutes or so about the book and Mary's life. And then we'll hear short responses from Fran Bennett and Eileen Alexander, who I will introduce at that point. Finally, it will be your turn, both online and in the room, to ask questions, make comments, contributions. For those of you online, you've got the Q and A function in the top left of your screen and please let us know your name if you're happy to, and any organisational affiliation you've got. And in the room, obviously you can just raise your hand. The event is being recorded and hopefully there will be a podcast available subsequently, barring any technical difficulties. So you will be able to enjoy it all over again should you wish to do so. But now I'd like to hand over to Kate to introduce.
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C
Thank you. Well, good evening and welcome to everyone. Thank you to the LSE and Tania for hosting this event and thank you to all of you in the audience for coming out and I hope you enjoy the evening. My name is Kate Evans, I'm a writer and also a trustee for ATD 4th World UK and I helped edit Joyful Revolution. You're going to hear a lot about ATD 4th world over this evening and you may be thinking, well, what's that? So I thought I would give you a thumbnail sketch. As it's already been said in the performance that we had ATD altogether for Dignity Fourth World is a human rights based anti poverty organization with with more than 60 years experience of tackling inequality and promoting social justice in the uk. Our vision is of a world without persistent poverty where everyone is valued, can participate fully in society and has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. And I believe there are information leaflets around. They'll be available outside after this event. If you want to get any more information or you can ask any of us who are involved so Mary Rabagliati, the remarkable woman at the center of the book Joyful Revolution, was there right at the beginning of the creation of ATD 4th World in a shanty town on the outskirts of Paris in 1957. Back in the 1990s I also became part of ATD's International Volunteer Corps and spent five years working in parts of the US and France. Mary's name was bandied around. She was always there in the background, but I knew very little about her. So a few years ago I was talking to Diana, the author of Joyful Revolution. When she told me about her project to write a biography of Mary. I jumped at the chance to read what she had already written. When I did, I realized this was a fascinating story about an inspiring woman which deserved a wider readership. I supported Diana in finding a publisher and also edited the manuscript. So if you find any mistakes or errors, you can blame me. One of the most engaging aspects to Joyful Revolution is the amount of first hand accounts in Mary's own words. At the age of 20, Mary quit her job as a secretary in an architectural firm to volunteer in the emergency housing camp in noisy Le grand near Paris where 280 families lived in bleak squalor. This is her description of arriving there and I start quoting On a dark, misty February evening, I got off the bus and walked down the tarmac road. Suddenly the tarmac became only a dusty, potholed path. The nearest bus stop was hundreds of meters away from the camp. The road stopped and you had to walk in the dust or the mud to a place where everything was filthy. There were rats all over. People were living there. I was really shocked. The conditions were indescribably terrible. These people made me realize that my life was shallow, empty and futile. Beyond the shock I felt Per Joseph made me realize immediately that I could do something. I had apparently no particular talent or use, but I could nevertheless do something. He told me that the families there needed me to meet them and begin to understand who they were as people. End Quotes this really spoke to Me. When I joined ATD's International Volunteer Corps, I'd had a comfortable middle class upbringing. What did I know about poverty or injustice? Everything seemed so difficult and complex. Yet I really wanted to do something to change the world. I learned, as Mary did, that meeting people where they were and as they are is not always easy. But it's a crucial first step. Here she describes setting up a youth club with another volunteer. The camp had a rotten reputation, but once Christopher started, we built a fantastic youth club. To raise money, he organized the boys to collect dustbins, charging a few son teams for each. Collecting rubbish was a useful community project, although rain discouraged the boys. So then it was just Christopher and me pushing the dust cart through the mud. But the youth club was beautiful. End quotes it's not always the grand gestures which matter, but the small things. Not that Mary was adverse to grand gestures. For instance, at international conferences, as the pages of Joyful Revolution show, I think there's something for everyone in here, but I may be biased. If you want a jolly good read, if you want to learn more about a woman's story or. Or women's history in general, if you want to find out more about setting up and developing a social justice organization, if your interest is in poverty, social justice and politics, it's all here. And I'm very proud to have had a small hand in bringing the project to fruition. Now, I hope you're all excited as I am to hear a bit from. From the author. So I'll hand back to Tanya and to Diana.
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A
Great.
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B
So turning to you, Diana, so you're deputy Director of atd, I think I'm right in saying, and you've been a full time member of the Volunteer Corps.
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A
For quite a while, Very, very long time.
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B
We'll just maybe gloss over the exact number of years. And now you've written this wonderful book with the intriguing title Joyful Revolution. Joy and extreme poverty aren't usually things that we put together. So I wonder if you could say a bit more about how the title of the book came about and the meaning behind it.
- [09:23]
A
Sure, yeah. Is this okay? So it really is two separate ideas. I think the idea of revolution is something that I saw Mary writing about when she was reflecting on travels she made in the United States. This was in the 1960s during the war on Poverty. And she saw a project in Mississippi, project called Head Start for Children's Development. That was a beautiful project with these wonderful books and toys for children and a great relationship with the children's families. And then at One point, all the funding got shut off because somebody somewhere said, oh, that project has been completed. Did a good job, we're done. And she wrote. Every single book, toy and music record had been taken away by Washington. Many staff were determined to carry on somehow on a voluntary basis. But they had lost their offices. It was terrible. How naive of the government to imagine that Head Start consists simply of kids playing quietly with toys, watched by parents who see no further implications for their families lives. I wish that the lost funds had caused a real revolution among people who tasted the cookie and were not prepared to let it go. One of the biggest dangers in fighting poverty is that people are quieted down by repeated crumbs and become too easily satisfied. After the riots in Watts, summer programs were funded to prevent other riots. But those are only crumbs and come autumn, nothing more is done. So when Mary said revolution, she really wanted a complete change. Not a violent one, but a complete change. But she did talk a lot about joy as well. One of the things she said was, when you're stuck in the misery of poverty, joy matters even more. All of us should find something to celebrate, a reason to go out together or plan a journey or just dance. This is not in spite of poverty. It is so that people who are excluded from society can finally join in everything that makes the world extraordinary. So a joyful revolution.
- [11:38]
B
That's wonderful. Thank you. And I think really connects to the theatre performance that we had just before, before our online audience joined us, but those of us in the room were able to enjoy, which was indeed a joyful performance as well. So we've heard a little about Mary's first experience with ATD at noisy Le Grand Camp outside Paris, providing emergency housing and working particularly in the women's centre there. Mary was very young at that point, just 21. Could you say a little bit more about how that experience shaped her?
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A
Yeah, she spent a lot of time with both the women and their teenage daughters. She was very, very struck by what teenage girls were carrying in terms of responsibilities, very often being in charge of all the younger brothers and sisters and of making a home life work in a place where there was no running water. So we're queuing up with a hand pump to get cold water, carry it back in a bucket to have anything for washing or for cooking with. And in her daily writings, there's just so many things about how that impacted girls, physical health and also their life chances. And she was really shocked. She really wanted to change something for good that way. So I think that you know, shaped the whole rest of what she was doing.
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B
So you write in the book that she then went on to work in the US as part of the War on Poverty and in South Africa, I think when she was engaging in both contexts with the intersection between anti poverty work and anti racism as well. Skipping over those, although they're very interesting chapters, so when you get to read the book, you can find out more. Mary came to the uk, as we've heard, working at Frimhurst House and going on with others to found ATD 4th world here in the UK. Can you tell us perhaps something more about that period at Primhurst House and what was so innovative about it and how that connected to the philosophy of atd?
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A
Yes. So at the time, there were a number of centres around the uk, residential centers that were designed for. I think at the time the terminology was something like maladapted families, families that were living in poverty, that maybe had been homeless. And the general view in most of these centers was that the families needed to be taught how not to be doing the bad things that they were doing. And the way most of these centers was run was very different from the way Frimhurst Family House was run. So, first of all, most of the centres welcomed only the mother with the children, with the idea that the father, if he didn't have a job, he should be looking for a job and he didn't need to be there. They would take the mother and children into the centre for, you know, maybe four to six weeks with the idea, this is a class, we're going to teach you all the housework skills so that you can be a proper mother and do proper parenting and then go home. Frimhurst Family House was a completely different project that kind of came out of the same era and there was some government funding for this. But Grace Goodman, the woman who first started Frimhurst Family House and then together with Mary, their idea was really that it was first of all important to welcome the entire family with the father if he was around. Second of all, for as long as necessary. So some families lived there for year and a half, two years, before starting another phase of their lives. And the really important thing was that it was all based on the aspirations families had. When they arrived, they were not told, you should do this, this different way. They were asked, what is it you're dreaming of for your life, for your children's lives, et cetera, and how would you like to make that happen? And you heard a description of some of the chaos. There was a chaotic Thing because you had lots of children and parents and families living all together under one roof and Mary alongside them and a couple of other people in the team. It was quite chaotic, but it was very, you know, based in those aspirations of what can we do together? How can we change things?
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B
You paint a very vivid picture. So I was astonished and delighted when reading the book to discover that Mary had actually studied here at the London School of Economics in Social administration, no less, my own department, with Richard Titmuss, amongst others. Why do you think Mary decided to do a degree and was it any use?
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A
I think it definitely was, but it was not something that she came to as an 18 year old, you know, kind of as you heard in the. Some of the people who heard a theater thing earlier. When Mary was 18, 19, 20, she started working and she saw around her people who were either, you know, maybe going to university or looking for a husband at the time. And she didn't want to do that, she wanted to do something else. So she joined ATD 4th World and spent 10 years working in these conditions of really deep poverty. But it was very, very hard for ATD 4th world to be taken seriously. And that was what led her to lse because she realized that having credentials could help her in the battle that she was in alongside lots of people who didn't have any of those credentials and, and weren't close to getting them. So, you know, she supported people to go as far as they could in their own schooling. But for her to have a diploma from lse, I think, you know, it was partly the credentials and partly also the things that she learned here. She, throughout her life she engaged so seriously with policymakers. You know, again and again you'd have people from UNICEF or from a UK government ministry showing her a report and then she would write like a 50 page response to them, telling them what was wrong with what they were doing. And you have UK government ministers saying, oh, actually, you know, you make really good points. I'm going to give a copy of your paper to all the people in my department because she really engaged with policy at this very granular level that was very meaningful because it was connected to all the things she did at a grassroots level.
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B
Thank you. Thank you. Yes, so you mentioned there unicef and I believe that Mary was also involved in the International Year of the Child in 1979 and curating an exhibition, a very special exhibition called Children of Our Time, and I think continued to work through or with the un. I wondered if you wanted to say anything more about that. Aspect of her work.
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A
Yes. So the Children of her Time exhibit, it wasn't only Mary and it wasn't only here in the uk. It was really members of atd, Fourth World, all around the world who contributed to it, and it was displayed at the United Nations. But she put quite a lot into the parts of the exhibition that toured around the UK that had some specific photographs of children in poverty in the uk and also things that that children said, the way that they saw the world and the way they wanted to see the world. And so that was shown in Westminster Abbey as well as at the United nations, at unicef. And really, Mary managed to make an impact on many, many, many people came to see the exhibition. I was really stunned to discover how many people she had come to see it, because putting up an exhibition is one thing, and then getting tens of thousands of people to come see it is really quite another.
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B
It was very impressive and also interesting that that connects her work with women and children and poverty in one that was the intersection of those passions. I mean, Mary was obviously really a force to be reckoned with. And I mean, we haven't at all done justice to the full scale of her work. Again, have to recommend that people read the book to get the full extent of her activity and energy that really leaps off the page of what you've written. You also write in the book about the influence that Mary's had on your own life, even though, sadly, her premature death at the age of just 50 meant that you only overlapped, I believe, in ATD for a few years. So thinking about your relationship with Mary, what would you say were the most important aspects of Mary's thinking or being that have influenced how you've continued work since you knew her?
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A
So the first thing that jumps out at me, I remember when I was her housemate when I was around 21, you know, there was a night that I was. She could tell I was quite tired, burnt out. I'd been doing a lot of work, and she just kind of swept in and said, let's go out. And she took me all the way to Paris, which was about an hour from where we were living. And we spent this whole evening in a cafe laughing and having a lot of fun. And that definitely informed how I would like to try to be with my own teammates, you know, to be aware when somebody is really just needs a night out, some fun. I think that's a really important part of the joy that can be in any revolution for social change or for anything. But something else from Mary was around. She had this huge sense of freedom and also an ethos about co responsibility, that we're carrying things together. She once said, we learn together as teammates, confronting every, confronting one another every day, being present to your teammates takes courage. And she did that in a very frank way, but also a very caring and thoughtful way. So I think those were important things I took from her.
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B
That's lovely. Really nice to have her brought to us in that way. Thank you. Thank you. Diana.
- [22:18]
A
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- [22:20]
C
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- [22:24]
A
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- [22:31]
D
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- [22:34]
C
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- [22:43]
A
Now back to the event.
- [22:45]
B
So thank you, Kate. I think if I can ask now our two other panellists to come up onto the stage. Thank you both. So I'm delighted now to welcome Fran the Bennett, here on my right, who is a Meritor Fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, also a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the Women's Budget Group, among many other roles, and has been a fellow traveler with ATD also for a long time. Fran, over to you for some reflections.
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D
Thank you very much. I feel as though I ought to stand up, but then I usually feel I ought to stand up anyway, given my size. Can everybody see me? I'm absolutely honoured to be invited to respond at this launch, and that's for two main reasons. The first is because working as a volunteer for ATD 4th World nearly 50 years ago was responsible for my life taking the direction it has. I worked at Frimhurst Family Home. That's been talked about. I worked in the documents archive at ATD 4th World Centre near Paris. I worked in the office. We didn't have an office to begin with, but I worked in the rented office in London and then lived at 48 Addington Square for some time with Mary Rabbit, as we used to call her. And like Mary, I then did a diploma in Social Administration at lse. And ever since then I've been involved in one way or another with poverty issues and I've been an ally and friend of ATD 4th world, I hope ever since. Secondly, it's such a delight to have been involved in a small way with the development of this book with Diana and to read it now with its brilliant portrayal of Mary, bringing back so many memories for me of her trenchant but very warm personality and her incisive voice and her beauty, I have to say. And particular parts of the book that I appreciated particularly were. One, was realizing her multiple achievements alongside her insistence that there is always more to learn, especially from those in deep poverty. And secondly, I enjoyed her ruminations about her own character. She was a very active person and she said at one point, it's hard to truly listen to someone going through their difficulties without taking away their agency by trying to problem solve in their place. I recognise that. And also, of course, there are crucial truths in the book about ATD's approach. For example, the key distinctions between, on the one hand, philanthropic charities and d' Autonbach global development policies, especially in the past, versus, on the other hand, ATD's emphasis on. On dignity, on the right to a voice and on the contribution that people in poverty can make to the world. And also its stress on relationships and respect, not just resources, which is what I tend to work on most, as well as the impact of poverty, not just on denying people their rights, but also denying people their ability to fulfil their responsibilities. I think those are all key aspects of ATD's work. I've been asked to talk briefly about the participation in research and advocacy of people with experience of poverty today, following on from Mary's example. And I always start, if I'm asked to talk about this kind of thing, from a workshop I took part in once, which was organised by ATD 4th World in its center in PLA in France, for activists from deep poverty and allies of the movement. And the icebreaker that they used was to ask everyone what politique meant to them. That was the French, and in English, you could say, I think, either politics or policies or both. And we were asked that. And the allies, the friends of the movement, said, well, it's what we do to change things when they're not very good. And the activists living in deep poverty said, it's what they do to us. And that has always stayed with me in terms of what ATD is about, because they want people obviously to be able to change that way of looking at the world, and they want people who do live in deep poverty to be able to change the world as well. So I think research and advocacy, which is what I was asked to talk about, are linked because I believe that creating a richer kind of knowledge through relationships of trust is perhaps the kind of knowledge which is more likely to lead to change both for people in poverty and for the public as a whole. And the title From Input to Influence was the report I wrote with Moraine Roberts, who's been mentioned several times already Today, one of ATD's amazing activists about participatory approaches to research and inquiry into poverty. And Mary herself said first that people in poverty shouldn't just be quoted without being clear about the broader, broader messages that they were given. So they shouldn't just be quotes in a research report, but also that they shouldn't just be asked about their experience of poverty, but also about their views about the world and about public policy on poverty and other things as well. And that's, of course, exactly what ATD 4th world does so well, in particular through the methodology of the merging of knowledge and practice through that it has developed over the years, which also acknowledges the importance of other perspectives, for example, academics, for example policy makers, for example practitioners. And what it does is to bring together those perspectives with those of people in poverty in deliberative dialogue. And I think that's incredibly valuable. Although there's much more involvement of, for example, patients and the public in health policy these days than there is, for example, of benefit claimants in Social Security debates, in my experience, lived experience and public engagement are becoming more important, I think, within academia and increasingly within policy about poverty and other issues. People with experience of poverty have, for example, been involved in uncovering the many dimensions of. Of that experience. In the recent joint research between ATD 4th World and the University of Oxford to which I belong, they've also taken part in training, for example, training social workers in order to communicate the reality of what it means to be threatened with having your children taken into care. And that's been done through ATD 4th world as well. And they've also participated in designing and evaluating relevant partners policies. And that's particularly been the case, I think, in Scotland in recent years. So there's been a substantial body of activity over the last few years, I think, and these activities can be transformative. And that's not just transformative for those taking part with experience of poverty. It's in particular transformative in my experience, for those people who are policymakers and practitioners and academics and so on. But the most exciting recent development, in my view, has emerged from the merging of knowledge methodology practiced by ATD Fourth World, which has resulted in the development of something called a tool for the inclusive. I always forget this inclusive and deliberative elaboration and evaluation of policies, IDEAP for short. And that's been done by the Office of the UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty and human rights. And it's trying to apply the merging of knowledge methodology to looking at policies which will affect people in poverty in particular. Now, of course, all this is not just the legacy of Mary Rabb, as we called her, therefore you don't have to pronounce her surname. But certainly in my view, her vitality and her heartfelt commitment were central to those kinds of developments that I've been talking about both within ATD 4th world and more widely. And I want to thank Diana in particular for gifting us the story of Mary's life.
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A
Thank you, Fran.
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B
That's really helpful as well, to connect what we've been learning about in terms of the historical legacy of Mary's work to things that are happening now, which I think is something we might well want to pick up on in the Q and A section as well. But I'm delighted now to turn to Eileen Alexander, who's a visiting fellow in the Department of Methodology here at LSE and is also teacher at UCL University College London. Eileen's got a long standing interest in in using creative and collaborative methods in qualitative research to better understand people's lived experience of inequality, insecurity and the impact of welfare policies. Eileen, over to you. Thank you. Thank you.
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E
Can you hear me? Thank you, Tanya. Thanks for inviting me to reflect on Joyful Revolution and Mary's life and her work. I've known about ATD for some time, especially its important work on the right to family life. I referenced this work in my lectures at UCL this term, and as someone who's about to train as a social worker, ATD is of particular interest to me. So it was amazing to read more about ATD and Mary's integral role in shaping and driving the organization forward. But what I didn't anticipate when I picked up this book was that it would make me feel less alone. And what I mean by this is less alone in my thoughts and in my convictions on how to work with people. I felt a real connection to Mary through her reflective writing and to Diana too, as both outlined a way of working with and understanding others that does not put them under the microscope and only interacts with them at a professional distance. Rather, it's an approach that starts by engaging with people as equals, as peers, as whole thinking beings, and with the attitude that we always have things to learn from each other. And it's a way that is rooted in dignity and in the building of mutual respect. This approach, as both Mary and Diana reflect on in this book, involves people who normally have more power or more authority, releasing control of situations and of conversations, and instead of working hard behind and instead working hard behind the scenes, to create spaces in which people can work or sit alongside each other and prompt and encourage people who are reluctant or maybe even angry or initially unable to express, express themselves, to feel safe and free, to develop their own ideas and their own analytical capacities. So it's an approach that finds ways to foster a space and the time for someone who is challenged by daily life, to develop their thinking and to engage intellectually and most importantly, to be creative and through that creativity, to find joy. I want to briefly connect this with a recent experience that I had here at the LSE before concluding with what I'm going to take away from this book. So, just over a year ago, I was facilitating a participatory photography project with a group of people in Hackney. And our eventual aim was to create a group exhibition that would explore and make visceral the multiple challenges that people are navigating in their daily lives. And as a group, we developed open ended prompts, prompts that would not pigeonhole members to reflect on sort of predictable lines of questioning. Instead, the group members went out and took photographs of their daily lives by responding to prompts that might apply to all of us. So things that are beautiful, things that are challenging, things that help us of meal times. And so and we met on a weekly basis in our local library and we shared photos and we laughed and we empathized with each other and we saw images of our community that we all knew really well, but they were being captured in a way and talked about in a way that we hadn't considered before. And it was a very joyful time sitting together and sharing our images and our thoughts together. And during this time I joined a participatory research group at lse. And during one of these workshops I described how during the hanging of the exhibition, I was working with quite an unprofessional installer who was making the whole experience very stressful and unpleasant. And two of the group members came down to LSE from Hackney during the installation and I told them about how challenging it was and how anxious I was feeling. And these two group members really rallied around me. They took me for a walk, they supported me, they gave me such a loving boost. And I told the academic researcher group that it felt almost like friendship. And someone actually gasped behind me in the room when I said this. And as I looked around I could see that there were some other academics who were frowning and shaking their heads. And a few people in the room did seem to understand that this might be possible, but for others this was problematic. Problematic and maybe a bit unethical. And so even though I felt that this was legitimate, a legitimate experience to have after and a feeling to have after the group and I had these sort of weeks of emotional intellectual exchange, I started to wonder if I was in the right space in this academic setting where something approaching friendship with the participant was seen as problematic. And I was in a position at the time where I felt in some ways more connected to and in communion with the group members than with some of my academic peers. But Mary's writing and Diana's book have helped me to make better sense of this. It's bolstered my conviction that working with people in an open hearted way is completely appropriate, a completely appropriate approach, and that we don't always need to forsake this in research for the of sake, sake of sort of standard data or neutrality. And I think that if we want people who are struggling in life to participate, then we have to give something back too, and give some of ourselves back. And that Mary really embodied this. What Mary's writing reinforced for me is that when a person is stuck in a challenging situation or in a challenging life, our duty is to think about how we can make it slightly better, more interesting, and how we can engage with people in ways that make them feel confident and listened to and valued, and in ways that might even bring them joy and joy to their lives. So we're building people up through our work, no matter what we're doing, instead of breaking them down even further. What Mary outlines in her writing is a of collaborative and a revolutionary way of working. And Mary's reflections on this have inspired me and they've given me comfort in the last few weeks. So my last reflections are that I've learned from this book and from Mary how important a writing practice is. It's something that I intend to take forward more seriously myself, to engage in regular and rigorous and reflective writing so as to eventually step back from the details of the day and to see the bigger picture. I was also struck by Mary's relationship with Father Rudzinski and how important it is to have a mentor and to later on become a mentor yourself. Mentoring and teaching is part of the work of solidarity. Realizing that things can't be done by yourself, that you have to find your people and you have to structure with them and sometimes you have to struggle against them. And through this struggle to develop ideas and to grow Stronger and to engage in a kind of mutual rejuvenation. So thank you, Diana, for your hard work in bringing Mary's reflections together so that we can all learn from her and hopefully build on her joyful revolution.
- [40:40]
B
Fantastic. Thank you for those reflections. So we come now to the time when I'm very happy to open to the floor to the audience here in the room. Please just indicate by raising a hand if you'd like to pose a question or make a contribution. And please, if you can just say who you are. And if you have an organizational affiliation, please do mention that as well. And for our online audience, the Q and A function in the top left hand corner of your screen. Again, please just add your. Your name and organizational affiliation. And Kate is going to feed questions through to me as and as and when. So first of all, is there anyone in the room who would like to ask a question or make a contribution? Yes. Okay, thank you.
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F
Hello, I'm Adrian Brink from Lutterworth Press. We're the publishers of Dreadful Revolution. And I just wanted to say what a pleasure it's been working with Diana on isn't always the case that the relationship between publisher and author is as friendly as it has been. And I'm a bit suspicious generally about books that are very closely tied with an institution. And I felt that this managed to overcome my initial suspicions very effectively. I think it's a marvelous biography in.
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D
Terms of bringing out the breadth and.
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F
The depth of Mary and I think something really well done. I hope that the bookshop are here. I have brought some additional copies in case they are unable to. So forgive me for projecting a note of Rudolph Commerce into. Thank you, Eddie.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Yes.
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B
Assure you that there are books that will be on sale just after the event. So thank you for flagging that. I think there was another question just here. Thank you.
- [43:07]
D
Hi, I'm Caroline Pascal, no particular affiliation, but in a of lot alumni of lse. And I was just thinking forward to the future generation. I'm going to take a copy home for my kids who are on the start of their own joyful revolution. But I was wondering what Mary might want to see as a day to day legacy. So those of us who are interested in policy and practice, I think there's a lot that we can read from that.
- [43:32]
C
But for people who are maybe not.
- [43:34]
D
Involved in social policy, what might they take in their day to day living from Mary's learnings and lessons? Thank you.
- [43:46]
B
Daphne, would you like to come?
- [43:48]
A
Yeah, I mean we spoke a little bit about Mary engaging with Policymakers. But she absolutely engaged with everybody, every walk of life. And one of the places she did that was at Speaker's Corner in Hyde park, where routinely she would know, get up on a soapbox and be talking to the crowd. And she would do that together with people in deep poverty. Now, I don't know how many people in the room have gone to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. There's a lot of heckling. And this generally involved people heckling the group. She would prepare rigorously with the people in poverty who were going to speak there. And then afterwards she would go back with them and unpick the whole, whole thing and say, well, okay, you know, that point didn't land. People didn't agree with it or didn't understand it. How could we have that conversation differently the next time? And I think her appeal to really everybody, every walk of life, would be engaging in those conversations. There's so many people around us who may not see things the same way we do, who may not have the same experience as we do. And I think she would be quite concerned about how today people are more and more and more isolated from each other, you know, only talking to people who agree with us ahead of time. I think she would really urge, you know, getting out there, getting to know people with a different life experience and engaging with people who see something differently. And, you know, that's. That's part of the joyful revolution too.
- [45:16]
B
Fran or Eileen, anything that you wanted to add on that? Not for now. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. If we could come to Kate and you could perhaps read out any online questions. Thank you.
- [45:29]
C
Yeah, I've actually got three, so I don't know if you.
- [45:33]
B
Should we take maybe two first of all?
- [45:35]
C
Yeah. Okay. So the first one is from David Harold Chester, independent researcher in macroeconomics. It has been claimed that the basic cause of poverty is due to a lack of opportunity to find suitable work of the main earning family member. How would this lack of opportunity be reversed?
- [45:57]
B
Okay, should we take one more from online? Kate?
- [46:03]
C
Sorry, being a bit slow here. So this is from Professor Priscilla Alderson. When you say people, do you mean adults? Children and young people need to be heard too.
- [46:15]
B
Very good. Okay, thank you. So lack of opportunities for work, how can they be reversed? And what about children and young people? Looks like Diana is itching to come in, so let me come to you.
- [46:26]
A
No, I'm not sure I heard the second question properly.
- [46:30]
C
Sorry, it was. When you say people, are you talking about adults? Children and young people need to be heard.
- [46:40]
A
I see. Okay.
- [46:41]
C
And actually, I can say that the professor is from ucl.
- [46:48]
B
Okay, thank you.
- [46:49]
C
Yeah.
- [46:49]
A
Okay, well. And on Opportunity for work, did you want to. Okay, so I think, you know, the approach when Mary was living in Fromhurst Family House and there were a number of men there who were out of work, a lot of what they were trying to do was to create a context where people could, you know, first of all, start from their own aspirations and secondly, really gain control over lots of different aspects of their lives before going out and trying to get, you know, whatever training program or whatever employment. Like, there's a lot of steps before that. So I think, you know, that's one piece. Another piece of it is the policy work. And Mary did engage quite a lot with, you know, talking to her own government and saying the things that you're planning. These policies are really not adapted for people who have struggled the most in poverty and who are really having the most difficult time to, you know, get through school, to get credentials, to get a good job, et cetera. And here's how you could actually listen to them and make policies that would fit better. And I don't think I can give a more detailed answer right now about children and young people. Yes, I mean, that was an extraordinarily important part of Mary's work. So with young people, I mean, I was talking at the beginning about the teenage girls that she really spent a lot of time with and was deeply concerned about creating more opportunities for them in their lives. But children, she saw particularly what Eileen Alexander was mentioning, the issue of the right to family life. The fact that very often in this country and many other countries, social workers will go into a family that's in deep poverty, see that, you know, it's not good to live in poverty for the children and see that their really only tool sometimes is to yank the children into foster care, sometimes into a forced adoption. And despite the fact that there's really loving parents there. So fighting against that was a gigantic part of Mary's work. And to this day, it remains a gigantic part of what ATD Fourth World does. Children and young people and their voices are a big part of the work that we're doing today on that. We have a group called Youth Voices that has lived experience of both poverty and social service intervention. And they presented evidence to the United nations about the fact that in the UK their human rights are being violated by social services. The United nations agreed with them. The UK government is so far kind of sitting back, but we hope this will Lead to change.
- [49:34]
D
I just wanted to add, but Diana's one who knows more about this than I do, that the Tap on movement as part of ATD 4th World, which is actually about working with children themselves, particularly in the open, in the streets where they live. And so Tapuri is an international movement of working with children by ATD 4th World Volunteers as well. So ATD has always, I think, taken children and young people incredibly seriously and not just adults. So if we didn't make that clear, then that's a shame because that's absolutely central to its work as well.
- [50:16]
E
On the first question, you know, obviously a secure income is incredibly important, but even if people are unemployed, most people are very busy and they have their hands full with lots of other kinds of work that they're doing. I think the book reflects interestingly on male dignity, male unemployment. Father Rusinski reflects on that as well. And I think we also have to find other ways to value people and the other kinds of work that they do that might not be income through employment, and find that they can find ways to value themselves, themselves outside of, outside of that framework.
- [51:01]
A
Thank you.
- [51:02]
B
Other questions in the, in the room? Yes, there's one over here.
- [51:07]
A
Thank you.
- [51:11]
F
I just wanted to say a little.
- [51:14]
B
Bit, introduce yourself and.
- [51:16]
F
Well, my name is David Pirshot and I came to LSE about the same time as Mary did, which is about the 55 years ago, a long time ago. And I remember that Mary was very skeptical about what I did, which was try, I'm very embarrassed about it, try to teach statistics and crunching numbers about poverty. And she took a very robust attitude to that as being quite inadequate. And I think she was absolutely right. I just wanted to mention two people that she interacted with quite closely. One was Kit Russell, who was in charge of arranging placements on the Diploma in Social Administration, which one of the panel sitting up there took as well. And she was rather a grand lady who's from a grand family, and I think her brother was ambassador in Washington.
- [52:29]
B
Or something like that.
- [52:31]
F
But she got in touch with all sorts of agencies when anyone expressed an interest in a particular area and said they had to take the. This student and teach them about the realities of what happened in real life as opposed to what the lecturers in the department were teaching. And I think the Diploma in Social Administration was quite remarkable in higher education terms in that it was as much practical as academic. And people came back. I learned a huge amount from what people reported from what they were doing, and students learned from each other. And Kit Russell was a good friend of Mary. I know and developed that. And I think the whole of higher education, as it becomes more a financial racket, could well remember the way it. The importance of having contact with the things that are actually being studied as opposed to theoretical models and becoming a branch of it. The other person, just to mention who was head of the department or the senior figure he may not have been running it, but then was Richard Titmus. And one of the things very striking about his life was that he got ill and the last days of his life he was having to go to hospital very regularly. And he reported that he'd learned a huge amount of. About the health service, about which he'd written a great deal before academically, was just the fact that when he was being treated, the priorities were given on the basis of the vagaries of London's traffic, who got there first, rather than on the basis of income or wealth. He was very dismissive of the impact of private health care, so that he learned that as a kind of lesson from his actual experience of using services. And that made a big impact on him. And I think all those who heard him talking about that. So in terms of. The only comment I want to make is how valuable. And that as part of education and learning about what the reality is to be involved with everyone and not imagine that all the answers are contained in academic books.
- [55:32]
B
Thank you.
- [55:32]
A
Thank you.
- [55:33]
B
David, do we have another question?
- [55:40]
C
Yes, we're getting them in thick and fast now. I'm not sure we're going to be able to cover them all, so I apologize, I may pronounce this person's name wrong, but Amoga Srinivas Gauru. And she says, or he says, when you are working with marginalized communities as a social enterprise for a long time, how do you ensure this joy and creativity sustains in the strategy and activities of the organisation?
- [56:16]
B
Thank you. Do we have one more?
- [56:18]
C
Okay. And one from Nikki Wilson. Building on the point about Speaker's Corner, how can we encourage such conversations whilst ensuring people are and feel safe? Safe to share views and experiences in today's context of increasing polarisation.
- [56:39]
B
Thank you. Thank you very much. Eileen, would you like to perhaps speak to the question about how to sustain joy and creativity?
- [56:48]
E
Yeah. I think one of the ways to sustain joy is to invite other people in and to invite not just the kind of obvious people, but in the way that is described by Mary and others, invite artists and invite historians and invite people who are doing something interesting in the theater and connect these ideas and practices.
- [57:13]
C
Yeah.
- [57:14]
E
We've got lots to learn from people beyond just our sort of very specific focus. And I think bringing these different types of people together is part of what kind of keeps things vibrant and interesting and also gives us other perspectives and modes of communicating about ideas.
- [57:33]
A
Thank you.
- [57:34]
B
Fran, did you want to add anything?
- [57:36]
D
No, not really. I mean, I think what Diana said about Mary before, in terms of, you know, when people were feeling down or tired and actually having some time off and some time to enjoy yourself and just rejuvenate your energy and your sense of purpose and so on was important. So I think that's partly it and I think Mary was incredibly good at that. And that was partly the kind of energy and vibrancy that she seemed to have. And I think that was part of what she was talking about in terms of teams and learning from one another as well, that you kind of maintain your commitment as well as your joy through doing that.
- [58:28]
A
I agree. And I almost want to come back to what Eileen, you were saying earlier about when the people you were working with were cheering you up. I think the joy is co created. You know, you, you can't design a project. Okay, I'm going to share joy at 3:15. You're building the relationships and together you can be creating something joyful if the context is there. There was the second question about how people could feel safe engaging in those difficult conversations. And that's definitely something that we think a lot about in ATD fourth world, particularly because, you know, it's important for everybody to feel safe in conversations. When you've lived your whole life in poverty, you often are required to tell your life story again and again to many different officials who don't believe you and you're trying to prove something to etc, etc. So then when you're engaging in any other kind of conversation, there can be a reflex of thinking, well, somebody's asked me this question, I owe them this full answer. So actually, before we do anything like that, we take time to create a space where people are working with their own peers. It's part of the merging of knowledge practice that Fran was speaking about earlier. And with your own peers, you can think ahead of time about what your boundaries are, what you want them to be, what you deserve to set them as, because you may never have had an opportunity to do that before. And then also to prepare, how are you going to protect those boundaries when you get asked the question that you don't really think is anybody else's business in that context, how are you going to, you know, redirect the conversation to the point you really want to make. Those are skills all of us need to learn and some of us have fewer opportunities than others. So one of the points of merging knowledge is to try and create that safety so that that people can engage in really difficult, challenging conversations but without, you know, making themselves unduly vulnerable. Thank you.
- [60:31]
B
Okay, we have another question here at the front.
- [60:35]
A
Thank you.
- [60:37]
F
Hello, I'm Alastair Abaliati.
- [60:39]
E
As you can probably guess from the.
- [60:40]
F
Surname, Mary was a cousin of mine. Although she died when I was young, I didn't remember meeting her once as a teenager at my parents house.
- [60:50]
A
But obviously I don't have many recollections about her.
- [60:53]
F
And Diana, thank you so much for telling Mary's story and helping put on this wonderful event. We have, I think in the front row nine family members of Mary, so we're all delighted to be here. I have perhaps two simple questions, partly because I didn't know Mary at all really just mutrad and able to some insight into Mary.
- [61:15]
B
Firstly, what do you think she would.
- [61:16]
F
Think of today and this evening?
- [61:18]
E
And secondly, what would she be most.
- [61:20]
F
Proud of as what you achieved with ATT since she passed away?
- [61:25]
B
Thank you.
- [61:28]
A
Those are big questions I almost want to ask you. What would you think of today?
- [61:38]
F
Hi, my name is Paul. Paul, Mary's brother. She'd have very mixed feelings about today. I think she'd be quite embarrassed that so much fuss is being made.
- [61:52]
E
And.
- [61:53]
F
I won't be able to do this because I'm not her. And her reincarnation is sitting over there. Thank you. I think she'd probably challenge every individual in this room to ask them what they're going to do about what they've heard tonight, what they're learning in their courses, what they're learning in life. She wouldn't let it go. She wouldn't let it go with me. She wouldn't let it go with her work colleagues. And she was totally committed. And I think she'd like you all to go away and ask yourselves the same question. And that's about it.
- [62:36]
B
Thank you. Thank you very much. Did you want to add anything?
- [62:39]
A
I'm not. I can't improve on Paul's answer. Thank you.
- [62:45]
B
Any other questions in the room?
- [62:55]
A
When Mary passed away, it was five years after Joseph Rudzinski had died, who was the main founder of ATD 4th World. And the organization was kind of in the midst of a lot of sort of growing pains. Partly how to do things without that first founder and partly at this Turning point. You know, we were an organization that was founded in the global north that was then growing in the global south, and in a very, I don't want to say disorganized way, but organic way. You know, it wasn't like somebody mapped out, oh, strategically we should do this and this. It came from relationships and relationships that were very much bottom up, and it was quite chaotic. So when she died, she was really trying to help ATD through some very, very challenging things. And also the fact that we did happen to be founded by a Catholic priest, as has been mentioned, but we're not a religious organization in any way whatsoever, and that's not easy either. That's complicated. So I think she would be proud that ATD didn't fall apart, has found its way through that and, you know, is still trying to move forward. The exact same things she was working on, she was be frustrated that, you know, we're still. We're still dealing with an awful lot of injustice in the world. So I don't know, but. But I think she does have things to be proud of and what ATD has done since she died.
- [64:27]
B
Thank you. There's a question here. Thank you. Just here.
- [64:35]
E
Hello, my name is Dimitri Kalu.
- [64:38]
A
I'm not really affiliated with any organization.
- [64:42]
E
But I do do volunteering for, like, a East London trades guild.
- [64:47]
B
So I'm not very experienced with a.
- [64:49]
A
Lot of social justice, but I'm slowly seeing, like, the effects it has on East London businesses.
- [64:57]
E
It was lovely to hear about the story about.
- [64:59]
B
I never knew who Mary was, but.
- [65:01]
E
I'm curious about the little revolution's little.
- [65:06]
B
Joyful moments that might not contribute to.
- [65:09]
E
The entire purpose of your work, but.
- [65:13]
A
More about the smaller victories.
- [65:15]
E
Because again, Mary sounds like such a big vision, a big woman, and how.
- [65:20]
A
The book really emulates that larger than life personality that she had.
- [65:26]
E
So any stories about her, like, smaller.
- [65:29]
A
Victories, I'd love to hear.
- [65:31]
B
Thank you.
- [65:32]
F
Yeah.
- [65:33]
B
So little joyful revolutions and small victories either perhaps for Mary's life or other examples from work that you've been involved in. Would you like to start?
- [65:44]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think to some extent she saw little victories in team life. You know, it was very important to her that we work as teams that we're not just, you know, rushing off each person in their own direction, but that was also quite challenging for her. She had a challenging personality, and there were people who did not get along with her at all. And, you know, getting past that and overcoming a situation of, oh, my teammate, Nylocks horns. And it's not been going well. I think she would have considered that one of those victories that's not huge, it's not world shattering, but it's significant. Again, any others?
- [66:25]
B
Fran or Eileen? Small victories?
- [66:28]
E
I think one is sustaining participation and sort of being aware that people will drop out for a while but might come back. I think the idea of bringing beauty to something, beauty into the camp, beauty into your work somehow the sharing of food and listening to music and being silly in a group and that kind.
- [66:49]
A
Of thing, these are these kind of.
- [66:50]
E
Small moments of joy that are important. In the last project I worked on I had someone who said, you know, I don't want to sit around and talk about poverty and the cost of living crisis. I'm not, you know, I live that. I don't want to talk about that. But the thing about doing something with photography or with an artist actually that's really interesting to me because it's a.
- [67:13]
A
Way of maybe exploring.
- [67:14]
E
Exploring my thinking and myself and developing my ideas. So thinking about ways to involve people in these kind of creative ways that bring joy to them is one way I think.
- [67:31]
D
I think one of the things that Mary and ATD Fourth World both said that is unusual in anti politics poverty work is the right to beauty and not just the right to a good standard of living is actually. And actually Mo Roberts herself was embodied that as well as an activist. So there's always something about. Yeah about there's a right to have beauty in your life and just. But beauty as well. It's just not just. We're not just talking about the practical living standard that people have got. It's actually about other experiences as well. And I think that's quite unusual amongst, you know, anti poverty movements and anti poverty organisations. It's quite distinctive about ATD 4th World. It's a bit like what I was saying about relationships and not just resources as well. So that it's. And respect. So that it's at a much more. Not just pragmatic level. I think that ATD tries to work.
- [68:46]
B
So we might have time for just one last online question, if there is one. Kate.
- [68:52]
C
Gosh, okay. I've actually had a couple of questions from other members of the Rebagliotti family and this one is from Bob Rabagliati who says having read this enlightening book, it is clear that Mary immersed herself in a constant merry go round of poverty. It seemed to be the same themes of poverty wherever in the world she worked. What support or release mechanisms did Mary employ to maintain her optimism or spirit most of us faced with the same bleak work environment day in and day out would have caved in. Diana's views would be welcome as she was very close to Mary.
- [69:37]
B
Very quick answer, Diana, if you can.
- [69:40]
A
I think Fran was closer to Mary, but I think she went for a lot of walks. I think she did a lot of dancing. I think there were a lot of different ways. And also writing, you know, reflective writing. I think all of those were really important to her. For that, thank you.
- [69:54]
B
Well, we're coming to the end of our event, but I don't want to let you go without picking up on what Mary's brother encouraged us to think about, which is what is each of us going to do? There are a couple of suggestions up there on the screen. You could donate to ATD 4th World. You could join HD 4th World's mailing list for the newsletter that by no means exhausts the things that you can do. There have been many other suggestions also from members of the panel here today, but I want to finish by thanking the LSE Events team and stewards for making everything run smoothly today. To the audience online for your questions and of course to you in the room here as well to the ESRC Festival of Social Science for their support for the event. To the panelists, Kate Evans in the front row here, Fran Bennett, Eileen Alexander, to the performers, for those of us in the room who brilliantly brought Mary's life vividly before us at the start. And of course, most particularly to Diana for having written the book and shared these insights with us today. The book will be on sale outside, so please do take the opportunity to purchase one on your way out. But thank you all very much for coming.
- [71:30]
C
Thank you for listening.
- [71:31]
A
You can subscribe to the LSE Events podcast on your favourite podcast app and help other listeners discover us by leaving a review. Visit lse.ac.ukevents to find out what's on next. We hope you join us at another LSE event soon.