Episode 1: Reclaiming community spaces with Dulce del Río Pineda

9 Minutos con 9 Millones is a podcast that offers a shot of hope that is fast but has a long-lasting effect. In 9 minutes, we summarize part of our reporting, so you can learn about the people who are designing solutions for the problems that Puerto Ricans are facing on the archipelago and abroad.

TRANSCRIPTION

[Music track]

LAURA: Welcome to 9 Minutes with 9 Millones: your shot of hope.

This is Laura M. Quintero, journalist and editor at 9 Millones, a media outlet that connects the people who seek structural changes through solutions stories.

In 17 years, the Puerto Rico Department of Education has closed almost 700 public schools, mostly in rural and low-income areas. Rescuing these spaces is a strategy that several organizations have been using to provide common spaces amidst neglect.

One of these organizations is Mujeres de Islas (in English, Women of the Islands), based in Culebra.

Dulce del Río Pineda is a co-founder of this organization and one of the women featured in Madres de la Tierra, a series we did on women leading environmental justice movements in Puerto Rico. Dulce spoke with 9 Millones about the importance of reclaiming spaces and dreaming in community.

Journalist Camille Padilla Dalmau was with her in Culebra, and tells us her story.

[Ocean waves]

CAMILLE: A short walk away from the Culebra pier is the Sede de Experiencias Vivas de Aprendizaje (Center of Live Learning Experiences, in English), better known as SEVA. As you enter, the first thing you notice is the large amount of vegetation: a passionfruit vine stands out on the fence, followed by a row of plantain and banana trees.

[Sound of chickens]

The chickens and the breeze welcome you to an open space, with patio furniture, where conversations of food sovereignty and community organizing are abundant. There, Dulce welcomes us in a yellow linen dress.

Dulce was born in Havana, Cuba and raised in San Juan. At 23 years old, she came to Culebra as a counselor for the non-profit organization Apoyo a Padres de Niños con Impedimentos (Support for Parents of Children with Disabilities). Her job was to inform families about the class action lawsuit for Special Education students, initiated by Rosa Lydia Velez, but the community ended up teaching her...

DULCE: I am a woman who, well… I like to see results. So, I quickly organized the families, and we go  talk to lawyer Omar Jiménez. And we all organized ourselves to go see him, to go see Judge Perez Jimenez, and we are going to demand rights for our children in Culebra. And you know what? We got on the ferry, which has always been a disaster, and now it's worse. Four families with young children, three-year-old preschoolers with significant conditions. When I say that, I mean with significant cerebral palsy, with severe autism, with multiple conditions, and with the four of them I got in the car in Fajardo, because we arrived in Fajardo, and we left for the court. And do you know what happened in court?

What happens to us often: the judge was not there. For reasons that, for him, I imagine were important, and I was.... I said, "but this is intolerable! This has to be denounced". And the family, that day I learned.... Look, I still get goose bumps if you watch me. Because they taught me that no, that this is not the way, because if you do that in Culebra, you won't last. You have to learn how to transform that into more effective strategies. So these families, and I don't know if they remember it or not, they taught me what community work is, and that is to listen to the community, because they know how to do it.

CAMILLE: Dulce stayed in Culebra as a special education teacher. In 2011, she co-founded Mujeres de Islas, an organization dedicated to educating Culebrenses to promote sustainable development. When I interviewed her, we met at the old school in Vieques where she taught her first classes...

DULCE: This space was created by the working hands of our community. Imagine a place where there is no cement machine, so the cement is carried, it is dragged by pulleys from a Jeep to pull that cement and throw it into the molds, etcetera. So, little by little, this school was built.

CAMILLE: But the government closed the school in 2013. It was abandoned and vandalized; the books and desks were left lying on the floor.

​​In 2010, several women in Culebra had begun meeting to dream about what they wanted to offer to their community. The following year, they formally formed Mujeres de Islas.

By the time the school closed, the collective was looking for a place to settle and meet. In 2014, they asked the municipality for permission to use a room in the old school. They began cleaning, gardening and fixing it up.

DULCE: These spaces that we are rescuing, it is not because we want more space; no, they are our community's spaces. They are the spaces that have always belonged to our community.

CAMILLE: What was once the classroom where Dulce first taught became the office of Mujeres de Islas. There, they managed the Siembra Project, which promotes food and nutritional security for the people of Culebra through education and sustainable agriculture.

DULCE: We have four pillars. One of our pillars is a culture of peace. Another one is sustainability; the other one is respect and recognition and appreciation of our natural and cultural heritage, and the last one is transformative education. They are all intertwined; it is not that there is one and then there is another one, but transformative education is based on the fact that, in order for a human being to value and recognize the value that they have in their community, that environment, that ecology, they have to become part of it. They have to know it.

CAMILLE: For a decade, the Siembra Project has encompassed different initiatives, ranging from organizing farmers' markets to offering groceries in solidarity during the pandemic.

For Dulce, rescuing  spaces allows them not only to dream big, but to make these dreams come true.

DULCE: Rescuing these spaces is what will allow us to survive in our Puerto Rico, right? In the Puerto Rico that I know many of us want. It is a Puerto Rico with Puerto Ricans, it is a Puerto Rico that Puerto Ricans lead, and it is a Puerto Rico that our young people aspire to live in. So I believe that this reclamation allows us to have that dream.

CAMILLE: In recent years, we have witnessed great social inequality: people with multiple multimillion-dollar homes, while three generations of family members live together in the same home.

Culebra is the town most affected by the lack of regulation of short-term rentals that has spread in recent years through platforms such as AIRBNB.

According to data from the Center for the New Economy between 2014 and 2020, 30% of the homes in Culebra have been registered on short-term rental platforms. This affects the ability of Culebrenses to secure affordable housing in the long term.

Taking this into account, Mujeres de Islas actively participates in the housing proposals proposed by the municipality. They are currently considering the possibility of creating a community land bank, says Dulce.

DULCE: They have been taking from us little by little to lots and lots, for a long time; as if we are not capable.

When you gather a community, it’s like putting a match to gasoline, and  ¡fuaa! It lights up, and people start asking, talking, questioning, and proposing. And that's our commitment.

LAURA: If you want to learn more about how women in Puerto Rico are leading environmental justice movements, visit madresdelatierrapr.com. In upcoming episodes, we'll be introducing you to Hernaliz Vázquez and Stephanie Monserrate. Tune in.

9 Minutos con 9 Millones is a production of 9millones.com. This episode was produced by Camille Padilla Dalmau. The text was edited by Laura Quintero and corrected by Diana Carolina Romero Palmer. Evan Moreno edited the audio. The original music was composed by William Russel. See you next time.