Agustina Melendres
is 20 years old, lives in Salta and studies Higher Education in Family and Childhood.
Her vocation is closely linked to her life story, which had ingredients of all kinds: she
spent almost three years homeless
, lived in several homes and graduated from there without the possibility of a family to adopt her. .
Today he is an activist for the
transformation of the alternative care system
.
He militates for it from the depths of his experience and conviction, since from the ages of 16 to 18 he spent his days there, until the system said that, due to his age, he had to leave the place.
Where do you start when you reach the
age of 18
, do you have to leave the institution that houses the young person until that moment and there is no family around? Who teaches these boys and girls about independence and autonomy? What intellectual resources , emotional and economic - do they have to go out to that life? Where will they live, how will they access a rental?
Starting in 2017, after the enactment of Law 27364, the Support Program for the exit of young people without parental care seeks to guarantee the social inclusion and personal and social development of adolescents who, in this situation, leave the different devices where they are housed when there is no direct reference who can take care of them.
It was under this scheme that Agustina left home.
From sleeping on the street to spending the night hiding at school
“Turn fear into challenge.”
Under that title Agustina told some chapters of her story in the talk organized by
TED-Ed Clubs and UNICEF Argentina
.
When she ran away from a relative's house at age 13 and found herself homeless, she said, there was “a constant struggle between feeling strong and giving room to my emotions.
"I didn't have time to know what was happening to me, but I had to make decisions quickly."
Agustina Melendres is 20 years old and studies the Technician in Family and Childhood.
Photo courtesy.
This included
problematic consumption
, the terror of growing old sleeping on a sidewalk, the insecurity that this implied, the lack of certainty even about the possibility of feeding oneself.
The young woman remembered those days where she thought: “I'm tired of living on the street, I'm tired of getting wet when it rains.”
She then
broke down the door of her school to spend the night
in a friendlier place.
That lasted a few days, until she was discovered.
And with the discovery came help.
Despite having lived in these conditions, Agustina never left school, which surprised even the school's director.
The teacher, the police, a social worker and other
State agents
thus began working together to address the multiple violated rights of the young woman who was transferred to an institution.
The intervention gave him back some hope, it showed him that despite the injustice of a childhood where everything was missing, he could still change course and that what he had experienced did not have to be a marked destiny.
“For a long time my thought was that I was going to become an old woman on the street, like many older people I see.
I was already getting the mindset that this was going to be my life.
Until that opportunity came and I said 'I'm going to take it,'” he told
Clarín
.
18: the key number
The traces that remain marked on children and adolescents who grow up without parental care go from the most everyday to the most profound.
Those young people who, at the age of 18, face the adult world outside the homes that housed them until that moment require preparation.
Law 27364 and the
Doncel Civil Association
(of which Melendres is a part with his work as “exit guide”) are working on it.
Agustina Melendres during the talk organized by TED-Ed Clubs and UNICEF Argentina.
Photo: TED-Ed Clubs.
“
When I started as an activist at the age of 16, it was from the side of pain
, from anger for everything that had happened, for everything that had been harmed to me.
But with my activism I have healed many things.
I no longer fight from pain but from action, from the side of contributing to help those children,” she expressed.
At
home
, Agustina recalled, they taught her how to cook, how to wash her clothes and even took different courses that help her work today: one of them, manicure;
the other, as a therapeutic companion.
But, in any case, the young woman still had to learn more, something that for those who lived as a
family
seemed to come almost naturally (although it is also a learning experience).
“
We all get carried away before we turn 18
: I thought, 'I'm going to graduate, I'm going to live in a house, I'm going to have this job.'
I planned my entire life when it came to leaving.
But when you have to graduate, fear grips you!
And you say: 'How am I going to do it?'”
In his case, the fear of returning to the extreme situations that he had already experienced was added: “
I was very touched by the issue that I had already been homeless
, I was afraid of being like that again,” he recalled.
Thus, as the much-feared date approached (at age 17 the graduation program begins to work with these young people and assigns them a role model to guide them), the teenager set a goal: “I am not going to be in school again.” "I'm not going to go back to that life, I'm not going to feel that again."
Law 27364 was fundamental to make that decision a possible reality.
Her reference, Agustina reviewed, helped her look for a
rental
, pack her luggage and manage her own money, something that is unprecedented for institutionalized young people.
The allowance she received through this regulation had to last the entire month, and that was also a challenge.
“The references help us with the economic issue, so that we eat well, so that we have
progressive autonomy
,” he explained.
Imagining the new life of young people who leave cohabiting homes is not easy for those who have not gone through that experience.
"I had to learn that you don't have to depend emotionally on someone to be able to eat and go out," said Agustina. Photo: TED-Ed Clubs.
When Melendres turned 18, he rented a room in a student residence.
During the holidays, when the rest of the tenants went to visit their respective families, in order not to face the situation of eating alone, she did not have lunch or dinner.
It took her a while to understand that
her new life would also include moments of loneliness
.
“At home we all sat at the same table, ate together and then got up.
But when she graduated, in the moments when she was alone because most of them had gone with her family, she did not eat because she did not want to do it alone.
He bought me a Coke and bye.
Until
I had to learn that you don't have to depend emotionally on someone to be able to eat and go out
,” she said.
Today Agustina lives alone, studies, works independently and dreams of the future that, with great effort, she herself is forging.
“I imagine myself with my own house;
received, already with a title.
I want to get married, have a different family than the one I had.
“I already
have all the bad examples of what I don't want to do with my children
, but I also have good examples of what I want to do,” she mentioned.
How do you long for that motherhood?
It refers to adults who “know how to listen to their children, who are patient with them, who give them healthy meals.
I want to be a different mother.
"I didn't like my childhood, that they didn't give me so much love, that they didn't play with me, that they didn't listen to me so much."
Agustina is absolutely convinced that this type of parenting makes a difference: “
Happy childhoods and adolescence will be healthy adults
,” she concluded.