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ARGENTINA:
Madres de Plaza de Mayo Bring Housing Hope to Slums
Luciana Peker

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 5 (IPS) - Wearing blue coveralls with a picture of a white scarf, the symbol of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, some 300 men and women from a slum in the Argentine capital are building new homes -- and new lives -- for themselves.

The activists in the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo have been working tirelessly in Argentina for three decades to find out what happened to their sons and daughters who were "disappeared" by the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

Internationally renowned for their work in defence of human rights, the Madres (mothers) have branched out in their activities. Last year, they undertook the mission of building decent housing in slum neighbourhoods, known in Argentina as "villas miserias".

The first project was launched on Oct. 16 in Villa 15, better known as Ciudad Oculta (Hidden City), located in the southern Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Villa Lugano, with the participation of 280 workers, half of whom are women.

They are building two complexes of 36 housing units each. The three-bedroom units are 62 square metres in size, and are fully equipped with a bathroom, kitchen, hot water and central heating.

The partially built homes stand out in the midst of the precarious dwellings and dirt roads of the slum, where proper sanitation does not exist.

The men and women involved in the project wear coveralls that sport the phrase "decent housing" and a drawing of the trademark white scarf of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, which the activists have traditionally worn on their heads since they began to hold silent walking vigils every Thursday in the plaza outside of the seat of government in Buenos Aires in the 1970s, demanding that their "disappeared" sons and daughters be returned to them. (According to human rights groups, some 30,000 leftists and others opposed to the regime fell victim to forced disappearance during the dictatorship).

The construction method used by the project comes from an Italian firm, M2 Emmedue, and uses structural panels of reinforced galvanised steel and expanded corrugated polystyrene, with a fast-drying concrete. The rapid concrete construction system, which has been used in more than 40 countries, is economical, and the homes are cool in the summertime and warm in the winter.

The cost of each complex is around two million Argentine pesos (650,000 dollars), which is financed by the Ministry of Human Rights of the government of the city of Buenos Aires. The participants/beneficiaries were selected from among the residents of Ciudad Oculta -- mainly people made homeless by a fire who are living in shacks constructed of sheet metal and cardboard.

Félix Narváez, 38, who has three children --10-year-old Yamil, eight-year-old Félix and two-year-old Kevin -- is one of the local residents whose house was destroyed by the fire over a year ago. Now he is not only the project's chief electrician but also a future owner of one of the modern new homes.

"I am building this with love," he commented to IPS. "I'm very proud, because I feel respected here, not exploited, and I like the fact that people listen to me. The day of the fire, my son Félix asked me ‘Now where are we going to sleep?' That was the most painful question I have ever been asked. But today I am building the answer, to give him a roof over his head."

There are obvious differences between the working methods of a human rights group and those of a private company.

"We are doing the building, but we don't care about making profits under the capitalist logic of paying less wages for more hours of work," engineer Juan Enrique Reale, projects director in the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, told IPS. "This is a way to carry out small revolutions in the barrios by building decent housing and generating real work."

Because of the stigma of living in a slum, those involved in the project generally have a very difficult time finding work.

Half of the people building the new homes are women, who have received training in an area that is traditionally dominated by men.

Jessica Reta, a 26-year-old mother of three, is an example of how the project is opening up new horizons.

"I thought that my only purpose in life was to attend to my husband, children and home," Reta told IPS, as she helped build her new house.

"I graduated from high school, but when I saw I couldn't move ahead and that no one would give me a job because I lived in a villa miseria, my ambitions and hopes faded," she said.

Today, however, she returns home after a long day of work, exhausted but happy that she is learning new skills. "We have courses in electricity, plumbing and laying tiles. The men who were our unemployed neighbours are now our teachers," she explained.

Reale said "the hard work, determination and precision with which these women work are just incredible."

The engineer also pointed out that the number of mothers who are now showing up to work in coveralls and hard hats made it necessary to open up a new child care centre in the neighbourhood to tend to the children while their mothers are working.

Hebe de Bonafini, the president of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, said "our housing project initiatives are making good on a debt that we owe the barrios and the homeless and marginalised."

On Jan. 22, the Madres also began to build a new housing complex in Los Piletones, in Villa Soldati, another slum neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

In this case, the novelty is that they won a public tender offered by the Buenos Aires city government in competition with private companies, to build 432 housing units with the M2 Emmedue system.

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo project won the public tender because of its added social value. The plan includes the construction of a child care centre, two schools, a community centre and a hospital, while providing vocational training and decent working conditions for the local residents.

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo are thus not only a symbol of the memory of a tragic episode in Argentina's history, but of hope for the future as well.




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