Pedro Castillo on Common Pots Bill: “We are waiting for Congress to send the law autograph”

The President of the Republic, Pedro Castillo, welcomed the approval of the bill recognizing the Common Pots of Peru as grassroots social organizations. He said that he was awaiting the respective autograph of the norm to be promulgated.

“We are waiting for the Congress of the Republic to send the autograph of the law that recognizes the Common Pots as grassroots social organizations, to proceed with its immediate promulgation. I greet the congressmen who pushed for this important law,” the president wrote on his social networks.

This bill was passed last Thursday with 110 votes in favor. It recognizes common pots as grassroots social organizations to ensure their financing, as well as encouraging the productive work of their beneficiaries. The text states that these can be activated during natural emergencies, health emergencies or serious circumstances affecting the Nation. They can also continue to function for up to 12 months after the emergency.

Another rule is that local governments, the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (Midis) and others, may make budgetary changes, if necessary and allocate resources to fully or partially finance the purchase and distribution of food for common pots in serious circumstances affecting the life of the nation.

With regard to the nutritional aspects of food in common pots, the Ministry of Health (Minsa) will be responsible for approving technical documents for guidance on these aspects for preparing food in popular canteens in emergencies.

Faced with this, the president of the network of common pots in Metropolitan Lima demanded that the president implement the standard that guarantees the financing of these services community.

ABOUT COMMON POTS

The coronavirus pandemic exposed the shortages of millions of Peruvian families and spread the installation of collective kitchens as a subsistence alternative in Lima's most deprived settlements, where today there are nearly 240,000 people who depend on common pots every day, as stated in the latest report released by the Network of Common Pots of Lima.

According to this entity, to date there are a total of 2,219 common pots in the humblest human settlements of metropolitan Lima, although the number could be much higher due to the difficulty of tracing. Two thirds are self-managed (usually by women) and half use firewood to prepare food, which gives at least one meal a day to 238,977 people from Lima.

Common pots have become a symbol of Peru where more than half of the population works in the informal economy. The survival strategy that appeared forty years ago has remained in force in the country for more than a year during the coronavirus pandemic.

The majority of neighbors are part of the 70% of the workforce in Peru that works in informality and whose characteristic is summarized in the phrase: if you don't work today, then you don't eat. With no unemployment benefits and no possibility of working from home, they work as street vendors and have turned many streets into makeshift food markets.

The inability to keep people in their homes has become a key factor in the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus. The crisis hit Peru hard in 2020 with a 12% drop in Gross Domestic Product, one of the worst recessions on the planet according to the World Bank.

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