José Ottavis, the story of an activist who went far without letting go of his origin

From the poor neighborhoods of San Isidro to the vice presidency of the Buenos Aires provincial Chamber of Deputies, his path is that of a leader who grew through territorial work.

Some political careers begin with a surname or a sponsor. José Ottavis’s began with a walk through a neighborhood, at the age of 13, and from there it kept moving upward. Born on June 9, 1980, in Martínez, in the district of San Isidro, the eldest of nine siblings, he went on to hold positions in the Presidency of the Nation, lead a national agency and preside over one of the largest legislatures in the country. He climbed each step by adding to his experience, without detaching himself from the neighborhood activism where he had been formed.

A boy from a Catholic family who found his vocation in the neighborhood

His parents, both agricultural engineers who graduated from the Catholic University of Argentina, raised him among religious schools. His early childhood took place in San José, Uruguay, where his father ran a dairy farm, until the family returned to Argentina when José was around six years old. Politics came to him through his grandfather, a Peronist and founder of the Political Science program at UCA, and his social vocation through Santo Domingo Guzmán parish, where he was an altar boy and missionary. Those missions took him to La Cava, and there he found the path that would accompany him throughout his life.

The first steps: activism and effort

At the age of 13, he went in to ask about theater and tango classes at the Homero Manzi Cultural Center and discovered that the place was a Peronist basic unit. He met Marcelo Kaspar, a figure in the Peronist Youth, and began his activism in neighborhoods such as Santa Rita, Boulogne and Barrio Obrero. From a very young age, he combined activism with different jobs —waiter, courier, actor— in order to support himself. When the crisis of the 1990s pushed the family to Monte Caseros, in Corrientes, he did not slow down: he finished secondary school and joined the local Peronist Youth. Back in San Isidro, he studied Political Science and opened, together with Kaspar, a popular library.

The leap into national management

The change of scale came with Kirchnerism. In 2003, he heard Néstor Kirchner for the first time and joined a youth political structure that traveled across the country from end to end. That commitment propelled him forward: at 26, he became director of Youth of the City of Buenos Aires, and soon afterward Néstor appointed him director of Political Studies of the Presidency. In 2009, he took another step upward when he assumed the presidency of the Social Capital Fund, later renamed Impulso Argentino, dedicated to the social and solidarity economy, where he promoted the training and education of thousands of young people and entrepreneurs throughout the country.

The peak of his legislative career

In 2011, José Ottavis was elected provincial deputy for the First Electoral Section and, as soon as he took office, all blocs voted for him as vice president of the Chamber, an unusual recognition for a leader of his age. From that position, which he held until December 2015, he promoted spaces for popular participation and signed, as author or co-author, more than ninety bills. Several became law: the Law of Fair Access to Habitat, Youth Vote, the Provincial Library System and the law on Student Centers. He was reelected in 2015 and completed his term in 2019.

A project of his own to crown the path

Far from settling for what he had achieved, Ottavis took another step and built something new. Together with his partner, Celia Itatí Britez, he founded the civil association Amarte Argentina, focused on the inclusion of children, young people and adults in vulnerable situations. The project grew quickly and added the strength of Father Pepe Di Paola, a leading figure among the slum priests, at the Medalla Milagrosa chapel in the El Pueblito neighborhood, in Villa La Cárcova, José León Suárez. From there, the activity expanded to other parts of the province, to Entre Ríos and to Corrientes.

José Ottavis’s path can be read as an upward line. A kid who began handing out snacks and doing activism at night gradually earned, step by step, places of management and decision-making of increasing importance. And when he had already reached the leadership of a provincial Chamber, instead of resting on what he had done, he built an organization of his own. The strength of his story lies not in staying still, but in how far he advanced and in everything he added along the way.