Belén Sepúlveda, whose story was highlighted by President Alberto Fernández at the opening of the legislative sessions of Congress, said Thursday that the Cooperativa Auge de La Plata, where she works, “It changed her life” and “the neighborhood.”
She is 35 years old, she is a single mother, she was a victim of gender and she has three children: Ainara, 13; León, 11, and Sofia, 7.
In dialogue with Radio Télam, she pointed out that the cooperative located in the Cristo Rey neighborhood “changed her life” both for her “and for the neighborhood,” and explained that Your task is to help the electricity officer.
“I am the one who gets things for him. He taught me to put sockets, he taught me to put the keys, he taught me to put lights, to splice, thanks to him I learned a lot, if you send me to put a socket, I can calmly do it install,” he said.
“Life has changed me in everything, I am working close to my house, close to my children, I have a salary and we are repairing the houses in the neighborhood”, highlighted Belén.
He then remarked that in the neighborhood “there are very precarious houses” with “very precarious cables” and that, due to this situation, “many houses have been set on fire in previous years.”
“Thanks to the cooperative, if you want to turn on a light you can do it calmly, if you want to plug in something you know that it will not catch you. Everything is well installed and connected because we have good materials, protectors, and circuit breakers,” she highlighted.
Belén maintained that “you never have to give up”, and that “you always have to move on”.
She said that she managed to speak with Victoria Tolosa Paz when the Minister of Social Development was touring the neighborhood at a time when she was having a hard time, “economically and emotionally.”
“A while passed, the people from the Cooperative came and told me what project they were going to do in the neighborhood, and that I was inside. Imagine my happiness, of course, close to home, close to my children, a good salary, and more so doing something good for the neighborhood, such as lighting connections and security, ”she said.
The cooperative was created under the Early Works program of the Social and Urban Integration Secretariat of the Ministry of Social Development, thanks to the Solidarity and Extraordinary Contribution Law to great fortunes approved by Congress.
“I have worked on everything, I did everything in my life, I was not ashamed of anything and I never said no. My son León, for example, says ‘my mother is an electrician’. And I tell him: ‘no, Leo, I’m an electrician’s assistant. But he has many schoolmates who are neighbors and when I get home they say: ‘Oh, you’re León’s mother, the electrician. She gives me tenderness and pride,’” she described.
“When the President was talking about how the cooperative changed my life, it was like that. That’s why, at one point, I started crying because I said it was like that. It changed my life because at that moment I was having a hard time and where a cooperative appears it gives you a hand in everything”, he highlighted.
“There are many, many Belén, and they all have to know that it is possible, that there will always be someone who will listen to you. And that someone is going to give you that help as I received it thanks to the cooperative,” she explained with some effusiveness, adding that she wondered why “everything” happened to her while she waited for her children to go to bed “to cry.” .
“I had such a bad time, so bad, but my salvation came: joining the cooperative. Today my daughter likes to play ball, she asks me for some boots and I am going to buy them because now I can”, she asserted.
On the end of the opening of ordinary sessionsthe President stressed that Belén “works as an electrician’s assistant at the Cooperativa Auge, which seeks to solve installation problems in the homes of her neighbors,” and pointed out that she “was a victim of gender violence and had lost her job due to the physical and emotional conditions in those who were going to fulfill their task”.
Today, Belén’s life has changed for the better and she sees a horizon towards which to direct her dreams and efforts.
