ARGENTINA’S WORKING POOR

CCTV

Maria Julia – Homeless waste collector…
Maria Julia is already 60 years old, and yet she’s never had a home of her own. She’s spent most of her life living on the streets, under a bridge or in squats, with her 4 children. Her youngest is now 16.
She’s not unemployed however: she’s been working as a recyclable garbage collector for the last 8 years. In charge of a little recyclable waste collecting co-op in one of Buenos Aires’ “chic” neighbourhoods, she collects glass, plastic, newspapers etc helpful neighbours will have gathered up for her. The more the neighbours contribute, the more work there is… and the more people she can hire to help her out. The co-op tries to dignify this collecting job and signed an agreement with the City of Buenos Aires, which still hasn’t put in place an official recyclable waste system.

With this job, Maria Julia makes 300 pesos a week… about 60 Euros. It doesn’t add up to pay rent for her and her son – she would have pretty much nothing left for food. So, for now, she’s living with her eldest son, a mechanic, in one of Buenos Aires suburbs’ poor neighbourhoods.

Maria Julia’s dream is to have a home before she dies. She wants to make sure her kid has a roof to live under before he’s left on his own. That’s why she wrote a letter to President Cristina Kirchner, to ask for help. She wants the State to implement a system that would allow the poor, like Maria Julia, who have no savings whatsoever to acquire a home by paying for it little by little… In a city where, officially, more than 2 million people (out of 14) live in slums, her desperate cry out appears like a lost cause. But she won’t give up and she’s even decided to take the letter herself to the President. She keeps going: she has no other choice. Her son is all she thinks and worries about all day.

More info
Nowhere in Argentina is recycling a concern for local authorities, and in the city of Buenos Aires like everywhere else, there is no official recycling system running. So every night, the streets fill with “cartoneros”, well-organised people who search the town’s bins for usable or recyclable items. They sell whatever’s recyclable to plants, and carry back home whatever they can use for themselves or their family: used out shoes, footballs, broken umbrellas… since the 2001 economic crisis, the phenomenon keeps increasing. Today, 1 Argentine out of 3 is said to live below the poverty line. But the Cartoneros more often than not leave the streets a mess: they tear open plastic bags to sort through them recyclable materials and leave most of the content of the bag lying, soon dispersed by the wind.

Maria Julia used to be a “cartonera” herself, but what the co-op does is a lot different: they leave the streets clean. And they work during the day. And they have a fix salary.
But this is no job for a 60-year-old. The bags are heavy, and pushing the cart in the Buenos Aires summer heat is no easy task. But she keeps going. She has no choice. Her son is all she thinks and worries about all day.
Everything they collect goes to the recycling warehouse, where Cristina is in charge. Cristina is a friend of Maria Julia’s; together they founded the Ceibo co-op.

Possible sequences:
1.Maria Julia at work, collecting recyclable materials, organising rounds for employees, employees helping out, etc…
2.Everyday she gets up at 5 am to catch the bus and be at work by 7. She’s in charge of preparing the collecting rounds for each of her 5 employees. Once they’ve all left for their rounds, she goes off to collecting glass and plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard boxes neighbours sort out for her. Some of them tell us why it is important for them to contribute.
3.Cartoneros and people living on the streets
4.Maria Julia reading her letter to the President
5.Maria Julia taking her letter to President Cristina Kirchner
6.Maria Julia at the doctor’s
7.Maria Julia with her 16-year-old son
8.At the recycling warehouse, with Cristina, Maria Julia’s longtime friend and co-founder of the Ceibo co-op