ARGENTINA: Buenos Aires neighbourhood food schemes helps to feed hungry children and unemployed parents

Record ID: 447463

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Buenos Aires neighbourhood food schemes helps to feed hungry children and unemployed parents
  • Date: 1st May 2002
  • Summary: (L!2) LA MATANZA, ARGENTINA (RECENT) (REUTERS) WIDE OF STREET OF LA MATANZA NEIGHBOURHOOD IN BUENOS AIRES WITH TRAFFIC SLV MAN WHEELING CART DOWN STREET SMV OLD MAN SITTING EATING BREAD OUTSIDE HOUSE VARIOUS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN ON THE PATIO OF THE HOUSE OF ORGANIZER OF COMMUNITY LUNCH PLACE BEATRIZ BENAVIDEZ WAITING FOR LUNCH (3 SHOTS) SMV CHILD BEING BREAST FED BY MOTHER SMV CHILD SITTING WAITING VARIOUS OF NEIGHBOURS KNEADING BREAD ON THE PATIO (3 SHOTS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ORGANIZER OF COMMUNITY LUNCH PLACE BEATRIZ BENAVIDEZ SAYING: "Before there were not as many (children). But now, with all the unemployment and now that the school is not giving very much food - because the Council (National Education Council) does not give out rations - for the schoolchildren. So this is overwhelming the lunch places of the neighbourhood and the children come more than before. Before, they didn't come but now they are coming at noon and in the afternoon to eat." VARIOUS OF WOMEN MAKING MEAT EMPANADAS (2 SHOTS) VARIOUS OF MEAT PIES BEING COOKED (2 SHOTS) VARIOUS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD MOTHER MARIA VAZQUEZ RECEIVING EMPANADAS FOR DISTRIBUTION (2 SHOTS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) NEIGHBOURHOOD MOTHER MARIA VAZQUEZ SAYING: "When we began with this (the preparation of community food for the neighbourhood) we had the meat that they gave to us, the market that gave us the marketplace and the bakery that gave us bread everyday, but not now. Now they give it to us once or twice and sometimes they don't give anything." SLV BEATRIZ LEAVING HER HOUSE WITH A BUCKET OF JUICE FOR THE CHILDREN WIDE OF NEIGHBOURHOOD CHAPEL WHERE CHILDREN AND PARENTS WERE COMING TO EAT VARIOUS OF WOMEN HANDING OUT FOOD AND DRINK TO THE CHILDREN (5 SHOTS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) BEATRIZ' HUSBAND ENRIQUE VALDEZ SAYING: "There was a time, when another man governed us (Carlos Menem) and we said he was lying too. He wanted us to believe that we were better off because in Africa, people were dying from hunger. They showed us these people. It hit us hard, but in this moment we are going down the same road." VARIOUS OF CHILDREN EATING EMPANADAS INSIDE THE CHAPEL (6 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 16th May 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LA MATANZA, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: People,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA19N6ZAO5T3MDVV1RP3HPU4Q9W
  • Story Text: In the shadow of Buenos Aires, where weary protesters bang pots and pans and stand in vain in long lines outside banks, a poverty-stricken community has banded together to save the smallest victims of Argentina's economic crisis.
    The children of La Matanza, one of the poorest areas of Argentina, have begun to suffer from a lack of food as their unemployed parents fail to scrape together enough cash for even the simplest meal.
    However the tiny community, which lies only 30 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, refuses to let it's children fall victim to the country's economic woes.
    Beatriz Benavidez, a La Matanza wife and mother of six, has organised a series of neighbourhood relief shelters to provide food to the community's children.
    Each day, many mothers are charged with the work of kneading bread and preparing tea or milk for some 70 children that live within a 200 meter radius.
    Almost all eat lunch from Monday to Friday in the schools, but the economic crisis has diminished even the smallest rations, and now schools cannot guarantee food for everyone.
    The shelters, said Beatriz who is regarded as the mother of the neighbourhood, have multiplied as the financial crisis persists. Every four blocks small food centres have sprung up, where women cook scraps they have collected from supermarkets, markets and bakeries.
    Donations do not come easily however, as businesses too are victims of the economic upheaval.
    "When we began with this (the preparation of community food for the neighbourhood) we had the meat that they gave to us, the market that gave us the marketplace and the bakery that gave us bread everyday, but not now. Now they give it to us once or twice and sometimes they don't give anything," said neighbourhood mother Maria Vazquez.
    The community sentiment has pervaded other aspects of life in La Matanza. The citizens have mobilised intensely in large protests blocking the roads, demanding food, employment plans, work and better health care.
    Beatriz' life changed, she said, in November of 2001 when she participated in her first roadblock. There, she explained, her life was transformed when she discovered that other people suffered more than she did. She felt she had to do something.
    "It's not that we want to live, as they say, spending a lot of money. But we don't want to live as we're living either. We want a better Argentina and we want to be a part of this Argentina and help it move forward," she said.
    But in a country where 45 percent of the inhabitants live in poverty and 2.5 million are unemployed, her desires may have to wait.
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