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Phil Clarke worked as a volunteer in La Paz, Bolivia with Creative Corners to support a street newspaper project, Hormigon Armado. Read on to find out more about his experience...

Lustrabotas

Phil Clarke worked as a volunteer with the not for profit organisation Creative Corners. He went to La Paz, Bolivia to share his creative and photography skills to support a street newspaper project, Hormigon Armado, for shoe shine boys in the project, Hormigon Armado.
This is his experience… www.philclarkehill.co.uk


‘Lustrabotas’ is the name for the 1000's of shoe shine boys who work and live on the streets of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, and one of the ways this is immediately apparent is the large presence of child workers some as young as six and seven.

La Paz is a cold and grey city, high up in the Andes, and adjoined to the city is El Alto, a place with extreme poverty perched above La Paz, overlooking from atop the dusty, barren Andean mountain range. Life is very difficult for most of the 2 million people living in these 2 cities.

I travelled to La Paz to work with the paper Hormigon Armado: or Reinforced Concrete which the boys sell to supplement their small income shining shoes. The paper works in a similar way to the Big Issue in the UK and aims to be a stepping stone to help them off the street: an alternative to shining shoes. It also acts as a voice for the boys, giving them an opportunity to tell their stories of life on the street and get involved doing photography and writing for the paper.

While I was there supporting the project and running photography workshops with the boys I also worked on collating a series of photos which have been exhibited in London and other parts of the UK to raise awareness and support of this unique project and similar schemes.

I strived to reflect the lives that some of the poorest people in the world are living today. Some of the “lustras” or shoe shining boys live on the streets, others with their families and are still at school, and some have their own bedsits. I did find hat the boys were so open and enthusiastic about having their photo taken that sometimes to get a natural portrait shot it was necessary to take a step back, and just observe the way they acted around each other.

In many of the photos the boys are wearing balaclavas or masks. It is easy to interpret the masks as sinister, but this is often not the case. The boys wear these masks to hide their identity, as it seen as a social stigma to be a lustrabota, working on the streets. There are other theories about the significance of the mask - that it represents a sense of belonging for the boys, as they know that are part of a network - a crew - a solidarity amongst some of the poorest people in society. Some also say it acts as protection from the fumes and dirt from shining shoes all day.

To some, the boys are undignified, dangerous, or invisible; in the same way that homeless people can be to those living in a city. But they are working and still providing a service and working a trade, albeit a simple one.

Through the paper and the workshops in writing and photography run by the project manager and editor Alexis Camacho I was able to see how beneficial this project is and how it allows these boys to become proficient in the skills needed in order to run the paper themselves in the future.

One example I witnessed of how Hormigon has changed a life was with a young man named Williams. At 21, he has been a lustra for over 2 years and once lived under a bridge next to the river in La Paz. The river is so polluted that it runs brown constantly and the smell reaches the roadside from underneath the bridge. It is not uncommon to see large quantities of toilet roll, industrial waste and raw sewage flowing directly into the river. Williams lived with others under the bridge, many of whom were into sniffing glue, taking drugs (Bolivia is the 2nd largest cocaine producer after Colombia) and drinking heavily. It’s a clichéd story as it is so common: they fund their habits from theft and robbery. Having little or no direction in their lives, they have been forgotten and written off by society. Williams however, managed to make a change.

Through becoming a lustra and subsequently selling the paper and working with Alexis Camacho on the project, he has begun to turn things around. It has been some time since he has been drinking and taking drugs and he has a home, a wife and child. He was also keen to learn about photography and took to it well, including taking part in some tuition, learning about composition and natural light. He is like many of the boys, not immune to relapses, but trying to build a life for himself.

Hormigon is helping him in that direction.

You can see Phil’s photographs at www.philclarkehill.co.uk
You can find out more about volunteering with Creative Corners at www.creative-corners.com or by calling 02084326621.