Since 2010, ElectricAid has had a strong funding partnership with Madre Tierra, an award-winning NGO in Buenos Aires, which promotes the rights and helps the lives of people in informal barrios at the edge of the metropolis. These people are either incomers from rural poverty or those displaced by development from the centre of the city. These new barrios can be up to 60 km from the urban centre. Madre Tierra helps with layout design, co-operative building, land title issues, and connection to services – and with the vindication of basic human rights to shelter and dignity.
Madre Tierra came very well recommended to ElectricAid – by the former Ambassador of Ireland to Argentina, no less. Our then chairman, John Kelly, visited Madre Tierra in 2012, when in Argentina on holiday. The relationship was further cemented when we received a return visit from Madre Tierra members, who made a memorable presentation to the ElectricAid Committee in 2015.
We have funded Madre Tierra 3 times with a total of €26,000, capitalising revolving funds to enable connections to the basics of urban life. Our first funding was for electrical rehabilitation and connection, our second for drilling wells, and our third was for connections to the urban gas grid. These funds continue to be repaid and revolved, allowing more barrio households access the basic nuts & bolts of urban life. Madre Tierra’s latest application, for decision in our March 2018 round, is for public lighting interventions, with a particular eye on the safety of women and children.
This partnership, and the relatively-modest level of targeted funding, underlines ElectricAid’s commitment to the lives and dignity of the marginalised, the excluded, the under-served – whether in Argentina, Athenry, or Afghanistan.
Read John Kelly’s report on his visit to Madre Tierra here: JK Visit 2014 madre-tierra-visit and see our funding history with Madre Tierra here: Funding History Feb 2018
electricaid.ie 