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News & Documents |
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SUPPORT SERVICE FOR WOMEN 900 71 39 26 |
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MARÍA DE PADILLA: |
CREATING SPACES FOR 27 YEARS |
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Carmen Calvo Cirujano, Pizqui Pizqui was born in Toledo, where she lived most of her life. She was born in summer of 1949, within a middle class´ large family: María Dolores (teacher and educational inspector) and Juan (commercial agent) had nine children, of which seven brothers and sisters live today. In 1978, when Spanish people were trying to remove the burden of nearly half a century of dictatorship, she had three children to raise up. She was younger than thirty and began wasting generosity as a socio-cultural animator in various associations and in the streets of her town. She was always obsessed defending the weakest people, especially women. The Toledo neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, Palomarejos, Polígono and Reconquista were witnesses the beginning of a long march during which emerged the principle of equality, the idea of women and the need for solidarity. It was the beginning of a career proclaiming the dignity of women. In 1987 prompted and promoted women association "Maria de Padilla", which she coordinated the service until 2004 ... She didn´t left fighting, circumventing all kinds of difficulties. Pizqui wanted to transform her own time and the time for women, assuming commitments to change and emancipation in the closest environments, to generate a network that create hegemony in social changes that were necessary in society. So that violence could be eradicated sooner than later. She was a combative, courageous and vital women that never gave up breaking the chains - visible and invisible ones- to establish another compromised chain of solidarity, freedom and social transformation to lift women from traditional isolations across awareness so that women would be assuming by themselves a greater role as agents of change and transforming their own reality. We miss her. |
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In 80´s, a group of women decided to create a space for themselves to be recognized as women. The change whithin they wanted to do was projected in its immediate surroundings. In the words of Carmen Calvo Cirujano "Pizqui", the founder of the association, "women have to fight for their own liberation". Association´s purposes are: "All those who are aiming to achieve the comprehensive development of women, promoting the transformation of their traditional roles, with critical and participatory spirit, within a progressive design and releasing their situation, creating women's groups for this purpose". They understood that they had to break with the cultural and social roles that had marked his life until then. Then began to organize workshops and activities to train and get acknowledge: feminist culture, self-esteem, active listening, lectures, tertulia, drama, animation, relaxation, general culture, sexuality ... In that journey they observe the social changes occurring around them, especially the growing problem of buried violence and hidden within the walls of the family privacy. Among them, it began to emerge the certainty that they also suffered some form of violence and how custom and culture made them keep quiet and silence and prevented them from breaking the barriers they wanted to transfer. In December 1997, Ana Orantes, a battered woman from Granada, was burnt alive by her husband after recounting her story on TV. The spread of the incident through the media highlighted the plight of victims of gender violence in all its cruelty. This fact makes them question what is happening around them and begin to manifest itself in Zocodover Square (Toledo) every Tuesday against gender violence. In 1997, they operationalized a phone line to Assist Women with a Service 24 hours a day. Reality becomes evident when nearly 70% of the calls were from women victims of violence. In 1998 they produced a draft that was submitted to the Board of Communities of Castilla La Mancha, which becomes a Therapy Program, Care and Accompanying the women victims of gender violence which so far remains our trajectory. Our daily work is social awareness and support for women who suffer gender-based violence. Through our experience we have learned that women have a well of wisdom and we must create spaces where this wisdom emerges. |
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© 2004 Asociación de Mujeres "María de Padilla" de Toledo Phone number / Fax: 925 22 41 49/ mpadilla@nodo50.org |
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