Tricot, Luis

Tricot, Luis

Luis Tricot

1 September 2001Feature

A community action group in Chile is helping a neighbourhoodto better its environment and the lives of its people. Their main focus is on improving the quality of life for the community'schildren and on encouraging participation by them in organising and managing their own spaces. Luis Tricot reports.

Valparaiso sits staring at the Pacific Ocean, its multicolour houses hanging from its 37 hills, indifferent to the rain and wind that sweep through the city's narrow, winding streets.

In Chile's oldest port, you are never too far away from the sea or the sky, and you are far too close to poverty. Since its leading industries abandoned the city for Santiago, its fortunes have slipped and it has become capital of the one of the country's poorest regions. One group of residents has…