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Common pots: Argentinian women lead fight against food insecurity in slums [1]

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Date: 2024-04 

Today Villa 31 has more than 40,000 inhabitants. The land it occupies separates the port area from Recoleta, which is one of the city's most expensive neighbourhoods. The Dr Arturo Umberto Illia road runs overhead, supported by thick concrete pillars.

The reputation of the area in its shadow is so bad that no bus routes enter Villa 31 despite the nearby Retiro terminal. Taxis and Uber cabs refuse to serve the neighbourhood. Not even ambulances will go in without a police escort.

Over hollow brick and tin houses, shacks and narrow passages without pavements, a risky-looking power line is strung up between makeshift pylons, sometimes dangling just inches from people’s heads. There are chapels, schools, squares and small football pitches with gates. Here and there, people with grey-tinged skin gather around a fire lit in a tin tank, despite the heat, and sway to the rhythm of the cumbia villera music that grew out of Argentina’s slums.

And at this very edge of life, you find the knowing, friendly, exhausted faces of 11 cooks in the ‘Gustavo Cortiñas’ soup kitchen – named after a young activist who disappeared during the last military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. They are sharing the last food of the day. They work six to eight hours a day cooking and serving food, and cleaning and managing the kitchen. Now they are also selling homemade ice cubes to neighbours in an effort to raise more cash, though it is not enough to fill the gap.

These women began organising in 2016. “They didn’t have anyone to leave their children with to work, or they couldn’t find work,” says Casimiro, a mother of eight. “So, seeing their own needs and those of the others, they formed a community.” Pooling their resources, the group rented a small house with a large living room in the front and a kitchen in the back, where they set up the lunch room, initially just for each other, although it soon grew. “A plate of food helps you save a little of your daily expenses,” says Casimiro.

In addition to working for the community, they perform care and domestic work in their own homes, while some have casual jobs as well – which is why they call themselves “triple shift workers”.

In mid-2023, La Poderosa drafted a bill, still not seen in Congress, to provide community cooks with minimum wage, healthcare coverage, paid holidays, maternity leave and Christmas bonuses.

Common pots also serve as places of emotional support for neighbours, and as a “line of defence” against drug abuse and trafficking.

“Even if parents go out to work, they don’t earn enough to feed their family. And going to work means they don’t have time to take care of their children,” says Casimiro, who has lived in the slum for 33 of her 49 years. Out of despair, sometimes parents or – children – start dealing (or using) drugs. “One grabs whatever there is to be able to bring home some food... Everything here fuels violence.”

The Argentine capital is home to 49 ‘villas’ where some 80,000 families live in overcrowded conditions, without regular access to electricity, water, heating and sanitation. Nearly three quarters of these households, some 73%, are headed by women. As in many of the 6,500 slums across the country, women have been working side by side for decades to feed their communities.

When torrential rain falls, as it did in March, the water is knee-deep, soaking mattresses, wardrobes and appliances, and leaving people without power for days – the fear of an electric shock from using wet plugs and cables outweighs the need.

But even when the sun comes out, the damage done by years of repeated flooding is inescapable. Sewers burst due to lack of infrastructure to supply a growing population, while streets are full of mud and vermin. “Living with the smell of damp everywhere is not life,” Casimiro says.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/women-argentina-food-crisis-hunger-soup-kitchens-cook-common-pots-milei/

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