Empowerment - Jose Nunez at the UN Civil Society Forum

[The Following is the text of a speech given by ATD Fourth World member Jose Nunez before the United Nations Civil Society Forum]

Good morning. My name is Jose Nunez. I was born and raised in Corona, Queens. When I was growing up, my parents were always giving me encouragement. They always taught me to never give up. They taught me to always keep pushing and to see things through. They taught me that you could have all the money in the world, but at the end of the day when none of that is around, and it’s just you, how are you going to carry yourself?Today, I carry myself empowered with pride and respect. Though, I live in a homeless shelter in Queens with my wife Paula, and two kids, Amy and Maximus. We have been living there for a year. But even though I’m there, I’m still empowered. I live in a shelter right now, but I’m not going to be here forever. My empowerment is what keeps me going. It’s what will eventually get me out of this situation.

What is empowerment?

I want to talk today about empowerment because I believe that without empowerment, we cannot end poverty. It is an essential and necessary part of social change. This definition I’m giving of empowerment isn’t just mine. It’s a definition I got from the people. Getting ready for this presentation, I sat down and asked people at the shelter, both residents and staff, what their meaning of empowerment is. This is a form of empowerment in itself.Empowerment means sharing your knowledge with other people and helping each other out. When I feel good and I pass that along to another person and then they pass that along to the next person, we are empowering ourselves.Empowerment should be whatever lifts you up, not what drags you or other people down. It’s not about making more money or having more power than someone else. Empowerment should make you feel like no matter what situation you are in, you are never any less of a person. It is not about your ranking in society or how much you own. It is not about what other people think. No. It is about how you carry yourself. That is true empowerment.Even though I am empowered, I know that there is still more that I need to do. There is no limit to where your confidence can take you. When you are in this situation, when you are living in poverty, whether it’s the projects, a shelter, or the streets, you have to be able to use this empowerment to move forward in life and help other people do the same. The more that people can do this, the less discouraged they will be, and the more they will be able to uplift themselves and improve their quality of life. 

What can we do? How do social programs need to change to be more empowering?

There are a lot of programs the government uses to try to help people living in a situation like mine. Most of them focus on the money, though. Giving people money is not enough. Why? Because empowerment is not about money and giving people money or checks is not enough. A check is only empowering for the time being, it’s not transformative.Sometimes you can’t be empowered and you can’t be in control and you have to make difficult decisions that you don’t want to. I had to make the decision to come to the shelter. Some social protection programs can be there for you at times like these in an empowering way. They can take away some of the stress of worrying about how you are going to feed your family or make it through the month.For example, the WIC program is an assistance program that gives checks to mothers and their children. Not only do they give you food, they also give you classes. They teach you about childcare and nutrition. When you go in, it’s a bigger office, and usually it’s in the neighborhood. You get to know the people there, because you go there for your classes as well. They call you by name because you’ve gotten to know them. Another example is at the employment office. They help you with your resume, they help you with your interview skills. Sometimes they give you an interview voucher, which you can use to get clothes for an interview. They call you by your name, not by a number.But sometimes the workers, the offices, and the appointments wear you down. Just accessing social protection can be disempowering. For example, when you become homeless you have to go to PATH, an office in the Bronx where they place you in a shelter. When you are going to PATH, people can tell, they can see you walking to the office with all of your bags and they criticize you, they put you down. There’s only one office and sometimes you have to go back multiple times, and you might not even be placed in a shelter. It’s literally like you are walking into prison. The kids have to take their shoes off, you have to remove your belt, you have to go through a medal detector. Even the kids do. We are not going into a prison, I don’t need to be stripped and searched. I’m with my family. I’m just trying to find a home.A lot of these programs are like a revolving door, giving you a false sense of hope. We are moving, but we aren’t going anywhere. The check or the support lasts for a bit, and maybe the stress is gone for a week, but then when it’s gone you are back to square one. The offices call you by a number, not a name, which makes you feel like an object. But some people prefer to be called a number, because they are afraid of being judged. The workers often don’t pick up your calls or return your messages. Sometimes they take advantage of you or they don’t believe you. There are no jobs out there, even for people who worked hard to get a good education. You can end up stuck because the system is not built for this situation. These programs are only built for people who are completely at the bottom, that are being criticized. There are a lot of people that don’t qualify that need and deserve the help too.There has to be a shift in mentality. We have to stop focusing so much on the material things and remember what it means to be a human being and remember what’s important.Good programs need to treat people like human beings. They need to treat people with empathy. The offices and the staff should put themselves in other people’s shoes. They should take the time to ask how you are, to build a personal relationship, and treat you with kindness. We don’t need to be babied or carried or demeaned. We just need a push and some support. Somebody persistent and committed, who’s going to remember your name and pick up your calls. People need meaning in their lives. That’s part of the problem in communities of poverty—people feel like they don’t matter, that they don’t have a voice. We have to find ways to build meaning for people if they are going to have success in life.The only way we can make these programs work better is by listening to people, asking people, like I did. You’ve got to talk to the people living in the shelters, the mothers with children, the people in the projects. And it can’t just be once and it can’t be fake, it has to be enough to build trust, to establish respect, and to build a partnership that is actually based on trust.

Conclusion

There are so many pieces to these problems and so many different kinds of people. And I don’t know how to fix it, I don’t know what the right way is, but I know that there is one. I know that it has to happen as a community, it has to happen through empowerment, and through letting people’s voices be heard.The biggest form of empowerment is when your voice is heard and then taken into account.  It doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong, as long as you are listened to and acknowledged.  It doesn’t matter where you live, what situation you are in, or what you do. We are still people and have valuable knowledge to contribute.No matter what, it’s always possible to be empowered and to use that knowledge. Just because you might not have a GED or a college degree, doesn’t mean you can’ t use your knowledge. Some people think without that they can’t do anything or it’s too hard. Sit down, listen, and embrace the knowledge. Practice it. It doesn’t matter what your background is, you have the right and you can do it. It doesn’t matter where you come from, you have the right and you can do it.  It doesn’t matter if you have a language barrier, you have the right to be empowered.People are afraid. I want to send out the message that nothing can hold you back, you decide to take the chains and shackles off yourself. This is the message that people need to receive. No check, no benefit, or no program can give you that message. It’s all about the people. You can give people a million checks but they won’t do anything if they aren’t confident, if they think their lives have no meaning…if they aren’t empowered. Programs don’t empower people. People empower people.