María Elsy Amparo Suárez Mira, or ‘La madrecita’ as many call her, is a woman with a tanned complexion and a radiant smile. If someone runs into her in her natural habitat, the streets of downtown Medellín, they will surely see her wearing a cap or hat and carrying a good-sized backpack full of items.
Inside it there are always razors, aprons, micropores, gauze, alcohol, ointments, medicines, food and any type of object that can be useful in your daily task: help those who by choice or destiny inhabit the streets of downtown Medellin.
Not everyone is measured up to a task like that, frowned upon and poorly paid in every way, how did María Elsy’s daily life end up being then?
Paradigm shift
Today, the center is the favorite home for a taboo population in every way. Street dwellers, people who have chosen to make public space their home. They walk, sleep and eat in this territory more than in any other in the city.
Their worn-out clothing, careless hygiene, and drug use habits have made them marginalized before most of the citizens. However, no matter how much they bother or want to ignore them, this population group does not disappear. On the contrary, in recent years it has increased considerably, from around 3,000 before the pandemic to around 7,000 today.
A couple of decades ago, Maria Elsy was like so many others who only see homeless people as undesirable. This dehumanizing speech was the only one she knew, “Something that I hated in life were the street people, yes, one has to admit it. But they gave me a very big life lesson ”, she comments.
Maria Elsy refers to the day that her husband, Jorge Restrepo Jurado, now deceased, collapsed due to a pre-infarct just at the intersection of Oriental Avenue and La Playa. Despite the fact that his poor health was evident, they all passed by, busy with their lives, eager for someone else to take care of the problem. It was two homeless people who grabbed the man by the arms and legs and dragged him into the Soma clinic, where he was able to receive the care he needed.
“A very big example because for me they were like garbage. I arrived at Soma and I met the two men, one was a doctor and the other a journalist, they were the ones who saved his life. I stayed talking with them, they handed me my husband’s briefcase where all the money he had to pay SaludCoop where he worked was. And there I knelt down to them, I asked for their forgiveness, I told them that I had made a mistake with them, to which they replied that not all of them were the same, that it was very easy to fall into drugs, but too difficult to get out.
Maria Elsy’s husband recovered from the incident, and she did not wait too long to tell him that she wanted to start working for the homeless, “I wanted there to be a change of mind and that name of disposable, destitute, garbage, would be left behind.”
One hard work
In the 20 years that she has dedicated herself to dignifying the condition of downtown street dwellers, María Elsy has been active in different instances, for example, she was a representative of the population before the Commune 10 Communal Planning Council, she also participated in the Management Committee of the Development Plan and was secretary of the Environmental Board.
However, today he prefers to fulfill his vocation outside the institutions.
“I do a monthly telethon, I start collecting donations at the beginning of each month and when the next one starts I distribute it. Whenever I can, if my health or other commitments don’t prevent me, I go out at seven in the morning with my briefcase on my back and start walking. When I see someone lying down, I go up to them, ask them if they need some type of treatment or a haircut and, if necessary, I call the helpline that has the duty to pick them up and take them to a care center ”, Elsie explains.
This woman is completely sure that courses, protocols or strict direction are not needed to help these people, for her it is enough to approach with love and true desires to reach out to obtain the best response from them.
“I will continue in this until they give me the strength”, concludes La Madrecita, and also reminds everyone that they can always do their bit, either with their presence or resources, to contribute to those social causes that seem insoluble but that they really just need a mindset change.
By Valentina Castaño
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