Maria Trogolo grew up in a community where everyone was scared. Born in Argentina in the mid ’70s, her homeland was in the iron grip of a succession of ruthless military dictators.
Two of her mother’s cousins were among the “disappeared” and babies were regularly stolen from their mums to be given to childless government supporters. It’s a story reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale. But this is no fiction.
“I grew up in an environment of constant fear – fear that your children would not come home from school,” says Maria, the new programmes director at ChildFund New Zealand. “Fear informed who I was and what I wanted to be.”
It’s no surprise then that Maria, 46, would choose to become a humanitarian lawyer. She continues, “My first memory of going to school was making thankyou cards to send to the soldiers in the Islas Malvinas War [also known as the Falklands War]. They were like children themselves – 18-year-olds fighting a war no one understood.”
Her parents, Jose Maria and
