This is the newest district in Lima, Peru. It was proposed as a candidate for the 1986 Nobel peace Prize by the International Commission for Human Rights, and declared Figure of the Year in Peru, as an example of solidarity and cooperation, by the Peruvian daily newspaper "La República". Its permanent motto is "Peace and Social Justice". Following its motto´s philosophy, Villa El Salvador carries out permanent actions in defence of human rights.

The history of this housing project or new town begins in 1971, with the occupation of some land by families which needed housing. On the 11th May 1971, General Juan Velasco´s government handed over to them a great stretch of sandy desert, south of Lima, so the squatters could build a town.

Currently, at the time of writing, Villa El Salvador has more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, mostly of Andean origin, although families keep arriving from all over Peru. Its mass character has made it the largest workers´ housing experiment in Peru, and one of the largest in Latin America.

The "town planning", taken on by the inhabitants themselves, who build their own houses and streets, consists of a design in which twenty-four families form a block and sixteen blocks form a group, or neighbourhood, with certain areas being reserved for schools, markets, recreation centres, and about a thousand hectares for agricultural and industrial use.

The "local organization", in which a high degree of democratic participation is always maintained, consists of a self-managing model based on the tradition of the Andes. Thousands and thousands of neighbours thus become leaders each year. Each housing block elects five leaders, who take charge of the different secretariats: Health, Education, Commercialization, Production and Services. Each neighbourhood chooses in turn another eight representatives, and finally, eight people are appointed to make up the Communal Executive Council, where the whole population is represented.

In 1973, the first Settlers´ Convention was held and the Self-Managing Urban Community of Villa El Salvador, CUAVES ["Comunidad Urbana Autogestionaria de Villa El Salvador"] was founded. Other neighbourhood organizations have sprung from this, such as the People´s Women´s Federation, the Association of Small-scale Industries and Craftsmen or the Central Market Cooperative, making Villa El Salvador into a model of self-managing community which is worthy of study.

Eighty per cent of the town has water, drains and electricity, as the rest are newly arrived families. Education reaches one hundred percent of the children, spread between thirty-four educational centres, and there is a whole network of public libraries. Twenty-five market cooperatives, and one thousand five hundred small and medium-sized companies are to be found spread around the town.

Hard work and good use of previously treated waste water allow what was once a desert to produce to capacity.

After almost twenty years work up to the time of writing, the Villa El Salvador experiment is influencing different Peruvian districts. The great prestige acquired by this community over the years has led to its being chosen by different national organisations form all over Peru as the seat of the First National People´s Assembly in June 1987. Among the many public figures and international delegations that have visited the community is Pope John Paul II, who appeared in a dramatic meeting with the settlers on the 5th February 1985.

Miguel Azcueta, born in Madrid to a Basque family, is the mayor and leader of this town which has found itself in the sands of the desert. He arrived in Peru just over twenty years ago, just in time to see the birth of a town in the most impressive invasion this country had ever seen, and to follow, step-by-step, as one more person involved, the march of thousands of people who had fled from poverty and neglect in search of a place for the Peru of the future.