WEBVTT

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Of every 100 new inhabitants
in Buenos Aires

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about 60 access the city through
the informal housing market.

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People don\'t go to an agency and
buy or rent in the formal market,

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Instead they access different products
on the informal market.

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Pension hotels, tenements

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and above all villas.

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Known to us here as the \'villas of misery.\'

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The paradox we have in Argentina is that

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the growth of the economy has meant exponential
increases in the value of urban land.

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This has generated an increase of spatial
inequality of the population.

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This is the central focus of the fight for the
right to the city, today in Argentina.

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That neighborhood is something
totally different.

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This side is another world, separated
only by a street.

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Look at the view of that street and
the narrow street here.

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On that side they discriminate against us.

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Because we\'re here on the corner.

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For being 10 meters over there they
think they\'re better than us.

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because we live in the villa.

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Yeah.

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Exactly.

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We\'re all the same. And here there
are better people than over there.

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The main issue is that we need to have a
name for the neighborhood.

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A name that identifies us when we need
to call an ambulance, take a taxi etc.

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\"Where are you going?\"
\"A neighborhood.\"

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\"What neighborhood?\"
\"An invaded one.\"

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\"Which invaded one? There are 200.\"

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We\'ll look for a name that the majority
of the people like and we\'ll accept this.

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December 23.

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The woman proposed December 23

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because that\'s the date we all came here.

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That was the beginning

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the beginning of this neighborhood.

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We have: The Fight, Hope and December 23.
Which do you all prefer?

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December 23.

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Okay, raise your hands if you
want December 23.

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Who wants The Fight?

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No! The Fight, no way.

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Who wants Hope?

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Hope, maybe.

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I think we\'re keeping December 23, no?

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An applause for December 23!

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Now that we\'re all here

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I think each of us can collaborate with
two pesos for the well cover

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without having to wait for someone
to come to your house.

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Yes, very good.

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(Music playing)

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If you throw a group of people into a place
where there are no rules, no state

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then they make their own laws.

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There is a difference when you are born in a place
where everything is already organised, defined.

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Where you pay certain bills and take the
trash out at a certain time.

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What happens is the villa organises itself.

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It builds its own modes of co-existence.

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The neighborhood here has
a lot of history, 85 years.

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It\'s been around for a long time.

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And the area has always been growing.

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There\'s lots of people renting. Lots of people
entering the neighborhood.

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So it\'s very difficult for the city government
to move the people out of here.

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In reality, most of the things used here
are made by the residents.

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The electric connections for the lights.

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The residents put in the sewers.
A ton of things.

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Every house was built by a resident.

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Not one peso from the government.

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The residents built their
own neighborhood.

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It\'s a form of self-construction.

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Of self-governance.

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Before, I never thought about
having a business in the villa.

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I had my vehicle but I wouldn\'t
come near this place.

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But after getting to know it,
it\'s not bad.

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You see more businesses closed

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in the city center
than open in the villa.

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Lots of stores are closed.

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The rent is too high, the taxes,
all the paperwork.

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That\'s why the villas keep growing.

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The system creates this situation.

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We don\'t know.

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Maybe one day, the real owner shows up

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and sends the authorities
to evict us.

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This is why we\'re living in
these makeshift houses.

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We\'ve been here almost four months.

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We want eventually to have houses
made of proper materials.

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Here, there is a delegate that
organised the invasion

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putting people onto their plots

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organising it so they each could
have a plot of land.

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Here there are 12

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12 neighborhoods that began
with land invasions.

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But they could never evict
anyone because

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the landowners were infringing
on the law.

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They have many years of
unpaid land taxes.

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So the people take the land.

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People posing as landowners kept
appearing along with police.

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There was a permanent police
presence day and night

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But in the end

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eleven owners appeared.

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Trying to threaten us, each of them
saying they had papers.

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Nothing ever happened.

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After a time

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we endured.

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We knew if we maintained the houses

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and if more people came

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we could eventually have

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the possibility to remain here.

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I wasn’t old enough to remember this.

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but I have this vision of when
we arrived here.

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I was in my mother\'s arms.

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We were walking with my siblings
on a wide street.

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The houses still had lots of space between
them, like in the country.

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I visualise, I don\'t know if it\'s a dream

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I remember how we came walking down
this wide street on a sunny afternoon.

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We arrived at the house.

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It had a wooden door with an image
of Jesus Christ on it

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and a corrugate roof, it was a very
tiny house, three meters by four

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divided in the middle by
a clothes chest.

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We had a twin bed, where six of us
slept, my brothers and sisters.

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On the other side was my parents\' room.

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I was born in Zárate, in the province
of Buenos Aires.

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I was born premature after six months.

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In the hospital they said I was
going to die.

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So my mother escaped with me.

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She put her fingers in the
doctor\'s face

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and forced him to let her escape
with me in her arms.

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I had lots of health problems so
we came to Buenos Aires.

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I was in Hospital Argerich in
La Boca neighborhood.

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They cured me and I had to be
near the hospital.

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So we came to Villa 21 in Barracas.

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This is what I remember.

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I had a very happy childhood
in the neighbourhood.

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We arrived with almost nothing

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and became part of a place
that was growing.

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Yeah I tell people I\'m from the villa.

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I tell people I\'m from the villa
and they tell me

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\"Wow, you buy the most out
of all my customers

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I didn\'t think that someone from
Villa 31 would buy so much.\"

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Because here live 50,000 people.

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I came from the city so I
always liked the city.

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I\'m more accustomed to it here.

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I see there\'s more progress here than
in the interior or the provinces.

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We began selling used clothes,
chipas [Paraguayan pastry]

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working in construction

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building houses

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and together with my wife,
we were getting by.

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And now we are selling
furniture, mattresses

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home furnishings.

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I\'m from Paraguay and I came
to Argentina seven years ago.

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And as you can see, I progressed
little by little

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and today, thank God, we are
moving forward.

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With my wife and son.

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We work seven days a week,
Monday to Monday.

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We only take time off when
sales are slow

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or when we\'re tired we
take a few days off to rest.

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What happens is, life in the
country is very stifled.

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In the case of my family, coming from Paraguay,
it was a life with lots of sacrifices.

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For someone to finish
high school

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that\'s a big achievement.

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You start working when you\'re young
and expectations are much lower

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In the city - at least in this villa -

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you\'re near the city and you have
access to more resources.

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More than anything for
work opportunities.

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You start to work, save money and
have other possibilities.

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Each person living in these places thinks

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about how they were living before.

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They\'re looking to work and progress,
find better jobs

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and later return to where they came
from with something better.

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There are many ideas for projects.

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The learning experience a
foreigner goes through

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the hardship of being away from
family and friends

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and starting with nothing to be able
to have at least something

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gives you the strength to move forward.

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It\'s not true that we live in
misery because

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the effort you put into working

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allows you to have things
you couldn\'t before.

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My father was a delegate of
sector 99 in the villa.

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A delegate has to fight for his neighbours

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the residents in his section.

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We\'re building, here in the neighborhood.

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With the residents here, we\'re going
to form a Patria Grande.

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The Patria Grande is against discrimination.

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Where Argentines, Bolivians, Paraguayans
and Chileans are welcome.

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Every race and social group ends up
in this neighborhood.

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And in many other neighborhoods
in the capital.

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My father got everything that was
needed in his sector.

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He organised events for pre-school kids

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and achieved things working with
other organisations.

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He did the groundwork for the
water with a company.

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It was good because before we didn\'t
have access to water here.

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You had to fetch it in buckets.

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Thanks to all the work he did

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we now have access to water.

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Unfortunately, people outside the
villa think we\'re bad people.

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They discriminate against us.

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But like any delegate, you have
to fight and move forward.

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The president has to be available

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and people often get confused.

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One day a woman came and said

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\"President, my husband hit me.\"

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Because I\'m President she came to me.

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I told her, \"Madam I can\'t resolve this issue.

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This is a family problem.

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What you need to do is call the police
because I cannot help.\"

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People get confused.

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Because I\'m president I have
to resolve every issue

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political, economic, anything you want
but it\'s not like that.

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All the land here has an owner.

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Firstly, the land from the edge of the
settlement there

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over to where it ends in the country

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is owned by one person.

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They showed me the map,
it\'s all very clear.

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The problem is the owner has debts, ok?

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But that doesn\'t mean they\'re
not the owner.

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That\'s the law.

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And another thing. There are people
here who have 15 plots of land.

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Understand?

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These 15 plots of land, well they can forget
that these plots are theirs.

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Because when the municipality comes...

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the squatter can say whatever they want.

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The municipality isn\'t going to permit
someone to have 15 plots of land.

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One person can\'t have 15 plots
of invaded land.

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In the past, you could steal a car and drive
around here like nothing happened.

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The police never came here.

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With the same stolen motorcycle

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the thieves would drive around here
drunk and crash into people.

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They would even end up crashing
into each other sometimes.

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The police would never come.

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You could rob something over there and
the police would chase you just to here.

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You enter the villa and the police
wouldn\'t chase you.

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As if it were frontier they couldn\'t cross.

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This is my neighbourhood.

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Come on, come up here in front.

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This is Barrio Barracas.

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Villa 21.

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There were confrontations,
shootouts, people died.

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Before you couldn\'t walk here safely

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everyone stayed inside at night.

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At this hour I was never
out in the street.

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You could hear bullets falling from the sky
and hitting the tin roofs here.

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There were gunshots every day.

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At one point it became normal,
we got used to it.

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We would fall asleep to the
sound of gunshots.

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It didn\'t scare us anymore.
We got used to it.

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Now there\'s less.

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It was normal, the kids on the
corner all carrying guns.

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There was program in the
1970s called PEVE.

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designed to eradicate the villas.

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In general, the experiences of these PEVE
programs were quite disastrous.

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They are what have generated
a bad image of high density

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because they were high-density housing projects
built on the peripheries of the city.

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In general they were solitary apartments
without access to public transportation

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and worst of all poorly constructed
with cheap materials.

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In the case of Villa 31, part of it
was eradicated

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and moved to Fort Apache.

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This was a failure. So much so that much
of the population that was relocated

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preferred to return to the villa

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rather than stay in the
housing projects.

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The plan was to get rid of the villa

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but Fort Apache is the same,
we\'re in the same situation.

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It\'s the worst.

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It\'s basically just a large villa.

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It\'s a villa with a physical
structure, that\'s all.

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Everything continues the same,
nothing changes.

00:19:44.752 --> 00:19:46.913
They give us some things to help,
but they limit you.

00:19:47.612 --> 00:19:50.827
They give us some things
to help, but they limit you.

00:19:51.623 --> 00:19:54.783
You can only get so far because
of politics, it\'s impossible.

00:19:58.418 --> 00:20:04.812
Here the structure is made for
a certain quantity of people

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But families have grown here
in Fort Apache...

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This is what we have dug
up to fix all the pipes.

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That\'s where we still need
to install new pipes.

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We\'re going to repair this also,
the railings.

00:20:24.348 --> 00:20:27.654
Here a kid fell from the
second floor.

00:20:28.482 --> 00:20:33.126
Yesterday they brought all the
materials to repair this.

00:20:33.724 --> 00:20:34.962
So, we\'re moving ahead.

00:20:38.284 --> 00:20:40.588
They were in the middle of a fight

00:20:40.613 --> 00:20:42.092
and shooting broke out

00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:43.462
he got shot in the leg.

00:20:45.261 --> 00:20:46.078
He\'s a deaf mute.

00:20:48.058 --> 00:20:50.884
He roams all around the neighborhood.

00:21:03.423 --> 00:21:08.488
These places are transient, the apartments
are very small and not adaptable.

00:21:08.809 --> 00:21:12.604
They weren\'t built for the coexistence
of living space and work space.

00:21:15.959 --> 00:21:17.810
Before, we couldn\'t walk around.

00:21:18.112 --> 00:21:21.699
You had to wait for the gunshots to
stop to be able to walk around.

00:21:21.989 --> 00:21:23.665
It didn\'t have a schedule.

00:21:24.057 --> 00:21:24.882
Exactly.

00:21:25.017 --> 00:21:28.193
If you were passing by and they started
shooting, you had to run.

00:21:28.593 --> 00:21:33.571
Someone always got shot who had
nothing to do with the situation.

00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:39.047
They didn\'t have sufficient services,
no access to public transportation

00:21:39.082 --> 00:21:40.565
no schools nearby.

00:21:40.867 --> 00:21:43.099
They were large dormitories in
the middle of the country.

00:21:43.950 --> 00:21:47.182
And they rapidly transformed into a ghetto.

00:22:08.426 --> 00:22:09.855
What type of grenades are these?

00:22:12.525 --> 00:22:13.550
Spanish grenades.

00:22:18.532 --> 00:22:20.493
Here they shot me.

00:22:21.558 --> 00:22:23.858
We were playing a soccer match.

00:22:24.263 --> 00:22:26.215
It entered here and exited there.

00:22:26.975 --> 00:22:30.017
We were playing soccer and
we were winning.

00:22:32.578 --> 00:22:35.381
I don\'t always like to play in these games,
but they regard me as a good player.

00:22:35.581 --> 00:22:39.925
One of the drug dealers betting on
the other team was losing money.

00:22:40.475 --> 00:22:41.953
And seeing that I was playing well

00:22:42.255 --> 00:22:45.376
When I went off the field, he shot
me for the money he lost.

00:22:45.505 --> 00:22:48.530
I was playing, I didn\'t have
anything to do with it.

00:22:49.056 --> 00:22:50.772
So he shot me

00:22:50.851 --> 00:22:52.083
because he didn\'t believe
in losing money.

00:22:52.766 --> 00:22:53.463
For that he shot me.

00:22:55.163 --> 00:22:55.687
Look.

00:22:57.788 --> 00:23:03.872
The kids that go out and rob, they leave things
here so that things go well for them.

00:23:04.331 --> 00:23:07.271
Look. The kids get tattoos of
the saint, Gauchito Gil.

00:23:08.126 --> 00:23:10.724
He\'s a saint who has various legends.

00:23:10.749 --> 00:23:14.994
Why are the kids devoted to him?

00:23:15.447 --> 00:23:20.143
One of the legends is that he stole from
the wealthy to give to the poor.

00:23:20.915 --> 00:23:25.473
So the kids here in the neighborhood
who go around robbing

00:23:25.761 --> 00:23:28.056
take him as their saint to go and rob.

00:23:28.303 --> 00:23:31.075
They bring him money so
he protects them.

00:23:31.260 --> 00:23:34.926
He\'s known for being the saint for
thieves and delinquents.

00:23:36.805 --> 00:23:39.838
These modes of thinking continued
during the 1980s.

00:23:40.126 --> 00:23:45.556
Trying to imitate the traditional city to
reproduce these urban forms

00:23:47.093 --> 00:23:50.936
they have built new cities from the
ground up that are also failures.

00:23:51.169 --> 00:23:56.129
In the protests in France in the
peripheries of cities like Paris

00:23:56.564 --> 00:24:01.598
the root of the issue lies in the unresolved
problems of these projects.

00:24:09.712 --> 00:24:13.302
The dangerous thing is when you talk
to some of these architects

00:24:13.310 --> 00:24:15.893
they don\'t believe errors were made

00:24:16.162 --> 00:24:19.037
or that the residents didn\'t know
how to maintain them.

00:24:19.191 --> 00:24:20.588
Or they say, \"What do you want?\"

00:24:20.590 --> 00:24:23.739
We gave housing to the poor people and
they couldn\'t maintain it.\"

00:24:24.205 --> 00:24:26.444
The blame is always elsewhere

00:24:27.184 --> 00:24:29.742
rather than on the actual design
of the projects.

00:24:36.107 --> 00:24:39.067
My husband always had this dream
of urbanising the villa.

00:24:39.388 --> 00:24:41.476
My husband always had this dream
of urbanising the villa.

00:24:41.754 --> 00:24:44.311
To become a \'neighbourhood\', not a villa.

00:24:44.830 --> 00:24:46.286
And what did he mean by urbanising it?

00:24:46.850 --> 00:24:48.176
To include it in the city.

00:24:49.430 --> 00:24:51.360
Make it part of the city.

00:24:52.367 --> 00:24:53.989
That was my husband\'s dream.

00:24:54.824 --> 00:24:58.897
It should be reality for
better or worse.

00:25:00.107 --> 00:25:02.657
One day he says to me

00:25:03.507 --> 00:25:07.611
\"How nice it would be to have
a newspaper in the villa.\"

00:25:08.409 --> 00:25:11.846
Later, after four or five months

00:25:12.507 --> 00:25:16.330
he tells me, \"Ruth we\'re going to
have a newspaper.\"

00:25:17.784 --> 00:25:19.936
\"Yeah? What\'s it going to be called?\"

00:25:20.836 --> 00:25:21.964
\"Mundo Villa (Villa World),\" he tells me.

00:25:22.814 --> 00:25:24.155
\"Mundo Villa?\" I say.

00:25:25.387 --> 00:25:26.387
\"Why Mundo Villa?\"

00:25:27.866 --> 00:25:29.859
\"Because it\'s going to be
for all the villas.

00:25:30.917 --> 00:25:32.864
To show good things from the area.

00:25:33.324 --> 00:25:40.900
Because as far as I know, in the villas there\'s
no newspaper, no channels.

00:25:41.286 --> 00:25:43.000
It doesn\'t have a media of its own.

00:25:44.003 --> 00:25:48.068
And so Adams was the first correspondent
from the neighborhood.

00:25:48.342 --> 00:25:50.368
\"We\'re good hardworking people.

00:25:50.820 --> 00:25:51.939
Humble people.

00:25:52.608 --> 00:25:54.991
We are in the villa by necessity.\"

00:25:55.333 --> 00:26:00.362
We\'re here in Section 99, House 35.

00:26:01.100 --> 00:26:02.324
In Villa 31.

00:26:03.103 --> 00:26:04.343
It\'s my family\'s house.

00:26:04.716 --> 00:26:06.900
Here we shoot interviews with residents

00:26:07.448 --> 00:26:10.989
and delegates from the villa.

00:26:11.708 --> 00:26:13.898
[Mundo Villa] was born out of necessity,
more than anything.

00:26:13.916 --> 00:26:15.949
The necessity to talk and tell stories.

00:26:16.195 --> 00:26:19.619
I began to act and participate in
films and documentaries

00:26:20.025 --> 00:26:23.972
in different forms of media, talking
about various things that...

00:26:24.157 --> 00:26:28.499
...it was a way to discuss different
themes from the villa.

00:26:29.045 --> 00:26:32.600
I acted in a movie, La 21 Barracas,
that was violent.

00:26:33.013 --> 00:26:35.492
But the debate was, why are
these things happening?

00:26:35.892 --> 00:26:37.876
It got some media attention.

00:26:38.339 --> 00:26:42.193
People become aware of it and
it\'s a very positive tool

00:26:42.661 --> 00:26:43.884
to be able to see things from the other
perspective and debate them.

00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:45.519
And that\'s how Mundo Villa was born.

00:26:47.556 --> 00:26:53.583
I write articles for the newspaper,
interview officials at events.

00:26:54.681 --> 00:26:57.350
To show people outside

00:26:57.820 --> 00:27:02.853
that the neighborhood isn\'t
full of crime and drugs.

00:27:03.168 --> 00:27:07.159
That the neighbourhood is doing well,
and must move ahead.

00:27:07.338 --> 00:27:09.996
To show people that it
is not a threat.

00:27:11.563 --> 00:27:12.563
It all started in 2008.

00:27:13.952 --> 00:27:18.456
There was a surge of discriminatory
journalism in 2008.

00:27:22.971 --> 00:27:24.508
Cold executions.

00:27:24.898 --> 00:27:29.391
A style of execution imported from Colombia...

00:27:36.743 --> 00:27:38.133
Commuters are in danger

00:27:39.113 --> 00:27:43.012
and the robberies keep getting
more violent.

00:27:43.144 --> 00:27:46.868
A protest can be used to commit a crime.

00:27:52.362 --> 00:27:54.078
When I went to live in San Telmo

00:27:55.110 --> 00:27:57.223
a formal urban neighborhood

00:27:57.801 --> 00:28:00.279
I was scared I would be robbed.

00:28:01.520 --> 00:28:03.530
The media shows that there are safety issues.

00:28:03.794 --> 00:28:06.476
Many people believe what
they see on TV.

00:28:07.170 --> 00:28:09.623
When I go out somewhere and sit down,
they ask, \"Where are you from?\"

00:28:09.861 --> 00:28:10.823
I say I was born in the villa.

00:28:12.096 --> 00:28:13.279
\"Poor you!\" they say.

00:28:13.524 --> 00:28:16.314
As if I came from a war-zone
or something!

00:28:17.593 --> 00:28:19.595
Drug addiction, criminals, and all this...

00:28:19.620 --> 00:28:23.247
so we began to report news
and show the other side.

00:28:23.750 --> 00:28:26.727
The newspaper is a really positive tool.

00:28:29.001 --> 00:28:32.749
La Garganta Poderosa, Mundo Villa,
Patria Grande...

00:28:34.585 --> 00:28:36.636
Movimiento Evita, La Campora...

00:28:36.882 --> 00:28:38.178
La Corriente Villera...

00:28:38.456 --> 00:28:43.234
There are many organizations
that have cooperatives

00:28:43.706 --> 00:28:47.494
Aside from being a political orgnanization,
they have various cooperatives.

00:28:47.527 --> 00:28:49.744
And they work through these cooperatives

00:28:50.429 --> 00:28:55.383
pressuring the government with protests
and demonstrations.

00:28:55.696 --> 00:28:58.365
so that the government gives them resources

00:28:58.636 --> 00:29:01.970
or awards their cooperatives with
projects or jobs

00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:04.488
so that they can keep growing
and gaining power.

00:29:06.175 --> 00:29:10.893
They\'re propaganda newspapers or
media channels

00:29:11.308 --> 00:29:13.323
serving their own interests.

00:29:13.348 --> 00:29:16.541
They\'re not independent, they don\'t
show you the whole reality

00:29:16.549 --> 00:29:18.684
of what happens in the villa.

00:29:24.350 --> 00:29:28.867
That Friday night, we were
invited to a dinner.

00:29:29.214 --> 00:29:33.446
We returned around 1am or 2am.

00:29:34.193 --> 00:29:36.243
In the end I stayed in the
bedroom upstairs.

00:29:36.610 --> 00:29:37.889
When I came down my husband was sleeping
and everything was locked.

00:29:37.977 --> 00:29:41.230
I went back upstairs, got dressed for bed
and switched off the light.

00:29:41.957 --> 00:29:44.053
A half hour passed and I heard the door.

00:29:44.498 --> 00:29:45.384
Scared, I answered, \"Who is it?\"

00:29:45.655 --> 00:29:46.862
\"It\'s your neighbour,\" he says.

00:29:47.297 --> 00:29:47.935
\"Who?\" I say.

00:29:48.300 --> 00:29:49.737
\"Your neighbor Luis,\" he says.

00:29:51.197 --> 00:29:52.928
\'What does he want?\' I think.
I open the door and say

00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:55.550
\"Hey good day, what\'s up?

00:29:56.051 --> 00:29:58.544
Wait it\'s not day yet, it\'s 4:15am!\"
I told him.

00:29:59.610 --> 00:30:00.519
And he says, \"No...\"

00:30:01.052 --> 00:30:01.973
\"No,\" he says.

00:30:01.990 --> 00:30:03.664
\"I wanted to talk with you.\"

00:30:04.719 --> 00:30:05.658
\"What is it?\" I say.

00:30:06.135 --> 00:30:07.453
\"Ledezma,\" he says.

00:30:08.234 --> 00:30:09.297
\"He\'s downstairs,\" I say.

00:30:09.940 --> 00:30:11.037
\"No,\" he says.

00:30:11.684 --> 00:30:13.835
I looked at him and smiled.

00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:17.656
\"Are you joking around?\" I ask. \"He\'s downstairs,
where else would he be?\"

00:30:18.832 --> 00:30:20.342
\"No,\" he says and begins to tear up.

00:30:20.525 --> 00:30:22.757
\"They say he\'s around the back,
on the ground,\" he says.

00:30:23.981 --> 00:30:27.166
I said, \"He goes out and drinks,
but he\'s never passed out.\"

00:30:27.748 --> 00:30:29.009
I came downstairs.

00:30:29.813 --> 00:30:33.450
The inside door was open. It wasn\'t
locked from the inside.

00:30:33.889 --> 00:30:35.421
That\'s when my heart jumped.

00:30:38.059 --> 00:30:40.276
I ran with the neighbor
and turned the corner

00:30:40.857 --> 00:30:43.675
In the other street facing us

00:30:44.002 --> 00:30:45.271
I see a policeman

00:30:47.941 --> 00:30:50.023
and a body laid out on the ground.

00:30:51.097 --> 00:30:54.377
I ran because it had rained all
week and it was drizzling.

00:30:57.008 --> 00:31:01.082
My husband was there, it looked like he
was sleeping in a straight position.

00:31:01.122 --> 00:31:02.377
But his hand was moving.

00:31:02.871 --> 00:31:06.508
In one hand he had a cigarette,
but he never liked to smoke.

00:31:06.516 --> 00:31:08.662
The cigarette was a brown colour.

00:31:09.061 --> 00:31:12.270
But it wasn\'t lit, it hadn\'t been
smoked. It was new.

00:31:13.121 --> 00:31:15.368
I don\'t know if they put it
there or what.

00:31:16.775 --> 00:31:18.745
I screamed and everything but...

00:31:22.011 --> 00:31:24.813
It turns out they had stuck the knife in
his neck and moved it around.

00:31:25.810 --> 00:31:27.834
He had internal haemorrhaging.

00:31:28.812 --> 00:31:31.122
And they stabbed him twice
in the ribs.

00:31:32.807 --> 00:31:37.222
They killed my husband around 4 am.

00:31:39.123 --> 00:31:41.561
I arrived at 4.20 am.

00:31:42.658 --> 00:31:47.019
5 am, 6 am, at 7.30 am the ambulance arrives.

00:31:47.090 --> 00:31:51.840
Can you imagine, 4, 5, 6, 7.30am.

00:31:52.853 --> 00:31:57.092
Say you get shot and you\'re wounded.
The police come.

00:31:57.096 --> 00:32:00.074
But they don\'t take you, they leave you
there wounded on the ground.

00:32:00.749 --> 00:32:02.814
And the ambulance takes
30 minutes to arrive.

00:32:02.831 --> 00:32:04.689
And the ambulance doesn\'t enter
without a police escort.

00:32:05.588 --> 00:32:06.246
It doesn\'t enter by itself.

00:32:07.034 --> 00:32:08.757
They\'ll leave you to die there.

00:32:09.241 --> 00:32:10.648
The cops won\'t take you anywhere.

00:32:16.489 --> 00:32:19.291
It was the first time so many people
gathered together.

00:32:20.039 --> 00:32:22.731
People never marched for anyone
like that before.

00:32:23.051 --> 00:32:25.194
There were several thousand
people or more.

00:32:25.848 --> 00:32:30.993
There were lots of people because we reached
the end of the main street

00:32:31.018 --> 00:32:34.923
and there were people still coming
from under the highway.

00:32:36.367 --> 00:32:38.400
It was incredible because...

00:32:40.513 --> 00:32:41.943
we had never seen something
like that before.

00:32:43.461 --> 00:32:45.963
My life changed.
It flipped like this.

00:32:47.927 --> 00:32:49.607
Leading a normal life...

00:32:50.548 --> 00:32:51.135
Then that.

00:32:52.374 --> 00:32:55.130
I\'m left without a husband,
a companion, a friend.

00:32:56.308 --> 00:32:57.301
My life empty.

00:32:57.928 --> 00:32:59.494
My children are left without a father.

00:33:01.059 --> 00:33:02.767
Without a friend, a companion.

00:33:12.580 --> 00:33:16.414
Lucio was in charge of guarding
the generator

00:33:18.268 --> 00:33:21.038
So when they came to take

00:33:24.100 --> 00:33:26.887
the lock and chains off the generator

00:33:26.912 --> 00:33:28.022
Lucio went outside

00:33:31.707 --> 00:33:32.773
in order to save the generator.

00:33:33.147 --> 00:33:34.855
They shot him.

00:33:36.233 --> 00:33:37.304
So then he ran.

00:33:37.901 --> 00:33:40.132
And he wrapped wire around his leg.

00:33:40.157 --> 00:33:43.213
And came running here calling for me.

00:33:43.859 --> 00:33:46.233
At 3am he called to me.

00:33:46.884 --> 00:33:50.831
And also, it had been raining that day.

00:33:51.509 --> 00:33:52.477
So it was muddy.

00:33:53.154 --> 00:33:55.554
It was difficult for a vehicle to
enter the neighborhood.

00:33:59.717 --> 00:34:00.336
Come here.

00:34:07.400 --> 00:34:08.345
This is the small one.

00:34:15.089 --> 00:34:15.702
We have these two.

00:34:16.775 --> 00:34:17.394
This is a .22

00:34:18.363 --> 00:34:22.395
this is a .22 caliber, this one has five shots
and this one has eight shots.

00:34:24.147 --> 00:34:25.036
There\'s lots of crime here.

00:34:25.830 --> 00:34:27.379
Complications here in the
barrio because

00:34:27.403 --> 00:34:28.263
it\'s an invaded neighbourhood.

00:34:29.033 --> 00:34:31.607
And with people like that, you don\'t
want to be without one.

00:34:33.744 --> 00:34:35.144
That\'s why we have these,
to protect ourselves.

00:34:35.557 --> 00:34:39.757
Houses get burned and some people
have problems with others.

00:34:40.655 --> 00:34:41.561
That\'s why we have these.

00:34:44.336 --> 00:34:44.756
You see?

00:34:48.243 --> 00:34:49.515
Son of a bitch, look at this.

00:34:52.170 --> 00:34:53.685
It\'s a disaster here.

00:34:57.929 --> 00:34:59.487
There\'s nothing left. Look at this barrel.

00:35:10.220 --> 00:35:11.928
Maybe someone burned it on purpose.

00:35:13.915 --> 00:35:15.987
A guy was yelling saying it was on fire.

00:35:16.807 --> 00:35:20.130
We went out and grabbed a bucket of
water and tried to put it out.

00:35:21.322 --> 00:35:26.306
We tried putting it out but we couldn\'t.

00:35:27.197 --> 00:35:29.135
There was nothing more
that could be done.

00:35:32.393 --> 00:35:37.220
Theodocio\'s house - we don\'t know if
this was accidental or intentional.

00:35:38.551 --> 00:35:42.140
What I want to say is that we should
collaborate to help him.

00:35:42.341 --> 00:35:48.112
This is voluntary. Because if tomorrow this
happens to me, you, or a neighbour

00:35:48.370 --> 00:35:51.461
it would be good to help each other.

00:35:51.564 --> 00:35:55.166
For me, I don\'t know about the opinion
of others, he\'s a good person.

00:35:55.174 --> 00:35:55.896
Yes we all know him.

00:35:55.920 --> 00:35:57.896
He deserves a contribution from us.

00:35:58.222 --> 00:36:00.140
Two pesos, five pesos, ten pesos...

00:36:00.165 --> 00:36:03.420
so that he can buy new walls.

00:36:03.956 --> 00:36:06.643
We can collect this money and
give it to him today if possible.

00:36:07.217 --> 00:36:08.967
Because he\'s in the street now.

00:36:08.992 --> 00:36:11.356
Neighbours, it\'s clear no?

00:36:11.761 --> 00:36:14.540
On principle we will help
each other out.

00:36:14.812 --> 00:36:16.091
This is a particular case.

00:36:17.577 --> 00:36:23.117
In other cases there has been speculation as to
the motive of why something happened.

00:36:23.489 --> 00:36:25.434
This is a neighbour that never had
a problem with anybody.

00:36:30.037 --> 00:36:30.820
Here Rosa, take it.

00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:38.535
Whoever has something, a mattress,
pieces of wood, clothes for the kids.

00:36:40.595 --> 00:36:42.611
Rosa where do we bring the stuff?

00:36:44.694 --> 00:36:46.370
Bring it to Rosa\'s house.

00:36:50.161 --> 00:36:53.433
It\'s sad, it\'s sad. Especially now
that it\'s winter.

00:36:54.395 --> 00:36:55.156
Imagine.

00:36:55.896 --> 00:36:58.112
He\'s left just with the clothes
on his back.

00:36:58.486 --> 00:37:00.733
Terrible, just terrible.

00:37:03.754 --> 00:37:08.795
There are lots of complications because
you have to be here suffering.

00:37:09.330 --> 00:37:11.221
You have to be here like me.

00:37:12.691 --> 00:37:17.272
The day I got the plot of land,
I came to make a house.

00:37:17.443 --> 00:37:20.254
I came with my family because
I had to be alert.

00:37:20.669 --> 00:37:24.598
Watching the patio, watching
my house, my family.

00:37:25.187 --> 00:37:26.855
Battling the mosquitos.

00:37:27.742 --> 00:37:29.875
Without electricity, water or any services.

00:37:30.623 --> 00:37:33.641
There are some people who come
to build their house on a plot.

00:37:33.943 --> 00:37:34.943
But they don\'t live there
full-time yet.

00:37:35.491 --> 00:37:39.675
All of a sudden they have a dispute
with someone and

00:37:40.155 --> 00:37:43.605
someone comes without warning
and sets fire to their house.

00:38:04.612 --> 00:38:05.612
It always happens like this.

00:38:06.581 --> 00:38:09.004
Sometimes when people steal someone
else\'s land this happens.

00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:15.725
There are people who have sold land
that doesn\'t belong to them.

00:38:16.669 --> 00:38:19.458
And the person who purchased it
builds a house.

00:38:19.739 --> 00:38:22.231
The real owner comes back, throws their
belongings out or steals everything.

00:38:22.408 --> 00:38:24.186
Or sets it on fire.

00:38:24.792 --> 00:38:26.594
That\'s how it happens. That\'s how things go.

00:38:33.975 --> 00:38:38.930
Capitalist urbanization features a
particular characteristic

00:38:39.838 --> 00:38:42.705
which is the method of producing urban land.

00:38:46.601 --> 00:38:48.554
Transforming rural land into urban land

00:38:48.824 --> 00:38:52.321
results in an exponential change
in its market value.

00:38:52.337 --> 00:38:58.712
If you have land that\'s worth 10 as rural land,
it\'s worth 100 or 200 as urban land.

00:39:00.749 --> 00:39:03.125
That\'s a lot of money. There isn\'t any
other productive activity.

00:39:03.150 --> 00:39:05.468
where you can make as much money
as speculating on land.

00:39:07.844 --> 00:39:10.877
The key for us is what way
do you produce land?

00:39:12.230 --> 00:39:14.207
And in what ways do you make profits?

00:39:14.988 --> 00:39:20.662
This decentralised urbanisation, which is a huge
real estate business, is causing great harm.

00:39:20.921 --> 00:39:26.264
As much for developed countries as for
developing countries like Argentina.

00:39:26.929 --> 00:39:29.055
The future of the city is at stake.

00:39:40.711 --> 00:39:44.951
Our idea was to build up all the
streets in our villa.

00:39:46.107 --> 00:39:48.996
The machine for making streets
costs 3,500 pesos per day.

00:39:49.483 --> 00:39:52.524
We booked it for 4 days.

00:39:52.971 --> 00:39:55.438
They begin at 8 am and go until 5 pm.

00:39:56.385 --> 00:39:59.174
It takes longer because these
are crude streets.

00:39:59.845 --> 00:40:04.813
It\'s rural land, and the machine has to create
the streets, so it takes a lot of work.

00:40:07.415 --> 00:40:08.706
The police came.

00:40:08.858 --> 00:40:11.762
And we went to jail with the
machine and everything.

00:40:12.413 --> 00:40:14.024
Imagine what a story.

00:40:16.766 --> 00:40:21.491
The police chief said we were building
streets on property that wasn\'t ours

00:40:22.914 --> 00:40:25.647
and he said it was to sell plots of land.

00:40:28.318 --> 00:40:29.620
We were only there 10 minutes.

00:40:30.456 --> 00:40:34.726
I had to call the municipality and
10 minutes later they let us go.

00:40:35.852 --> 00:40:40.113
But we couldn\'t make any more streets
until the issue of the land was resolved.

00:40:46.520 --> 00:40:50.101
If the land is very expensive and you
don\'t have access to credit

00:40:50.467 --> 00:40:56.202
then land invasions and the informal market
are a direct consequence.

00:40:57.559 --> 00:41:00.542
This isn\'t an invasion by an enemy force

00:41:00.773 --> 00:41:03.703
it\'s the workforce that\'s producing
wealth in the city.

00:41:04.054 --> 00:41:06.285
Sometimes the xenophobic discussions
hide the fact

00:41:06.668 --> 00:41:09.907
that this is a workforce that operates
throughout a great part of the city.

00:41:14.970 --> 00:41:18.800
The idea came about one day sitting
around the table with my brother

00:41:19.722 --> 00:41:24.429
watching people, thinking
there needed to be

00:41:24.670 --> 00:41:28.875
transportation for people to
Retiro station.

00:41:29.588 --> 00:41:34.772
It\'s very dangerous to leave out the
back of the villa on foot.

00:41:35.293 --> 00:41:41.577
So it\'s necessary to have a mode
of transport for the people.

00:41:41.967 --> 00:41:45.627
That\'s how we got the idea
and one day we began.

00:41:47.702 --> 00:41:50.762
CATAMARCI is the name of the bus.

00:41:51.183 --> 00:41:55.113
Cata is my mother\'s name and
Marci is my father\'s name.

00:41:57.087 --> 00:42:00.946
Here in the villa there are lots of people
who create their own work.

00:42:01.686 --> 00:42:03.402
Each one has their own
idea of work

00:42:03.769 --> 00:42:07.911
and how to progress and live
day to day working.

00:42:11.522 --> 00:42:13.532
I\'ve been in Argentina for 23 years.

00:42:13.557 --> 00:42:20.511
I came here from Paraguay when
I was about 19-20 years old.

00:42:20.935 --> 00:42:24.057
In this part of the villa there used
to be houses made of

00:42:24.336 --> 00:42:27.283
wooden sheets, rugs, and corrugated tin.

00:42:27.690 --> 00:42:30.286
You won\'t find any houses
like that anymore.

00:42:32.242 --> 00:42:35.649
One of the problems that we\'re tackling
here at HABITAR Argentina is

00:42:35.929 --> 00:42:40.155
changing the laws so that the state,
not the private sector

00:42:40.354 --> 00:42:44.928
drives the processes of urbanisation
with a social objective.

00:42:45.740 --> 00:42:50.448
And to do this you have to have political
instruments for managing land.

00:42:50.874 --> 00:42:53.526
Someone has rural land...

00:42:54.026 --> 00:42:57.967
they wait for the city to grow and
grow, and then divide it into lots.

00:42:57.991 --> 00:42:59.270
That\'s how they\'ll make the
highest earnings.

00:43:00.311 --> 00:43:02.194
If someone has land on which
they are speculating

00:43:02.338 --> 00:43:03.910
the state can place for example

00:43:04.086 --> 00:43:06.857
a progressive tax on vacant land

00:43:07.208 --> 00:43:12.010
and this land can then be incorporated into
the city at a much more accessible cost.

00:43:17.247 --> 00:43:21.744
We organised activities at the
football field, we raised funds.

00:43:21.987 --> 00:43:25.836
We numbered all the lots we had
from the municipality.

00:43:26.411 --> 00:43:29.221
Everyone collaborated to raise funds.

00:43:29.771 --> 00:43:34.011
We organised activities to raise money
for the electricity, for the streets.

00:43:47.712 --> 00:43:49.554
The thing is to make the villa another
neighborhood of the city

00:43:49.834 --> 00:43:52.644
and the identity of a neighborhood is

00:43:53.289 --> 00:43:56.806
not only in its stories, community, social practices

00:43:56.831 --> 00:43:58.024
but also in its spaces.

00:43:59.446 --> 00:44:02.862
Without romanticising poverty

00:44:03.331 --> 00:44:06.729
there are certain formal and
spatial relationships

00:44:07.677 --> 00:44:12.951
that can easily be characteristic
and form part of

00:44:13.372 --> 00:44:16.455
the culture of a metropolis
like Buenos Aires.

00:44:25.327 --> 00:44:27.864
If the state constructs housing
but doesn\'t regulate the land

00:44:29.081 --> 00:44:31.820
they\'re just gifting money to landowners.

00:44:32.133 --> 00:44:35.721
And it can even produce effects contrary
to what they\'re trying to achieve.

00:44:49.673 --> 00:44:56.298
If city planning codes are designed for
an ideal that doesn\'t exist

00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:58.011
an entirely middle-class city

00:44:58.075 --> 00:44:59.870
we\'ll just keep having more problems.

00:45:09.657 --> 00:45:14.365
It was she and Joaquin who
fell from the stairs.

00:45:19.189 --> 00:45:22.480
The residents painted the new railings.

00:45:23.155 --> 00:45:25.727
This is the first stairway area we fixed.

00:45:26.514 --> 00:45:27.943
It was the most dangerous one.

00:45:34.401 --> 00:45:38.120
\"It\'s been a year since we came here.

00:45:38.495 --> 00:45:42.210
We were so small and now the
neighborhood is so big.

00:45:42.389 --> 00:45:45.984
Thank God, with all of you we
are creating a home.

00:45:46.233 --> 00:45:49.776
I\'m proud to be Argentine and
have all my people here.

00:45:49.999 --> 00:45:51.428
I also speak Guarani.

00:45:54.734 --> 00:45:57.110
My Peruvian friends are here too,
all the people from Peru.

00:45:57.475 --> 00:46:03.971
We bring you our message, a typical
chamamé for all our countrymen.

00:46:04.174 --> 00:46:05.738
With an accordion and a guitar...

00:46:05.897 --> 00:46:11.370
Here is Lucho Chequeño to
have a little bit of fun!\"

00:46:19.881 --> 00:46:22.557
Everyone falls in love with December 23.
There must be something here.

00:46:22.843 --> 00:46:24.916
A gold mine.

00:46:27.992 --> 00:46:30.634
All the people that come to visit

00:46:31.350 --> 00:46:34.315
they ask, \"President, is there a plot
of land to buy here?\"

00:46:34.967 --> 00:46:35.363
Why?

00:46:36.151 --> 00:46:37.586
They say, \"I like the neighborhood.\"

00:46:37.959 --> 00:46:40.184
That\'s what people who visit say.

00:46:47.765 --> 00:46:51.123
There\'s a saying.

00:46:51.757 --> 00:46:53.052
\"The right to the city is not just the right

00:46:53.077 --> 00:46:56.059
to access the services and benefits the city offers

00:46:56.207 --> 00:46:58.009
but also the right we have to change the city.\"

00:46:58.726 --> 00:47:03.999
We are city builders and with all our collective
actions we modify the city.

00:47:04.523 --> 00:47:10.418
And we have the right to participate
in the city\'s decision making.

00:47:15.131 --> 00:47:18.626
Society marks you with a marginal identity.

00:47:18.816 --> 00:47:22.468
If you say, \"Ok, I accept this identity.\"

00:47:23.298 --> 00:47:25.467
you\'re following the rules of the game.

00:47:26.344 --> 00:47:28.716
The people that buy into this notion

00:47:29.265 --> 00:47:32.719
who live according to what
they are shown

00:47:33.261 --> 00:47:36.070
and don\'t learn to see with their own
eyes - that\'s where the poverty is.

00:47:36.094 --> 00:47:38.570
(Male voice singing)