For the CDCA, development work in Nicaragua is working with poverty-stricken people who do not have basic human rights to add a measure of improvement to their lives. What are basic human rights? We believe that people have the right to clean water, sanitation, food, education, health care, work, clothing, and decent housing. We also strive to help communities become self-sufficient, sustainable, democratic entities.
Our work is focused in the municipality of Ciudad Sandino, just outside the capital city of Managua. In 1968 there was a flood and many people who lived along the lakeshore in Managua lost their homes. The government moved them out to disused cotton fields belonging to the dictator Somoza, and sold them plots of land. In 1972 the earthquake that devastated Managua left more than a quarter of a million people homeless, and thousands of them were re-located to the same cotton fields which became known as OPEN 3 or Permanent National Emergency Operation Three. The people of OPEN 3 had to make regular payments on their land and if they missed any one payment they had to start paying all over again. During the insurrection to overthrow Somoza, OPEN 3 was a safe haven for Sandinista revolutionaries, and when Somoza was finally ousted in 1979, the place was renamed Ciudad Sandino, or Sandino City. It has continued to grow with each new natural disaster, as the government moves newly displaced people – the poorest in Managua – to the edges of Ciudad Sandino. The most recent disaster was Hurricane Mitch in 1998, when 12,000 refugees were moved to Ciudad Sandino, forming the new barrio of Nueva Vida
In 2001, Ciudad Sandino became its own municipality, whereas previously it had been under Managua's jurisdiction. Becoming independent has had its benefits, but brought many problems, the largest being lack of money. Ciudad Sandino has a tax base of only $2.30 a year per person. Its infrastructure was designed to accommodate 40,000 people and yet it is estimated that 150,000 people live there currently. Ciudad Sandino is the most densely populated area in Nicaragua with 7,700 people per square mile (comparable with Detroit, Michigan, USA, but Ciudad Sandino’s buildings are not multi-story). It’s also the poorest urban area in Nicaragua with an estimated 80% of the population lacking a formal job.
It is because of this great need that the CDCA was invited by a Nicaraguan development organization to work in Ciudad Sandino. Our early projects here involved meeting the immediate needs of the larger community and included:
Then on October 30, 1998, Hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua. More than six feet of water fell in 5 days in the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since 1780! (NOAA) After the hurricane, the mayor of Managua moved more than 12,000 flood victims onto two fields, and gave each family a plot of land measuring 10 yards x 15 yards with only a big piece of black plastic for a new home. This resettlement camp was given the name of Nueva Vida, New Life.
Nueva Vida is just up the road from the CDCA, and as an immediate neighborly response in the face of disaster, we began working with these people with food give-aways, building shelters, and providing medical clinics. We quickly realized that this work was going to be a long-range project. In trying to figure out how we could best help, we first realized that the project needed to be a development project, not just a crisis response. As Frances Moore Lappé (et al.) wrote in World Hunger: Twelve Myths, "Natural events are not the cause. They are the final blow." Ciudad Sandino with its massive unemployment and poor infrastructure could not absorb 12,000 flood victims! We needed to move quickly into reconstruction, not just crisis response. As with all our work, this reconstruction project needed to be development work and it had to include the people in crisis.
We began our work by listening to the leaders in the community. We hired four community promoters for two years, and they helped organize the community for the building of temporary shelters, latrines, and for holding medical clinics.
Our work expanded to establish a permanent clinic and we employ a community promoter whose job is to organize community work projects in order to allow patients to attend the clinic free of charge, but still give something back to their community.
In addition, using appropriate technology, we have directly supported the sustainable
development of the Nueva Vida resettlement camp through:
We continue listening to the people of Nueva Vida, but have expanded our
focus to the whole of Ciudad Sandino.
Many hard feelings were being created when so much international aid
came to those being moved into Nueva Vida and nothing to the very poor already
living in Ciudad Sandino. Hearing these complaints we opened our clinic to the
people of Ciudad Sandino. We also have a staff member who works closely with
the mayor's office, helping with municipal problems.
One volunteer engineer
assisted the mayor's office with developing cheap and effective solutions to
ease the current over-crowding and lack of infrastructure found throughout the
city and we are now seeing many of his suggestions come to fruition.