Michel Azcueta Gorostiza , educator and politician, born in Madrid (Spain) on February 20, 1947, of a Basque family; Peruvian nationalized. At the age of 17 he entered as a seminarian in an institute for missionaries, where he remained only three years. He graduated as a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and has a postgraduate degree in education and communication from the University of Montreal (Canada). Founding leader of Villa El Salvador, one of the most thriving districts of Lima. He was at the side of the eighty families that on April 27, 1971 took possession of the lands of Pamplona (today belonging to the district of San Juan de Miradores) , being finally relocated in the low hollow of Tablada de Lurín, a place baptized by Monsignor Luis Bambarén as Villa El Salvador. Professor at the "Fe y Alegría" school, in 1980 he participated in the founding of the United Left party, on whose behalf he was elected in 1984 mayor of the Lima district of Villa El Salvador -of which he is also founder and neighborhood leader- and re-elected for the successive period until 1989. In this capacity he received in Madrid in 1987, on behalf of his district, the Prince of Asturias Award awarded by the Spanish government in recognition of the solid organization of its inhabitants based on self-management, which allowed them to turn the desolate sandbank they arrived in 1971 into a thriving model city.
Also in 1987 he is awarded the United Nations Peace Medal . Between 1990 and 1992 he held the position of alderman of the municipality of Lima and, later, he chairs the Autonomous Authority of the Industrial Park of the Southern Cone of Lima. His experience in municipal and urban management leads him to exercise the executive secretariat of the Andean Region of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities, as well as the vice presidency of the World Federation of United Cities.
On June 16, 1993, upon entering the "Fe y Alegría" school in Villa El Salvador, where he had taught since its foundation, he was the victim of a terrorist attack, resulting in a leg injury. Despite this, during the recovery process he reiterates his disagreement with the death penalty for subversive crimes. At the end of that year he received an international award in Madrid from the Spanish Human Rights Association . With the Democratic Platform group he ran for mayor of Lima in 1993, obtaining third place in the voting. In 1996 he is elected for the third time as mayor of Villa El Salvador and, in October 1998, he accepts the position of alderman of the municipality of Lima, which he had already held eight years earlier. Michel Azcueta, in addition to being the author of various social science texts for primary and secondary schools, and a columnist for Peruvian and Spanish newspapers, has participated as a speaker in national and international forums on education, communication, alternative development, and municipal democracy.
In March 1999, the international organization CARE conferred on Michel Azcueta the award for "International Humanitarian of the Year", in recognition of his community work in the education of youth, in the strengthening of women's organizations, in the development of micro-enterprises. and in the establishment of health centers. This prize has been awarded since 1991 to those personalities who demonstrate their profound commitment to improving the quality of life of developing peoples. The award ceremony held in Atlanta (United States) was attended by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and Archbishop Desmund Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, as the main speaker.
He is still living and is a neighbor of Villa el Salvador, who has been a very important part of the history of the district and the emerging districts in the city of Lima, part of our Peruvian history.