“Even a vacant lot can become a garden”. With that hopeful message ends the emotional video that the sociocultural association La Vida es Zuaina has made, to give visibility to the situation that the Argana Alta neighborhood has been experiencing “for a long time” and also to “show the greatness and humanity of its people.”
The association has been developing street education projects since 2015 to promote integration, and for this video it has had the collaboration of the young people of the neighborhood themselves, as well as the work of Chago de León and Candy García.
“We are more than 10,000 people and more than 3,000 young people living here”, begins a childish voice-over full of tenderness. “The parks barely have swings and if they have them, they barely work”, “there are no courts to play or do some sport”, “my friend María does not have Internet at home and since there is no library, she cannot do her homework from school, and that makes it quite difficult for her”, she narrates while images of the neighborhood follow one another.
In addition, the video emphasizes another of the problems that this association is trying to combat: “Many young people have stopped studying and are on the street all day with nothing to do.”
To this they add the situation of broken and neglected streets and sidewalks, where “older people cannot walk safely”, and in general the lack of any type of activity, despite the fact that the neighborhood concentrates one sixth of the population of the island's capital and is very isolated from the center.
“But in my neighborhood, we are colorful. We are colorful seeds”, adds the same voice when placing hope in the future of Argana Alta. “When they give us opportunities, they water us, they take care of us, they look at us, they listen to us, they assist us, they understand us, they show us that we are important and that we are worth... we flourish. We become beautiful gardens”, the video concludes.
That, precisely, is what the La Vida es Zuaina association has been trying to do for six years, which has also wanted to thank “everyone who believes in it.”
