WEBVTT

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Every day I work with a team of people

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that make the impossible happen.

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To make the tail of a blue whale

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stick out of the window
of one of the most iconic buildings

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in Buenos Aires.

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To make the girls in my country
want to be like Juana Azurduy,

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a heroine of the 
Latin American independence.

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To make snow fall inside a huge theater

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over boys and girls 
who had never seen snowing.

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To make whole families 
come together in front of a screen

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to learn about the number pi,

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about Plato's Myth of the Cave,

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or about the history 
of state-sponsored terrorism

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with the same interest they used to watch
an entertainment show before.

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Things that seemed impossible yesterday
are transformations today.

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In my office
at the Centro Cultural Kirchner,

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a space dedicated to art and culture,
I have a window.

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From there, I invite those
who visit me to look out with me.

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That window, for the sky, 
reminds me of my childhood.

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I'm from San Luis.

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There you can see the most pristine skies 
and the most beautiful clouds.

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The first time I looked 
I was not aware of that.

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I grew up in a house that
was school as well.

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A "school home" run by my mom.

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When I was a girl, from my window 
I'd look at the yard and see a slide.

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That yard, as well, 
was the school's playground.

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And the slide wasn't just mine,

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it was the slide
of a lot of boys and girls.

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If I went out into the yard and looked 
inside I'd see my house.

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But there were also chalks, games, desks.

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What for others was just a blackboard,

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for me, it meant the afternoon 
when we had hung it.

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All the time I witnessed 
a set of actions

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supported mostly by women: 
mothers, grandmothers, janitors,

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the best managers of getting things done.

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For me, learning, playing, doing, 
was always in community.

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Although at a time of the day 
my house-school ran out of people,

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in that empty space I knew 
that everything was going to happen again

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and that the next day my house 
would become something else

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thanks to the work of all the people
that made the school possible.

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I didn't know this at the time,

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but as a child, I learned to look 
at reality in a different way.

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I understood it many years later
when I was called to think about

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creating Canal Encuentro,
as part of an educational project.

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A public television channel.

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Many of us who started with the channel

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weren't from the capital of the country.

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We were coming 
from different provinces:

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San Luis, Cordoba, Salta, Misiones.

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And our vision came with us.

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What we achieved with the team
of Encuentro, mostly women,

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was to transform educational television 
through those visions.

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We created a screen in which each region 
could display their own story.

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We were used to watching
boring documentaries,

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that were zero engaging,

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with hosts who didn't talk
like Argentineans,

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with images from other countries.

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In Canal Encuentro we started
to show the face of the teachers

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and the kids who were attending a school
in Santiago del Estero,

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or a rural school 
in Barranqueras, Chaco.

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Or a kindergarten in Alumine, Neuquen.

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In half-hour episodes 
we help dignify crafts and trades.

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We teach how to lay tiles,

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work on a Criollo loom,

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install thermal switches, 
and design trousers.

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We teach philosophy through music.

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And music with Encuentro in the studio.

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And science with closeness.

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A new way to do and watch TV
was being born.

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New content, new ways.

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The channel won prestige and 
the recognition of the audience.

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Soon afterward, Encuentro managed 
to turn public audiovisual production

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into a tool for raising
appreciation and inclusion.

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Showing another possible image 
of this that we are as a nation.

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Something had changed in Argentina

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in the conception of public policy

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and that transformation 
was also happening on TV.

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They were years of huge energy, 
of great learning,

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of a great work synergy 
and collective creation

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that allowed us to produce 
quality content.

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Thanks to Encuentro 
we could create another channel.

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This time for children: PakaPaka.

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PakaPaka, the power of imagination,

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was the result of the work 
of many, highly talented people.

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Producers, educators, 
screenwriters, performers,

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cartoonists, editors, animators, 
public workers.

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In this project,

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we focused on three privileged areas
for transformation:

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childhood, education and culture.

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We put the kids at the center.

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The secret was that, 
from the public space, from the state,

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and from an educational project,

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we worked every day 
producing for inclusion,

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educating for equality,

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and providing access 
to quality content.

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A few years later, I was able to take
to San Luis all that experience.

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That's how Juan and Pascual were born, 
two animated characters, twins,

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who talked like me,
eat watermelon like me,

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have siesta,

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and are friends with a squirting wind 
that blows very hard.

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From this cross-platform project 
Juan and Pascual

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made our boys and girls
from San Luis

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learn from their own experience,

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with the landscapes, the history,
and the skies that surround them.

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All this seemed impossible.

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Creation through art and culture
can lead to collective transformation.

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It's not about personal talent.

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What I learned at my home-school 
when I was a child, marked my way.

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I would look at the empty space

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and I knew that this space 
could be transformed again.

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Thanks to that community of women

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I learned that when a team of people

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works with conviction and commitment

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the impossible becomes possible.

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Since the pandemic arrived to Argentina,

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I go to work every day 
to the Centro Cultural Kirchner.

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Today, where the whale came out
through the window, is empty.

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It lacks their culture workers,

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the visitors, the artists, the community.

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I look through that window 
and I see a city in pause.

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In pause, I go back to my life.

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I repeat all the time the same action 
for as long as I can remember

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as if I were a camera myself.

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I see those who surrounded me 
in that house, in that yard,

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those who had to have a place
in TV productions

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that were until then denied.

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Those who teamed up with me 
and made it possible.

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My job is to look at others 
see their potential,

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that spark that turns them on, 
the one we get together

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and from where we build together.

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This empty space presents us 
a new opportunity,

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a unique challenge to make, to create.

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Once again we can 
make the impossible possible.

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Let's build a future full of encounters

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with new stories told in our voices,

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let's transform reality again,

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being freer, closer, more humane.