An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for. "We expected 500 people to register, but we had to expand the programme to 800, and many health professionals even signed up," Oscar Natalichio, extension secretary at the Popular University of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, told IPS.

The University was created by the Madres (Mothers) of Plaza de Mayo, a group founded during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship to demand that their sons and daughters, who were "disappeared" by the military regime, be returned to them alive. The formal name of the health agent project, which has the backing of the Ministry of Social Development, is "’Mothers’ Territory’ National Labour Plan for Promotion and Training in Child Development", better known as "Territorio Madres".

It was launched in mid-April with introductory workshops in Chapadmalal, a village in the southern part of the province of Buenos Aires. "We are going to put an end to poverty and ignorance, and improve the health services, all of us working together," promised the president of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Hebe de Bonafini, at the start of the programme, accompanied by Minister of Social Development Alicia Kirchner, President Cristina Fernández’s sister-in-law.