Work plan
Rob Hamrick27 Oct 2005 3:00 PM
I am now pursuing three projects concurrently that are intended to mitigate the fallout from the mudslides in Santa Catarina.
In the short term, I am engaged in hiring people at a fair wage to help clear the ground of the houses that were flattened, to clear out houses that are filled with mud, and to rebuild homes. The houses that are still filled with mud belong to the poorest Catarinecos--those with greater means have already cleared their houses out--and this will bring them a step closer to having a place to live as well as give others some employment. In the direst cases, however, I am simply distributing cash as it seems necessary--to widows with sick children, for example. I am devoting most of my current funds toward these short-term goals because they address needs that remain unaddressed by concurrent aid efforts.
Widow and her children.
Otherwise, as far as I can tell, all immediate needs are now being met, thanks to some quick action from expatriates and Guatemalans who have a personal connection to people in town. At last, the Guatemalan state has also become active in the distribution of aid. There are now distributions of staples almost every day, there have been distributions of shoes and clothes, and a distribution of blankets is forthcoming. I will be looking out for people being bypassed by the distribution process, but it seems to me that, at this point, people need cash, employment, and the feeling that they can work to shape their own destiny more than they need handouts.
In the medium term, I am attempting to achieve some level of coordination and cooperation between the different agents working in Santa Catarina. Thus far, the distribution of aid has been undertaken by different individuals--concerned Guatemalans of means, expatriates, temporary visitors--who usually do not even know that others are undertaking similar efforts. The result has been a chaotic style of assessing needs and distributing aid that risks wastefully duplicating the actions of one agent by another out of simple ignorance.
Sadly, this lack of communication has also been detrimental to the fair distribution of aid--always a difficult task, but a task whose difficulty is exacerbated by ignorance of what aid has already been distributed or even what kind of aid Catarinecos actually want. The distribution of aid thus far has been unfair in many respects; and this has exacerbated local tensions among Catarinecos and in some cases has even created new ones. I am devoting a good deal of time to fostering ways in which different groups can communicate with one another so that they can coordinate their efforts with good information as well as with good intentions. In the process, I hope, they can attend to what Catarinecos actually want as opposed to what others think they need, and do so with an understanding of how the distribution of aid plays out in local socioeconomic and political relations.
In the long term, I am pursuing ways to engineer drainage in the town so that people can live more safely. I would like to have an engineer look at the layout of the town or even solicit the help of a qualified organization. More immediately, since the worst mudslide was right in one of the rivers that runs through the town, the most obvious thing to look into is to look into finding some way of relocating the families that live in the path of the river. This may involve petitioning the municipality, the national government, or a foreign landowner for land; or it may even involve the purchase of land away from the rivers. Most of the families that live in the vicinity of the rivers no longer want to live there and there is some interest in organizing collectively to petition for the municipality, the national government, or foreign land holders for small plots of land.
A number of individuals are doing relief work in Santa Catarina, some of whom have funded reconstruction. This family is rebuilding in the river basin through which the most powerful mudslide passed. Although they want to relocate to a safer location, they cannot because they have no other land. Ideally, all the families in this area could relocate.