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Report of Latin American Regional Workshop on Street Vendors
(held in Lima, Peru 15 – 17 February 2001)

Aims and objectives of the workshop

To share experiences of street vendors in the region and to hear about the experiences of street vendors in other regions.
To share experiences about how the problems of street vendors have been overcome through organisation, and share information about how other organisations (in other regions) work.
To make recommendations from the region about how to structure StreetNet as the international alliance of street vendors.
To make plans for building national alliances of street vendors (or any other form of national co-ordination) in Latin American countries between the workshop and the international launch of StreetNet in late 2002.

Preparations

Although the StreetNet office in Durban co-ordinated the preparations, there were many different people from different parts of the world who participated in the preparation of the workshop.

It was first agreed in Washington in November 1999 to hold the first regional StreetNet workshop in Lima, for Latin America. Carmen Vildoso (President of COPEME, a coalition of supporting micro-enterprise NGOs in Peru) and Elsie Guerrero (Lima municipal Councillor) agreed to handle arrangements in Lima.

Carmen agreed to form an organising committee to this. In April 2000 the StreetNet office started liaising with Carmen Vildoso about the arrangements, and she convened the organising committee. A budget was prepared and revised with the assistance of Celina Kawas, who also then became involved as an intermediary/facilitator in e-mail communication between the StreetNet office and Carmen and COPEME.

Monica Munoz from UNIFEM Ecuador offered additional funds to facilitate the participation of more delegates from Andean countries, and then UNIFEM also liaised directly with Carmen and COPEME after that. The StreetNet Association sent a draft programme for the organising committee to work on, containing the essential elements which needed to be covered by the workshop.

The workshop could not take place in September 2000 as originally scheduled, because there were not enough contacts in enough different countries by that time. The workshop was then re-scheduled for February 2001.

During the preparatory phase, there was ongoing communication between the StreetNet office, Carmen Vildoso, Marty Chen (who was liaising with Viktor Tokman of the ILO) and others. This was an important way of preparing the ground and a common approach for the workshop.

Workshop participants

BOLIVIA

Jenny Rios from the Federacion Departamental de Gremialies de La Paz. This organisation was formed in 1954, its leaders are predominantly women, and works with the street vendors association at the main market in Bolivia.
Sarah Mungia from the Union Sindical Femenina de Floristas. This is a union of women street vendors who sell and arrange flowers, with a rich history of struggle and resistance spanning 40 years.
Elizabeth Peredo from Fundacion Solon, an NGO supporting the Union Sindical Femenina de Floristas. They brought two videos which they had assisted the union to make.

CHILE

Jaqueline Alvarez Castro from a Concepcion-based NGO, Red Regional del BioBio. They provide training for vendors, and encourage them to develop enterprises.

COLOMBIA

Cristobal Camargo from the Confederation General de Trabajadores Democratiques, a trade union federation affiliated to the WCL (CTM in Spanish) which organises formal and informal sector workers.

COSTA RICA

Maria Enma Prada from the Associacion de Mujeres de Vendedores Ambulantes Migrantes. She is a street vendor in exile in Costa Rica from Guatemala, and is very active in her organisation struggling for the rights of migrant vendors.

ECUADOR

Rosario Curichumbi and Maria Rosa Puruncajas from the Associacion de Mujeres Tahuantinsuyo (an indigenous women’s organisation) and the Associaciones dos Trabajadores Autonomes (vendors associations). The participants were vendors themselves, and active in a national network of indigenous organisations which includes street vendors’ organisations. They also deal with problems of migrant vendors (migrants from the rural areas in Quito).

EL SALVADOR

Vilma Elizabeth Martinez from the Central de Trabajadores del Salvador. She is a street vendor and a leader in her organisation, which organises street and market vendors selling all kinds of goods as well as hawkers, and has 2000 members.

GUATEMALA

Miriam Audelia Osoy an individual street vendor, who was sent by the organisation FINCA, a micro-credit NGO.

VENEZUELA

Pedro Marquez from CIDEAS (Centro de Estudio Social). CIDEAS is an NGO which works with street vendors providing support services and leadership training.
Gladis Marlene Martinez from the Union Nacional de Vendedores Ambulantes de Venezuela, established in 1989 now has 325 members and 10 out of 11 leaders are women. She is also a street vendor.
Ana Esparragosa from a union called Dulces Criollos. They work in 2 districts of Caracas and have 200 members, of whom 90% are women.

PERU

The Peruvian participants were all male. This caused a lot of comment from the other Latin American participants (described above). The Peruvian delegates came from NGOs (like Edaprospo) and many came from the Lima Federation of Street Vendors (FEDEVAL) established in 1979 and from different local level Federations (districts of Comas, of Ate, and of Rimac). Guillermo Perez, the regional co-ordinator of the ICFTU (ORIT) Latin American informal sector project which is supported by the FNV, was also present.

Policy Dialogue
Elsie Guerrero, a Lima municipal Councillor, came on the first evening and talked about the re-location of street vendors into markets in Lima which she had overseen. There was about an hour’s discussion with workshop delegates on this issue.

Workshop Programme

Thursday 15 February
The workshop started on the afternoon of Thursday 15 February. The afternoon was spent on participants preparing presentations about themselves and their organisations and putting these up on the walls. Then each participant presented her/his introduction. In the evening there was the discussion with Elsie Guerrero.

Friday 16 February
There was a presentation by Eliana Chavez who had done research for the ILO on street vendors in several Latin American countries, followed by a detailed presentation about StreetNet, its background and proposed plan of action up to the international launch at the end of 2002. This was followed by group discussions about what should be StreetNet’s organisational structure, followed by a plenary session to discuss the recommendations.

Saturday 17 February
T here were group discussions about what policy StreetNet should adopt on the following matters:

class differences between street vendors
gender dynamics among street vendors
political affiliation of street vendors organisations

This was followed by a plenary session to discuss the recommendations.

The final session was for participants to get into country groups and discuss how to follow-up and start forming city alliances or national alliances in their countries between now and the international launch of StreetNet in 2002. Unfortunately the facilitator dispersed the workshop while the groups were finishing off their discussions and we did not have the opportunity to get together to find out what had been discussed. COPEME is now trying to get hold of notes which record the group discussions, for record purposes.

Recommendations from workshop

The problems of street vendors in all the countries were very similar – harassment by municipal authorities, regular removals from selling sites, lack of services in many of the selling sites, discrimination against rural indigenous migrants and against migrants from other countries. Street vendors pay fees for the right to sell, but are still regularly removed. When negotiations lead to a mutual agreement, this only lasts until the next elections if there is a political change. Successful resistance had happened in some instances, only after strong organisations had been formed which could develop leadership capacity, or where there were NGOs available to assist these organisations with advice and leadership training.

There were extensive discussions as to the form which StreetNet should take and what structures it should adopt. Delegates were very impressed to hear about NASVI, and so some felt that street vendors should organise themselves into national alliances and StreetNet’s members should be the national alliances. They did not discuss whether StreetNet should accept more than one national alliance from any particular country. Others, however, felt that since there were so few national alliances in existence and it would take some time to build them up, street vendors organisations should start by forming themselves into city alliances which would then be able to become members of StreetNet. They also did not discuss whether StreetNet should accept more than one city alliance from any particular city.

The next discussion brought forth the following recommendations:

It was recognised that there are class differences between street and market vendors, and it was recommended that StreetNet should focus on the upliftment of the poorest street and market vendors and hawkers.
StreetNet should focus on stopping exploitation of low-income vendors by high-income vendors and intermediaries.
Surveys should be done to determine the income levels of vendors and how many people they have working for them, in order to be able to keep this focus on the poorest vendors.
All information should be disaggregated by gender.
StreetNet should adopt a quota to ensure that at least 50% of all leadership and decision-making structures are women, and also facilitate leadership training for women and the poorest street vendors.

General

The workshop was a very positive experience overall. The participants were extremely lively and the level of participation was very good. There was a tremendous spirit and a momentum which, if sustained, should be able to get further organisation and co-ordination going building up to the international launch of StreetNet.

We are hoping to work closely with WIEGO’s Latin American co-ordinator, Carmen Roca, on follow-up to this workshop so that we can keep up the momentum.

Report compiled by
Pat Horn
StreetNet Co-ordinator
March 2001

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