Path
Training and research in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands he completed his postgraduate studies, first obtaining the Diploma in Social Housing at the Institute of International Studies, then obtaining the Doktoraal at Bouwkunde from the Technical University of Delft.[7] He continued studying precarious or informal settlements, focusing on issues linked to land ownership, services and infrastructure, understanding that people can build their homes but cannot solve the infrastructure, even less so when they are occupations on peripheral or rural land. His thesis was called "Low Income Housing and Infrastructure".[6].
At the Delft School of Architecture she worked as a guest professor in the “Third World” Section, together with Dr. Marisa Carmona and a group of professors and researchers who will constitute the Alfa Ibis Program on Globalization, Urban Form and Governance. Falú will have an active and supportive role in the management and will then coordinate from Argentina on her return and entry to the National University of Córdoba.
Transfer to Ecuador
At the beginning of the 80s, she moved to Ecuador with a contract from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, as a Dutch international cooperation technician. The combination of different experiences and her growing commitment to feminism, which will have its beginning in Brazil, made her begin to work on the relationship between Women and Habitat. The cooperation work and her active participation in the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and in particular the work she does jointly with the architects Fernando Chaves (her second husband), Carlos Ríos Roux, Jorge Di Paula, Luis Gallegos, among others, in the Amazon Region of Ecuador "Amazon Region (Ecuador)"). It was in Puyo, an Amazonian town and together with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Local Government and settlers who develop ambitious territorial projects for the production of wooden components, care for the Amazon rainforest, construction of homes and construction of an indigenous city. It will be in the process of these developments that Falú begins with a more consistent reflection on the role of women in these processes and the differences between men and women in relation to the territory and their living conditions.[6].
The years in Ecuador were of intense feminist militancy, where she was linked to the local movement. She participated in the Second Feminist and Latin American and Caribbean Meeting held in Lima in 1983, and in subsequent ones in the region. Since then, her political militancy has been influenced by feminism in all its facets: professional, academic, social and political activism, and personal. Falú's journey since these years has generated institutional spaces, articulations, Latin American and international networks, articles and communications on Housing and Women, Urban Services and Gender, Use of time and Gender asymmetries, of sole authorship or co-authorship. From her connection with other feminist references such as the Ecuadorian sociologist María Arboleda and the Peruvian Jeanine Anderson"), the conceptual theoretical framework that would originate the Women and Habitat Network") is generated, an institutional and militant framework for Latin America and the Caribbean on the subject. Towards the end of the 90s, the Argentine section would emerge, called Centro de Intercambios y Servicios Cono Sur, Argentina (CISCSA)&action=edit&redlink=1 "Centro de Intercambios y Servicios Cono Sur, Argentina (CISCSA) (not yet written)"), an NGO started together with Fernando Chaves in Córdoba, linked to HIC, a proposal to work on Violence against Women in Public Space.
UN Women
Falú arrives at UN Women invited to participate in the competition for Regional Director after her work with the Peruvian sociologist Virginia Vargas Valente as co-coordinator of the NGO process towards the IV World Women's Conference in Beijing, China, in 1995. She became director of UNIFEM (today UN Women) in Ecuador for the five Andean countries between 2002 and 2004 and later as regional director of UN Women in Brasilia for Brazil and the four countries of the Southern Cone from 2004 to 2009.
Working on this process became an opportunity to learn about women's and feminist movements, activists, groups and networks in the region and internationally, and to get in touch with governments. The work at the UN allowed her to install more than 10 programs in the region, one of the most innovative being Cities without Violence for Women, Safer Cities for All, which had support from the Spanish Development Cooperation (AECID). This program was pioneering and served to inspire other global programs.[6]This program initiated in five Latin American countries (www.redmujer.org.ar) will be a milestone in the installation on the feminist, government and society agenda of the need to intersect territories and women's rights to a life without violence, and was an inspiration for other regional and global projects and programs.
Return to Argentina
In 2009 he returned to the city of Córdoba "Córdoba (Argentina)") and to his work at the National University of Córdoba. Wins the proposal to Direct the Housing and Habitat Institute of the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design "Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design (National University of Córdoba)"). She directs a successful Architecture Workshop as a professor, consolidates teaching and research teams.[8]
Her connection with the United Nations continues and in 2015 she is the leader of the AGGI -Advisor Group for Gender Inclusion/Advisory Group for Gender Inclusion- at UN Habitat; She is the Coordinator of the Gender Nucleus/Gender HUB of Associated International Universities of UN Habitat.[9] She also leads the Women and Diversities Working Group in the Global Platform for the Right to the City, since 2018.
As an activist, Falú is co-founder and current executive director of the Center for Exchange and Services for the Southern Cone of Argentina (CISCSA), as well as co-founder of the Red Mujer y Hábitat de América Latina (1985) and the Marcosur Feminist Articulation (2000). From CISCSA, she has promoted research, campaigns and actions on urban violence against women, the right to the city and care infrastructures. She is one of the main voices of feminist urbanism in Latin America and a key figure in the articulation of regional and international networks for urban women's rights.
In 2019 she was proposed as a candidate for Vice-Rector of the university along with Dr. Gustavo Chiabrando as Rector. Falú campaigned for a University of Social and Feminist Inclusion. It was highly received by the student body, teachers and non-teachers, with the rector's formula obtaining 38.1% of votes.
She has been a gender expert for the Ibero-American Union of Municipalists (UIM)&action=edit&redlink=1 "Ibero-American Union of Municipalists (UIM) (not yet written)") (2010–2020), advisor to UCLG – United Cities and Local Governments")..