Eva Perón Foundation
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The Eva Perón Foundation was a charitable foundation begun by
Eva Perón María Eva Duarte de Perón (; ; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as just Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 19 ...
, a prominent Argentine political leader, when she was the First Lady and Spiritual Leader of the Nation of
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. It operated from 1948 to 1955.


Inspiration and Beginnings

Social welfare in Argentina was highly underdeveloped before Juan Perón was elected
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
in 1946 and his wife, who had been born into the
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
es, was aware of this. Most charity work was undertaken by the
Sociedad de Beneficencia The Sociedad de Beneficencia de Buenos Aires, also known as Sociedad de Damas de Beneficencia or simply Sociedad de Beneficencia (English: Society of Beneficence), was an Argentine state institution. The association was created by president Bernardi ...
, which was controlled by eighty-seven elderly women of the
upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...
es. The orphans whose care the Sociedad controlled had to wear blue smocks and have their heads shaved; at
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
they were put out onto the streets of
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
with collecting tins. Their policies are supposed to have been the inspiration behind Evita's famous declaration that, 'When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas.' The chairpersons of this society were traditionally the
Papal Nuncio An apostolic nuncio ( la, nuntius apostolicus; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international org ...
to Argentina and the First Lady, but the society refused to extend the invitation to Evita when her husband was elected president. At first they insisted that it was because she was too young; but it was widely interpreted as an insult to the new First Lady. Evita was furious and moved against the society, effectively bringing it to an end in 1947. She then created her own foundation to replace it. ‘It is time,’ Evita declared, ‘for eal
social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...
.’


The Foundation's Beginnings

On 8 July 1948 the ''María Eva Duarte de Perón Foundation'' was established. Its name was later changed to the simpler ''Eva Perón Foundation''. Its opening charter declared that it was to remain ''‘in the sole hands of its founder… who will… possess the widest powers afforded by the State and the Constitution.’'' The Foundation's aims were to provide monetary assistance and scholarships to gifted children from impoverished backgrounds, build homes, schools, hospitals and orphanages in underprivileged areas and ''‘to contribute or collaborate by any possible means to the creation of works tending to satisfy the basic needs for better life of the less privileged classes.’'' Initially work began with nothing more than garden parties for single mothers or Evita’s personal trips to the ghettoes of Buenos Aires to hand out aid parcels.


The Foundation at its height

By the end of the 1940s, Evita and her team of advisers had worked so effectively that the Foundation was better-funded and organised than many departments of State. It had funds of over three billion pesos, controlled $200 million on the exchange rate, employed over 14,000 workers, purchased 500,000 sewing machines, 400,000 pairs of shoes and 200,000 cooking pots for distribution annually and it had succeeded in building numerous new houses, schools, hospitals and orphanages. The vast majority of these funds came from willing donors and the Peronist-dominated
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, who were keen to back the First Lady's endeavours. The trade unions, who saw Evita as their patron, regularly sent enormous contributions to the Foundation’s work. More importantly, the Catholic Church had endorsed her projects, citing Biblical exhortations towards charity for the poor and Evita’s own personal priest, Father Benítez, claimed that the need to help the poor had taken over Eva Perón’s life. Finally, Congress assisted in 1950 by ruling that a proportion of all lottery tickets, cinema tickets and gambling games played in casinos should be given to the Foundation. By the time of Evita's death in 1952, the popularity of the Foundation amongst her millions of followers had given her an aura of sainthood.Based largely on the unpublished Oxford essay, ''And the Money Kept Rolling Out'' (2006)


Criticisms

There were allegations that most of the Foundation's wealth was ill-gotten, with Evita coercing people into donating. There were examples of pressure, particularly with the infamous case of the Mu-Mu sweet manufacturers, who were temporarily shut down after they refused to give the Foundation a free donation of sweets for underprivileged children. There was, however, only one example of Evita targeting the landed aristocracy and this was when the Foundation received most of the 97 million pesos which the Bemberg dynasty were forced to pay after they had attempted to evade tax after their patriarch died abroad. There were allegations that Evita set up a secret bank account in Switzerland with the funds, but these allegations have been dismissed by her more recent biographers.


Decline

After Evita's premature death in 1952, the Foundation briefly passed under the control of other Peronist women; but it did not outlast the fall of the regime itself in 1955 and had been in terminal decline since 1952 anyway. It was disbanded like every other Perónist organization by the military junta in 1955, after they overthrew Juan Perón on September 19, 1955. As late as the 1970s, storage facilities full of goods intended for the Argentine poor were still being discovered.


Footnotes


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eva Peron Foundation Foundations based in Argentina Children's charities based in Argentina Social welfare charities Eva Perón History of Argentina (1943–1955) 1948 establishments in Argentina 1955 disestablishments in Argentina