Dateline ACT
Guatemala 01/05
ACT Appeal LACE52 (Revision 1) - Assistance to Flood& Volcano Affected
Hopes of building a new society
By Linda Nordahl Jakobsen, ACT International
Guatemala City, November 11, 2005--The lack of emergency help to many indigenous and poor communities during and after Hurricane Stan has underlined the centuries-old social and economic disparity that reigns in Guatemala. In early October, heavy rains from the hurricane lashed the whole Central America region, affecting Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua, and caused extensive flooding and mudslides. The hurricane destroyed homes, crops and other property, putting many in Guatemala, already at risk before the hurricane, under further threat.
The Tzutojils, a subgroup of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya people, live in villages and communities mainly on the western sides of Lake Atitlan. In the department of Sololá as a whole, 96.4 percent of the 307,661 inhabitants is indigenous, and 77.5 percent of the department’s population lives in poverty or extreme poverty In the department of San Marcos, which was also hard-hit by Hurricane Stan, 73.1 percent of the 794,951 inhabitants lives in poverty or extreme poverty (U.N. Human Development Report).
Hurricane Stan exposed the weaknesses of the disaster-response preparedness of the country. The government agency for coordination of the disaster response, CONRED, has been under severe criticism lately.
When Hurricane Stan hit, local, national and church-based civil-society organizations started to talk and react to it as a catastrophe after a week of torrential rain. Several hundred small villages and communities had not been heard from and had received no assistance, food or shelter or help with evacuations.
The communities that had received assistance were mainly in the municipalities, fuelling the perception that aid went to these areas because of the numbers of government supporters living there.
The Catholic Church in particular and many of the civil-society organizations are now trying to use the momentum created by the flood of criticism to advocate for the government’s reconstruction plan to be one of constructing new social structures for Guatemala – and not only a plan of rebuilding infrastructure and communication.
“It’s now we have the opportunity to build up something new, a new Guatemala with more social equity,” says Eugenio Incer of the Social Research Institute, Avancso. “Stan has revealed in a brutal way the poverty that most of the population is submitted to. It has taken off the veil of poverty, so now we have the opportunity to at least talk about, discuss it and try to create solidarity with the poorest.”
In the immediate term, however, physical needs resulting from the hurricane must be met. Members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Guatemala - Christian Aid, DanChurchAid, Guatemalan Evangelical Churches Conference, Lutheran World Federation, Norwegian Church Aid, Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS) – working together as the ACT Guatemala Forum, received US$50,000 in Rapid Response Funds from the ACT Coordinating Office on October 11. The forum was expected to immediately provide food, water, medicines, clothes and hygiene kits to the most affected communities where other humanitarian agencies were not responding.
In late October, the ACT Coordinating Office issued an appeal (LACE52 Revision 1 - Assistance to Floods & Volcano Affected) for US$2.7 million for the ACT Guatemala Forum to carry out crisis, post-emergency and rehabilitation assistance among 7,700 families through 2006.
For now, there is a fragile hope that the comprehensive rebuilding in Guatemala will construct a more just society - more than just repairing roads and bridges but also fixing the huge social inequity that has marked Guatemala for decades.
Linda Nordahl Jakobsen is a journalist for DanChurchAid, a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.
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