Tanya More Than a Number: Full Project Draft

houses, where many will lose their businesses and struggle climbing the stairs, or the other option will put them into a used home valued at $22,000 or less, which will allow up to about half of the square footage of most of their already very modest homes. The healthcare plan is limited, and for the time being only includes a clinic that takes blood tests to determine toxicity levels of patients. The clinic at this time lacks specialized doctors and the healthcare policy does not yet cover expenses beyond what is offered at that clinic.

For all of the injustices that they have been victim to, I believe that the residents of the Industriales neighborhood deserve much more. They deserve what they are fighting for: a dignified life, homes of equal value and size on non-contaminated soil, complete healthcare coverage for life, scholarships for their children’s education and a community social center which educates on toxins, helps the residents find work, as well as coaches the families through the difficulties that they are still to face regarding their illnesses, their children’s wellbeing and how to cope with the mental problems and depression from which many of them suffer.

“Más que un número/More than a Number” is a project that I did in the months of May and August, 2010, working in the contaminated neighborhoods of Arica, Chile interviewing and photographing many of the severely affected families about their struggles, their experiences, their hopes and their dreams. Assisted by the NGO AFCCOMTA and my study abroad program SIT, I spent each day traveling from home to home conducting my studies. Over the course of my senior year at Bennington, I have been able to work with all of the photographs and interviews, the final product of which is shown here. My objective in this project has been to create more consciousness about the problem and, hopefully, to help give the contaminated families a voice, so that they can be recognized as more than a number, as real human beings who have the right to be heard and the right to live a dignified, healthy, secure life.