WEBVTT

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A few days after the 1985 earthquake
in Mexico City,

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while I was among the boxes
of basic goods and foods

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from all over the world,

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and while we were preparing
these bags with provisions

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that would later be given out,

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I chose to emigrate.

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I didn't require a lot:

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A place to hide from bad luck

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out of my daughters' reach.

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I thought of migration as a solution

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not a problem.

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6 years went by before I could leave

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this much loved but terrible city

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the Federal District, Mexico City.

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It wasn't terrible just
for the tremors, well by then,

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it was already the worst place
for assault,

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for car theft,

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express kidnapping made it's debut

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and I needed to escape.

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Leaving meant leaving this all behind,

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but also leaving everything.

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When we arrived in Cancun,

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my husband's family,

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a beautiful family, happy, supportive,

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offered us a house

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in the neighbourhood
Vicente Lombardo Toledano

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and we settled in there.

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I don't remember why but,
now that I think back,

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I feel like it rained all the time.

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My Mexico City daughters and I

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felt like we were in the tropics
and we went out

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to play in the puddles
and gather up the turkeys

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until we realised

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that the rain water was mixing

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with sewage water.

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I sold shawls in the hotel district.

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When I saw the sewing machine,

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this beautiful thing my elderly mother
had given to me with her furniture,

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it came out in the move,

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as I thought it would be great
as decoration

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in my new house in Cancun.

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I went from civil engineer to seamstress.

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A little after that,

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they needed a maths teacher

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and well, there I was,

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a little bit closer
to what I knew how to do

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and not just to what I had learned

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but what my father had taught me,

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because he had always been
a maths teacher.

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Shortly after that they needed
a construction teacher

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and, of course there I came even closer

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to my profession.

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So I quit drawing out shawls in material

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to sit down once again
to drawing out on the drafting table.

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The friendships that we were building
during this period told us invariably,

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"No, Cancun no longer has
the sea of opportunities,

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that came before the hurricane."

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Those were opportunities!

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I thought to myself, "No, of course not,

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the opportunities are here,

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here we will build opportunities."

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I realised that the word emigrant
applies to anything that arrived after me

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and that the characteristics
of this condition

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to which I belong,

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are resistance, persistence.

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I didn't come to hurt anyone.

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Already being in the academic field

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knowing a bit of maths,

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statistics and being in the middle,

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I was offered to form an association --

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the Social and Domestic
Violence Association --

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from the ground up.

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This didn't exist in the country,

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and a little later on,

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coordinate the local Urban Association.

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This allowed me to sort of integrate

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two parts of my life,

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one was theoretical work,
the academic work,

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research, numbers,

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big databases,

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and the other that I
didn't want to give up,

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was my ability, my longing,

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to meet people.

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Not just to see their faces,

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but to offer my own.

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And being in this place,

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already allowed me to integrate

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what is my true calling.

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That has allowed me to get to know people

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there's lot of figures too,
but also meet people.

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For example, Eliza.

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Eliza comes from Las Margaritas, Chiapas,

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she has two sons.

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Her dream, what she calls happiness

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is for them to go to primary school,

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all clean, well groomed, well fed,

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doing homework, following the rules;

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this for her is happiness.

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She won't let them be like her.

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Eliza told me how when she was younger

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she received an average
of three men a night

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and now that she is older,

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the average has risen to six.

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She is scared because

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she thinks she has HIV.

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When I ask her if she has sat and thought

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about the possible transmission
to all these men

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and them in turn to
all their other partners,

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she turned to me quickly and said

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that she was also worried about her sons

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and due to her possible absence,

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she has to worry for a whole army.

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She didn't come to hurt anyone.

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And in this way, she is like Geovanna,
who tells me off when I say

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"Hey, Yoana,"... she says, "Geovanna."

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Geovanna decided to get pregnant

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when she was 14 years old.

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It was the only way she could leave
the house of her biological father

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who abused her

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and what hurt her most,
was her mother's silence.

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As she had raised
her three younger brothers

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it didn't seem like a big deal to her

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make her own and raise it.

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She knew that she needed a man, as she

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needed someone to provide for her

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and give her a house.

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She didn't finish school,

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she assumed nobody would give her a job.

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She has two sons and a daughter,

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each of them is a failed attempt

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at keeping a man.

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This is why she came to Tabasco,

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because she has faith

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in what she will find there,

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that they will register them,

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they will say her name, as she says it,

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they will give her a house,

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they will give her something to eat
and so, she will be

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very happy here in Cancun.

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She has no idea that

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that could hurt anyone.

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Being in the Association,
seeing these stories

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analyzing the figures.

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Finding myself, not with statistics,

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of point zero, zero, zero but with people,

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has allowed me, in any case,

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to make like a map,

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like a representation of the city.

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What is there in the city?

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What opportunities does the city
offer to these women?

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What decisions can they take?

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Because I have real trouble thinking

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that they made these decisions

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faced with a wide range of possibilities.

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But what possibilities does
the city really offer?

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The people that can't be of use
to a city's services are unreported.

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The sons of Geovanna are unregistered,

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they have no medical card,
they can't be vaccinated

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they can't go to school,

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they have no identity,
they are unreported.

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These people that have
no drinking water at home,

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these entire neighbourhoods that

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have to turn off the light,
so that on nights

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with this heat, they can have a tiny fan,

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are unreported in the public services.

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To enter the city,

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to become part of the city,

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to get to know how the city moves,

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what there is, what there is not,
how to get,

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how to make use of such services,
and know where each thing is,

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a support network is needed.

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I had my family,
but it's not like that for everyone.

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A support network tells you
where everything in the city is.

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It also gives you signs of hope.

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A support network
gives you a sense of security

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so that you don't fall down,

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but if you do fall,
the hit will not be fatal.

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Who does this here in Cancun?

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Well, there is an organisation
called Huellas de Pan,

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which gives food to girls and boys
whose parents can't afford to.

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And not just children,

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if an adult today, like many,

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like many times,
wakes up with nothing to eat

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they can go to Huellas de Pan,
where they will find a delicious meal.

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The organisation
Hands for Support and Life

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is defined as --

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they say that each step they take,

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they find an abandoned youngster

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and then they lead them to comfort spaces,

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like helping them to complete high school,

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become part of a team,

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walk away from addictions.

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These organisations

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set signs, teach,

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like the Cancun Choir,

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Plant for the Planet,

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and many other organisations and programs,

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such as Communitary Bond
from the Caribbean University

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that not only cares for today's
urgent need

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to have food to eat,

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but also the urgent need

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to play an instrument,

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to learn how to read to express ideas,

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how to write to express ideas,

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to express themselves with their bodies.

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Yes, what we do at the Observatory

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is to decode figures,
analyze large databases,

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make representations of the city.

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Who does what? Who needs what?

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Where is which service?

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How do phenomena move around the city?

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But when I see those representations

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I feel part of them,

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I feel I'm an actor in that representation

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but to do it, to truly act out

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I have discovered I must re-found myself,

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I need to re-found my relationships.

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How do you achieve this?

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I take the subsidiarity principle
or the first Christians.

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The principle of subsidiarity states

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that everything one could do on their own,

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with their own strength

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must not be transferred to another sphere.

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The principle of subsidiarity,

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help me to remember them, evoke them,

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was created by the Christians

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from the catacombs, chased,

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poor, unattached families, impoverished,

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they had their leader cruelly killed

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and what they did was take action

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within that small space they could,

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within the small space remaining

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and they took action to solve
the problems they were facing,

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what needed to be done in that moment.

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They had to do it
because letting others do it

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would have been suicidal.

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And it was working together

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with what they had, that is,

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with willingness, with
intelligence, with their heart,

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that they re-founded themselves.

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This is migrating to me.

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It is leaving behind all you know,

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carrying out a re-founding process

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using your compassion,

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the ability to feel with others.

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"I am an immigrant, and
wish to continue being one.

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Let's not leave that immigrant category,

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because the strength,

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the insistence

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the ability to persevere,

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the physical endurance,
the emotional strength,

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the mental strength are the tools

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that make way to hope

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for others,

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for us

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(Applause)