Grant Access to Safe Water in Paraguay

During lockdown, the Mocoví community in the town of Tostado (Santa Fe Province, Argentina) was left without drinking water. The women who are part of Mapik, an organization supported by Fondo de Mujeres del Sur (FMS) under the Strengthening Environmental Defenders program, built a well to collect rainwater, solving a vital problem. We have wanted to tell the group’s story for some time. 

“So how are we doing this?” Lore asks. “We introduce ourselves and then make up a move and then everyone has to do that same move,” called out the children. Amidst the din of children playing and roosters crowing, the children go around the circle saying their names: Romina… Ceferina… Delia… Noelia... Gabriela...Victoria… Susel...Hilda. Their names and their cultural knowledge still bear the marks of the Spanish Conquest. But resistance rolls of their tongues.

It is clear that Spanish is not their native language and their evident discomfort when speaking Spanish disappears when they switch to Moqoit, the language of their people. Mapik is a collective of the Mocoví women of Tostado, a town some 330 kilometers northeast of Santa Fe, the capital of the Argentine province of the same name.

WORKING WITH OTHER WOMEN

Right from its origins, Mapik was about bringing women together. First within the community: “We’ve been doing things together since we were little. We always got together to gather firewood together; we would head out each morning and come back early evening. About ten years ago, we go an invitation to join a women’s soccer league, so we asked some more girls to join and put a group together,” explains Romina. She adds that later, a social organization in the neighborhood suggested they organize the snack at a soup kitchen on Saturdays. Later, they also began serving lunch there on Sundays.

Then Gabriela adds, laughing, “Then came ‘la Lore.’” Lorena is part of Gestando Sororidad (Engendering Sisterhood), a feminist organization from the city that promotes mutual support among women. This group began working with the women from Mapik at the end of 2017.

In the words of one of the women, “I have always liked being part of this because we support one another and have fun together. We do things for local kids or for ourselves, sharing and kicking the ball around. We don’t just stay inside our homes: we meet other people and have fun together.” Another says, “I like getting together because I learn a lot: I didn’t used to go out, I just stayed inside.”

Getting together with others gave them insight into how others lived. The women share some pictures. “Here you can see some women who visited from Córdoba and recorded a few radio spots. In this picture, we are on our trip to Córdoba. We visited Agua de Oro and stopped for a bite. This one is of our visit to Hersilia where we met other activists; we went around introducing ourselves and talked about agrochemicals and contaminants. Ana is the women in this picture, a Peruvian puppeteer who came to visit us. She told us about environmental defender Máxima and her work. In this picture, we’re at Las Grutas [Río Negro Province], where we attended the Second Congress of Indigenous Women and met our sisters from different ethnic groups. That was a truly beautiful experience. They face the same issues we have here and it’s nice to get together with others: you don’t feel so alone.”
When asked about the concerns they share with other Indigenous women, they mainly mention two: access to water and housing.

WATER, A VITAL RESOURCE
Tostado is on the border between Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero Province; it has a tropical climate with a dry season. In summer, temperatures can easily reach 45 degrees Celsius. The soil is dry with high salinity, which means little drinking water. “We have a cistern and drinking water is sent once a week but that’s not enough for all of us: two or three days later, we’re out. That’s why we needed to gather rainwater,” she explains proudly.

Through the support the women received under the Strengthening Environmental Defenders program, the Mapik women were able to organize meetings with other women and build a community rainwater catchment with their own hands. “My sister and I had done some construction before but the other women learned as we went along,” explains one of the women.

This catchment system has a capacity of 16,000 liters. “I am so proud of us: it was tiring but worth it,” explains one of the women in testimonies gathered in the Mapik magazine.

The magazine is another one of the group’s initiatives and is on its third edition. The Mapik have also organized workshops on radio broadcasting, poetry, music, integral sex education, reusing plastics and other topics.

The group’s first meetings were on the soccer field; later they began meeting at the house of one of the women’s uncles and then at the community center. Now they are planning to build their own center for their many activities.

Read more here.

Watch this video of the Mapik women resiting a poem in Moqoit: Palabras que ha sembrado el viento

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