Meet the New York Team!

Introducing the current ATD Fourth World team in New York City!

My name is Marina Mingot, I am Spanish, and I have three children ages 18, 15 and 12. 

Alvaro and I met ATD Fourth World in 1998, looking for a way to give meaning to our lives. We wanted to make a commitment together to work for a more just and equal world.

Since 2000, we have been members of the ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps. Our involvement quickly went from knowing a few families to an international commitment, thanks to the convictions of ATD Fourth World founder Joseph Wresinski and the different people we have met thanks to our movement. We have discovered that everywhere in the world there are people who are isolated and excluded from society. And it is only when they are really taken into account in an integral way that the world will be better for everyone.

In our journey with ATD Fourth World, we have lived and shared our lives with people from Spain, France and Guatemala. And now I hope to be able to share my path with ATD Fourth World members in the USA, and particularly in NYC.

I am a positive and cheerful person. I am passionate about music and human creativity in general. I like to meet different people and try to discover the wonderful things they have to bring to the world. And I feel very moved when different people agree to achieve the same goal, like when people unite their voices or instruments to play music. I have a very scientific way of thinking (observation, hypothesis, experience, trial and error, and start again). I come from a family of scientists and studied biological sciences.

I am concerned about the future, the future of my children and the future of humanity. But it gives me great hope to keep meeting young people who are willing to give their time, energy and intelligence so that future generations can be born into a world where all people can live in dignity on a healthy planet, a world where respect for human dignity is the measure of development and of all projects.

My name is Alvaro Iniesta, I am from Madrid, where Marina and I met ATD Fourth World in 1999.

Getting to know the families living in the shantytowns where ATD Fourth World has a presence in Madrid made me understand that none of the changes for greater social justice and fraternity that I dreamed of for society would be lasting or would reach families like those in those shantytowns if I did not learn to make those changes together with those families. This conviction motivated us to join the ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps in 2000, first in Madrid. Then a year later in France we discovered that the injustices that had set us in motion in Madrid were repeated in the lives of many other people and families whose knowledge and efforts to overcome the living conditions in which poverty and exclusion imprisoned them were never recognized.  

Throughout these years, my heart has been filled with the names of people with whom I have walked and who have been transforming me. Like Manuela or Jean Pierre who taught me not to lose joy in the hardest moments. Like Doña Raquel or Mama Louise whose energy to give a dignified life to their children never seems to run out. Like Monsieur Parfait or Dona Martiza for whom helping to improve the lives of their neighbors is one of the main motors of their lives. People with whom I have had the good fortune to build this movement over the years in Spain, France, and Guatemala, and from the International Center in Méry-sur-Oise or by visiting their communities according to the work I was given in each moment in ATD Fourth World. 

During these years, our three children, Laura, Teo and Jairo were born and are building their lives to the rhythm of the changes that our commitment to ATD Fourth World is offering us. 

I love music, listening to it and sharing it, either with a guitar and singing, or going to concerts. I love photography, urban art, theater and cinema, comics and many different kinds of literature, conversations to change the world, and the spirituality of the ecumenical community of Taizé. And I love having the possibility to learn, to question, to search, to be awed. 

I am convinced that many different ingredients can nourish a culture capable of building inclusive, peaceful societies rooted in everything that generates a full life for all in harmony with nature. 

And I am delighted to be here in NYC with the possibility of sharing all these passions and convictions with all of you and to continue learning together with you.

Hello, I am Jackie (Jacqueline) Leduc. I am 45 years old. I am Mexican and French. I grew up in Mexico City and lived in Paris for 14 years before coming to NYC in 2017. I also had the chance to live for a few months in Burkina Faso in 2008. I consider myself a global citizen. 

I am an urban planner. I love my field because I am fascinated by cities, by all the possibilities they offer and because they are spaces of segregation and poverty where a lot of people live in tough situations. I decided to be an urban planner to tackle inequality and give people the possibility to have better living spaces. I worked in affordable housing and community development in the suburbs of Paris for ten years, far away from the beautiful neighborhoods, where I learned a lot about segregation, housing difficulties, immigration, and people's values and capacities.  

I met ATD Fourth World at the United Nations in 2019 when I was volunteering as a United Nations representative for another organization (Making Mothers Matter). I listened to the experiences of ATD Fourth World members in several events: from the commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty to a panel on single mothers and homelessness in 2020. I felt fascinated and touched the way ATD Fourth World works. I started to participate more in the different programs and felt very connected to the team in New York. I asked them for an internship in 2021, which became the way to better understand the members of the ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps. I decided to start my journey with the New York team and get involved in projects in Brownsville and the lives of the members in NYC. For me, it is a dream come true to be part of an organization that contributes to human rights and ending poverty taking into account the experiences of people living in poverty, breaking barriers, and building together with people from different backgrounds. I am grateful for that. ATD Fourth World makes you think out of the box and goes beyond one country, I love that sense of universalism. I am guided and inspired by the ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps members, families, and Fourth World Activists who have helped me understand how ATD Fourth World offers people humanity and the ability to be themselves. 

I enjoy giving my time to help people. Besides ATD Fourth World, I still volunteer in different causes. I am an activist concerned with the topics of immigration, gender, women's rights, social justice, racism, and more. I try to find the best in all the places where I go and the people I meet. I love to travel, not to collect stamps in my passport, but to meet people and cultures. My friends and family, exploring cities, arts, music, and books are some of my passions.