Opinion Sur Joven

Villa 31 is one of the most famous slums in the city of Buenos Aires. It is worth to mention that, in Argentina, the words “villa” or “villa miseria” refer to shanty towns or slums. They are similar to Brazilian favelas, and mostly settled on misappropriated state land (which at some point were uninhabited), where several families gradually build small neighborhoods without any sort of state authorization: their inhabitants don’t pay taxes and have no access to basic services (such as fresh water), and villas are also considered to be significant sources of crime.

Villa 31 -including Villa 31 “bis”- has approximately 30,000 inhabitants, and we could easily say it’s simply another district in the city of Buenos Aires.

It’s one of the best known villas in Argentina… perhaps due to its geographic location, perhaps due to its history. Villas are neglected areas that Buenos Aires inhabitants many times look down on. Notwithstanding its fragile conditions, the neighborhood has an intense social life, lots of commercial activity and different streets where rivers of people flow on rush hours. In terms of real estate, it’s located in a very expensive location, surrounded by the city’s main bus station and just a few minutes away from Argentina’s official residence.

Impressive skyscrapers and even the Sheraton Hotel’s tower can be seen from inside the slum. For some people, Villa 31 is the neighborhood they’ll never want to leave; for others, it’s a scary place to watch from a distance. This controversial place in Buenos Aires hosts a female football team since 2005. It’s a space for sports and friendship placed at the famous court on “The Avenue” (La Avenida) of Villa 31.

Football, a passion of the masses

Project Goals for Girls was founded by Allison Lasser, who started it in 2005. In 2007 she went back to her hometown, the US, to find a way to continue with the project. That’s why she founded an NGO in San Francisco -called Soccer for Success-; she managed to obtain small donations and became a partner of the Argentine organization Democracia Representativa (Representative Democracy). “The NGO took on the project in 2007 and has since ruled all actions. They hire staff, develop new aspects of the project, manage its fund-raising activities and try to expand and multiply similar projects”, says Hugo Pasarello Luna, operational coordinator of the program.

Monica Santino is 43 years old and was a registered football player until 1999. Today she coordinates the female football team at Villa 31, formed by twenty girls aged between 12 and 17 who gather at the court on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Monica is very experienced at football and her physical conditions are outstanding. She’s skilled and very charismatic, which makes the girls respect her and listen to her when she speaks. Without raising her voice, she can deliver a clear and simple message, both at training sessions and while the girls play. And what role model would be possibly better than a sportswoman who loves what she does and is mature enough to pass on to these girls her passion for this sport just when they start going though adolescence.

Life lessons such as “anger puts me out of the game” or “I’m here to play, not to fight”, said within the context of a half-time, are strong enough to be applied in a ruled and experiential situation and learned by the girls. They’re nothing like empty phrases such as “Say no to violence” or “Playing comes first”. The girls listen to her and slowly calm down.

Smells like teen spirit

On Fridays, a social psychologist adds to the team. The idea is to take advantage of football to approach other issues that affect them personally.

Social psychologist Liliana Cura joins Monica during training sessions once a week. Her job is to deal with matters that are very common in the villa and that, maybe, without football would never be dealt with: domestic violence, discrimination, sexuality… These issues affect the girls every day and are usually considered to be taboos.

Liliana attends the training sessions, brings something to eat and tries to approach the girls slowly, until they treat her like one of them. Although the girls don’t always resort to her, she reminds them that she’s there for them, and she acts as a fuse in personal conflicts. “Their problems are usually related to family, themselves, new relationships, school or even the same team. And that’s when they give me the opportunity to analyze with them a non-violent solution for the conflict”, she says. Sometimes Liliana goes to their homes to talk to their parents and help them with their everyday lives.

Discriminating and being discriminated

Just as the entire Argentine society pejoratively treats slum inhabitants as “villeros”, there’s discrimination within Villa 31 as well. Not even close to having a homogeneous population, this district hosts very different communities, such Paraguayans, Bolivians, Peruvians and Argentines from different regions of the country. They have “social classes” and discrimination as well.

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, said -almost like an axiom- that what’s passively experienced is repeated many times in an active manner. For instance, this means that people who feel discriminated will then tend to discriminate others. And Villa 31 is not an exception.

Liliana tells us that, on the one hand, the girls who attend private religious chools outside the villa complain about being discriminated by their schoolmates for living in a slum. “They may suffer verbal discrimination or be excluded from activities, or be left aside when it comes to relating to boys. Their relationship partners will be from here. It’s hard for them to imagine a partner being from outside”, Liliana explains.

Despite they suffer discrimination, inside the villa they discriminate Bolivians and Paraguayans. Liliana tries to mediate in these conflicts and give the girls tools to solve them.

A replicable project

This project shows there’s a lot to do to include and integrate young people from different geographic, economic or cultural sectors. We can learn from sports many things we’re not always taught at school or at home: competing against strangers, having a group to belong to, developing our bodies healthily and taking care of them, among others.

Getting interesting results through sports doesn’t always involve multimillion-dollar projects. Getting to know and supporting these types of programs is important for us to grow and to strengthen our adolescents, as well as the entire society.