Violeta Parra Cultural Group of Villa La Reina celebrates its 44th anniversary

Along with celebrating its anniversary this Saturday, the group, located in the emblematic town of Villa La Reina, will also participate during the commemoration of Heritage Day at the Simón Bolívar Memorial Barracks. The group is defined as a social organization that works for free access to culture and greater social justice for neighbors. “Our space is available for any group that wants to develop cultural and social activities. Collaborations and links are also made with other groups in the commune,” said its president, Sabina Sepúlveda. A story of self-management, dignity and promotion of popular art.

Ursula Fuentes Rivera. Journalist. “The Century”. Santiago. 24/5/2024. A day of celebration and fraternization will be celebrated this Saturday, May 25, by the Violeta Parra Cultural Group of the commune of La Reina, commemorating its 44th anniversary as a social organization that works for free access to culture and greater social justice for residents and neighbors of Villa La Reina, an emblematic town located at the end of the 1960s on the mountain slopes of the eastern sector of Santiago and which constitutes the first experience of assisted self-construction in Chile and Latin America.

It is worth mentioning that the architect and person responsible for the housing project was the mayor at the time, Fernando Castillo Velasco, who supported the residents to put their knowledge, effort and organizational skills at their disposal to build 1,620 homes with their own hands on a 70-hectare plot of land ceded by law. This self-construction initiative, which lasted three years, not only included the construction of houses for 2,000 families, but also other facilities, such as a school, built in the first year, and commercial areas. These community spaces were located next to Larraín Avenue – now Fernando Castillo Velasco Avenue, the main street of the La Reina commune – as access doors to the village, with the aim of having a better relationship between the neighborhood and the city, thus avoiding the “marginalization of the poor to the periphery,” according to Castillo Velasco in his memoirs.

Regarding the anniversary of the Violeta Parra Cultural Group, its president, Sabina Sepúlveda, pointed out ElSiglo.cl that the commemoration of the 44 years of life of this organization will take place from 7 p.m. at its headquarters located at 425 Quinchamalí Street, Villa La Reina. “We will hold a celebration open to the neighbors, our collaborators and friends from groups from other communes who want to share with us in a Chingana where there will be music, poetry, sailed wine and sopaipillas with pebre to taste fraternally,” invited the leader.

According to her, the Violeta Parra Group was founded on May 21, 1980, in the midst of the dictatorship, under the auspices of the San Juan Bautista parish in Villa La Reina. “At that time, it was another Catholic church, not the one we have today. It was a church that cared about the community and human rights, the hunger that existed in the population and unemployment. In that parish, a communal pot was made, workshops were held and there was a job exchange, in addition to the activities carried out by religious communities, such as catechism and youth missionaries. In that space, the entire community of Villa La Reina came together, not only the religious communities, but also the social organizations of the neighborhood,” said Sabina Sepúlveda.

“In 1980, a group of young people who worked for human rights and carried out activities for the children of the town founded the Violeta Parra Cultural Group, in response to the need to build a community, to fill gaps, to share and to confront the media isolation in which we lived during the dictatorship, where we only received the information given to us on television. So, we met in the San Juan Bautista parish until 1988, when they asked us to stop occupying the hall where we met, because after the plebiscite, when democracy was coming, they changed the priests, which led to the entire organization of the parish changing as well,” she recalled.

For several years the Violeta Parra Cultural Group was itinerant. Its members met and carried out sociocultural activities in residents’ houses or in homes that functioned as the headquarters of the neighborhood council. It also worked in the Social Participation Center of La Reina, but later this place was transformed into the health clinic (Cesfam) of Villa La Reina, so once again the Group was left without a place to meet, having to carry out its activities on the street or in the squares of the sector.

In 2008, this organization began to manage its own headquarters and since then it has operated at 425 Quinchamalí Street. At that time, the members of the Violeta Parra group implemented a “book loan,” which was the genesis of the current popular library that has the grouping in the neighborhood. “We went every Sunday to lend books at the fair, but when we started to have a lot of texts and it was difficult for us to move them, we made the decision to look for a permanent place to set up our headquarters and we rented a house that we paid for through self-management. With the contribution of the neighbors and with the sale of lunch on the first Sunday of each month, we managed to pay the rent and cover expenses,” said the president of the Group Violeta Parra.

Likewise, he highlighted that the voluntary work carried out by the members and active partners of this organization – made up of young people, adults, workers, university students, homeowners and workers – is done “from the heart, resisting the neoliberal model, given that we are self-managed and that has an extra value, because we can do the activities that interest us, put the content we want without being scheduled and lend our headquarters to the neighbors who need to meet. However, this requires a super big sacrifice for those of us who actively participate, because on the first Sunday of each month we must be there, preparing and selling lunches, generally fried fish with rice or another addition plus salad, and thus raise funds. There are people who take their lunch home and others have lunch with us at the headquarters, so this event also becomes a day to share and fraternize,” said Sepúlveda.

Major milestones and Heritage Day at the Simón Bolívar Memorial Barracks

For the leader, one of the main efforts carried out by the Violeta Parra Cultural Group was to promote and raise the commemoration and celebration of the anniversary of Villa La Reina, which this year 2024 turns 58 years old. Since 2008, the birth and self-construction of this population has been commemorated on the last Saturday of August. The first anniversaries were organized by the Violeta Parra Group, but now this work is carried out jointly with other organizations in the neighborhood and with participating neighbors.

“It is something that brings together the entire population. It is celebrated with the presentation of musical bands on a central stage, with parades, batucada and activities for girls and boys,” reported Sabina Sepúlveda, adding that “the history of our neighborhood is very beautiful and we always try to keep in mind the history of self-construction, because our parents and grandparents came here and built their homes with their own hands in a collective effort and that is a source of pride.”

“Another great task we carried out was to set up the public library in Villa La Reina, which, before the pandemic, loaned 50 books every Sunday. Now the number of requests for loans has decreased a little, so the library is only open one Sunday a month, although it also works on other days because if someone needs a book, they can also request it on a WhatsApp number that we have. There we coordinate and deliver the text and schedule the date of its return,” he said.

Another milestone highlighted by the president of the Cultural Group Violeta Parra is the participation of this organization in the team that promoted the construction of the Simón Bolívar Barracks Memorial (torture and extermination center of the dictatorship located in the commune of La Reina and also known as Lautaro Barracks). “For the Violeta Parra Cultural Group this was and continues to be very significant, because it is necessary not to forget and vindicate the memory of so many Chileans who fell and disappeared during the dictatorship,” she stated.

It should be noted that this May 25 and 26, Heritage Day is commemorated at the national level and the Violeta Parra Cultural Group will participate in the “Peñalolén and La Reina Memory Route” circuit, receiving people who visit the Cuartel memorial Simon Bolivar.

This tour through history and memory will take place from 11 a.m. by bus that will pass through Villa Grimaldi, continuing through the Simón Bolívar Barracks Memorial and the Tobalaba airfield (sites that were part of the so-called “Triangle of Death”), and then through the Memorial to the Martyrs of Peñalolén in the town of Lo Hermida, leaving at the Grecia Metro station. The communities of the territory associated with the recovery and enhancement of places and sites of memory will participate in this activity, including the Violeta Parra Cultural Group.

Those who wish to take part in this heritage tour must register. Places are limited.

Workshops and activities for the community

Regarding activities developed by the Violeta Parra Group, in the 90s it organized several communal festivals, such as the Víctor Jara Festival and the Violeta Parra Festival, as well as alternative festivals.

Currently, there is a group at its headquarters that helps and advises immigrants who live in Villa La Reina and for two years they have been holding a burlap workshop called “Embroidery the Body”, made up of women from the sector.

“Our space is available for any group that wants to develop cultural and social activities. We also make collaborations and links with other groups in the commune,” said the leader, who also highlighted the work that the Violeta Parra Group did together in 2022 and 2023 with two theater companies, bringing street theater to the population, in three days each year.

“This year we plan to work with another company called La Célula, which also functions as a cultural center, to hold theater workshops in our community. And we are evaluating a neighbor’s proposal to hold a literary workshop,” he said.