When asked how many times she’s been arrested as an activist Patricia Coñoman Carrillo shrugs her shoulders. She’s never counted. It’s part of her work as a Chilean union activist and leader defending labour rights, particularly in the textile sector, for nearly 50 years. The hardship she has faced is hard to fathom. When she and...
A tragic fire in a textile sweatshop fueled an Argentinian workers’ movement to form co-operatives and obtain legal rights. Epifania “Fanny” Espinola Garcia well remembers that electrical fire in March 2006 that killed five children and a pregnant woman who worked and lived under appalling conditions. At the time, Fanny’s working conditions as a home-based textile...
Activism is Tatiana Venus Rojas Orellana’s birthright. Her grandfather was a union activist in mining, her mother, a skillful vendor, spoke out for human rights and raised Tatiana to be an activist. “She wouldn’t teach me how to cook or anything,” said Tatiana, with a engaging grin. Beginning with her university student union during the Chilean...
Carlos Mariani doesn’t need the income for his work as an artisan, but he depends on it for survival. As a recovered alcoholic, 65-year-old Carlos needs meaningful work to occupy his hands and mind, and fill his days. So, when his wife goes to work, Carlos heads down two floors from his apartment near São...
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