Virginia Ayllon is Bolivian, Quecha on her father's side and Aymara on her mother's, grandmother's and great grandmother's side. She is a single mother with two young daughters to support and educate. She is a student leader at the University of San Andres, a librarian, half sociologist, and a literature student. One of her jobs is organising the university library specialised in literature. She is also an active feminist of the Women's Information and Development Center (CIDEM) where she looks after the Information and Documentation Center.

I must admit that as she was telling me about her life and all her present activities I had to laugh because, quite honestly, it is rationally impossible to imagine how she manages to do everything she does, simultaneously. Virginia is not the only one however. Women, and in particular, feminists have various jobs and a range of activities in addition to coping with the house, the children and taking care of themselves (of course!).

"Virginia, how did you come to work at CIDEM?

I began working with women when I was 17 in 1976. At about the same time I started work as a University representative in Sociology at the University of San Andres de La Paz. I became Vice-President of the National Student's Organisation and the first woman to hold a post in the governing body. I was also working for the Communist Party Women's Committee. I realised, however, that the main purpose of the Committee was to recruit women and provide a place in the party for the wives of the party officials.

As a result of the discriminatory attitude of the Committee, I began to create links with rural women. I think that was the one and only time they participated in the Youth Movement. It was my final effort because afterwards I gradually withdrew from the Committee.

Bolivian students have been integrated for a long time now into a system of co-government at the University, as guaranteed by the Constitution. This means that as a university leader I had a lot of work because the system entails participating in the creation of university policies and one hundred and one other jobs. All this prevented me from pursuing my career as a sociologist, so I studied librarianship. So, on the one hand I had my work with women and on the other that of documentation; that's how I ended up at CIDEM".

"What are CIDEM's principal activities?"

We have four areas of work with sectors of urban women. One is health; we have a consultancy unit which about fifteen women visit per day. For women in the more marginal regions we have a legal advisory service from which we gather a lot of information on violence.

At the moment however, one of our main priorities concerns food donations. We have succeeded in forming a National Committee of Food Donees whose motto for the second meeting held last October was; "Don't give me 5 a fish, give me a net to fish with."

"What are these food donations about?"

Bolivia has a total population of five million. There are currently one million women receiving food and donations from churches and foreign governments.

The political and economic crisis in Bolivia is acute. In 1982 Garcia Meza's dictatorship ended and Siles Suazo took over with great popular support. But his government was unable to respond to the basic needs of the population and inflation rocketed amongst various other misfortunes. Suazo was followed by Paz Estensoro in 1985 who promised to stop inflation. He succeeded but with an immense social cost.

Today there is 60 percent unemployment in the mines; this percentage also applies to education, public and financial administration, in factories; everywhere. It could be said that the whole of Bolivian society has been dismissed. All this has led to an enormous increase in prostitution and drug addiction which even affects 8-year old children.

The crisis provoked the donations by churches and foreign governments of basic foodstuffs like flour, milk, sugar, etc. The government took charge of the package and began to distribute to women only in exchange for very hard work.

"Why were women the only recipients?"

According to the Episcopate the contributions would seem to be linked to sterilization programs for women. We are looking into this at the moment but as yet we cannot confirm it in all certainty. Anyway, that is why the National Donees Committee is so important.

"What are the other concerns of CIDEM?"

In addition to those I've already told you about, we have an information, documentation and research center where I also work. At the moment we are doing research on the history of women in Bolivia. We are just finishing the study of this century and starting on last century.

We are also setting up an oral and audio-visual archive. In 1985 we published a bibliography on women from 1920 to 1985 inclusive. We published another book called 'Woman-An Illusion' and a video called 'Intensos Fulgores'.

In the middle of all this work I had my children, who reconciled me with life. I didn't marry because I think marriage is a great, ugly trap for women. "

"What would you like for yourself and Bolivian women?"

I would like us to recover our potential, to recuperate our moral strength which is sapped away when there is a social depression which in turn is personally depressing.

My separation three months ago has also affected me. I am under pressure in order to be able to feed my children and I very much regret not being able to spend more time with them. On the other hand I'm still a student leader and since it was they who trained me I have a responsibility to them.

Source: Mujeres in Accioit, No. 14 fsis Intemacional Casilla 2067, Correo Central Santiago, Chile