Luchemos por la Vida’s 28th birthday

 

 

     Life is fighting and fighting is life, said the presentation folder of an unknown organization that in 1990 came to life in the City of Buenos Aires.

     28 years ago, on June 20th, Luchemos por la Vida (Let’s Fight for Life) was born with a goal: to fight so there are no more avoidable deaths in traffic.

     A small group of people, brought together by a profound love of life and worried by the alarming daily news of deaths in traffic and the lack of governmental action on the problem, decided to start taking action from the community, without receiving any monetary compensation, convinced that, if we could contribute to saving a single life, all efforts were worth it.

     So we began the task... Spreading our concern was the first goal. No solutions can be found if the problems are unknown.

     Time went by, and the actions multiplied: access to media, TV and radio, made it possible to broadcast for over 26 years a permanent awareness campaign for radio and TV that got to the boundaries of the country and trascended them. The implementation of proposals of legislation, educational workshops in schools, companies and municipalities, studies and researches, courses and congresses, a specialized magazine, annual awards, free of charge educational materials and a web site are only a few of the roads walked during these years, of intense activity with and for the community, filled with constant new experiences, achievements and, also, frustrations.

     Luchemos por la Vida developed an intense task, that changed and became more complex, but never stopped up to now. And that, we understand, was worth every effort conducted, for having installed the problem in the media and the national policy agenda, for having influenced other people to act, instead of waiting passively for things to change, and finally, and above all, because many lives were saved with the changes achieved in these 28 years. There’s still so much to be done in order to revert significantly the high figures of morbidity and mortality in traffic in our country. Still, more than 7.000 lives are lost in traffic every year.

     But we are convinced that due to Luchemos por la Vida’s actions, something important started changing. That’s why we keep fighting for Life. With scarce resources and all our energies. And that is our commitment on this 28th anniversary.

     We want to thank the invaluable help of the media, journalists, a few sponsors and all the volunteers and collaborators that believed in us and joined us in this effort. Those who understood that this problem concerns all of us and that, working together we can make a difference. And that is why to everybody who has helped and helps us in these 28 years we say

THANK YOU FOR FIGHTING FOR LIFE WITH US.

 

Dr. Alberto Silveira

President

Luchemos por la Vida Asociación Civil