Mining has never been a significant part of El Salvador's economy, but modern techniques make it attractive in some areas. The Canadian mining company Pacific Rim is currently exploring for minerals in three areas, and has requested a concession to restart mining at the El Dorado mine in the department of Cabañas where it says it has invested $28 million and can produce 1.2 million ounces of gold and 7.4 million ounces of silver. Pacific Rim is also in the early stages of exploration on its Zamora project, near Texistepeque, Santa Ana.
Farmers near the town of Texistepeque are skeptical about mining, and some have even visited large-scale mines in Honduras and come back opposed to any mining in El Salvador. Salvador Antonio Seseña Rodruígez, 62, is one of the farmers who made the trip to the San Andres mine in Honduras. "I was really impressed by the destruction," he said about the mine. "We saw the main river there was almost dry, and there was no life in the river."
Rodruígez is a father of 10, and makes a living raising cows and growing corn and beans. So he was particularly concerned about the water problems he saw. "We already have a water crisis here," he says. "We can't drink contaminated water. How will we end up if we allow mining here?"
It was through his church and a meeting with the Centro de Investigación Sobre Inversión y Comercio (know as CEICOM) that he participated in the exchange visit. He came back ready to mobilize others in his community.
Oxfam America is working with CEICOM and a coalition of social, environmental, and other civil society organizations pushing for a voice in a real debate about whether mining is suitable for El Salvador, where some estimates say 90 percent of surface water is already polluted. The country has also been largely deforested, leaving many communities at risk of landslides during heavy rains, so many are already concerned about the environment. The Salvadorian Bishop's Conference released a statement saying mining causes damage to the environment and communities in May of 2007.
Civil society organization in El Salvador have proposed a law that would prohibit all hard-rock mineral mining, arguing the country is too densely populated and water is too scarce to support the industry.
Oxfam America's program in Central America, which is based in El Salvador, is working to enrich the debate on this issue, help civil society project its voice and hold the government accountable to the people, and provide information about mining and its effects on communities and the environment that citizens can use to make informed decisions.
The government of El Salvador has said it will not grant any new licenses to explore or operate mines until it does a strategic environmental study to assess the likely impact of open-pit mining in the country. "We feel this study should be done with the participation of civil society," says David Pereira of CEICOM. He said that in 2006 the minister of natural resources came out publicly against mining, saying the government did not have the capacity to regulate the industry. The minister then challenged civil society to change the laws and cautioned land owners not to sell their land to mining companies.
Some members of the senate have written a public letter to government leaders saying that they believe allowing industrial mining into the northern areas of the country will jeopardize development projects supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a $460-million, US government-funded foreign aid program, to bring sustained economic development in that region.
Pacific Rim continues to explore at El Dorado, which it says is its flagship property. The company is running an aggressive public relations campaign with radio ads introducing the slogan "minería verde" in an attempt to win hearts and minds of government and citizens. It also sponsors municipal soccer teams, and holds community meetings to sway farmers to accept mining in their community.
In the meantime, the Environmental Committee of Cabañas is reporting that 10 natural springs have dried up in the past month in areas close to Pacific Rim exploratory drilling. These reports have been verified by the Ministry of Natural Resources. In one of the cases, cattle-raising communities lost their natural spring four days after Pacific Rim began drilling. The company is now trucking in daily rations of water.
]]>Only hours before, news of a double disaster had reached Oxfam America's office in San Salvador. A volcanic eruption, followed by an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 had launched an exodus from the capital city. Hundreds of thousands of people were on the move, rushing from collapsed homes to ill-equipped shelters on the outskirts of town. Oxfam staff scrambled to respond, contacting local partner organizations, government offices, and the UN to begin coordinating aid delivery.
It was a scene from a major disaster. Or perhaps not.
Outside Oxfam's San Salvador office, it was a peaceful day. The loudest sound was the whistling of a flock of clarineros in the trees, not the blaring horns of desperate drivers, and there was no sign that the ground beneath the neighboring buildings had slipped and shuddered.
In fact, this was a scene from a disaster simulation—an elaborate fabrication designed to ensure that the Oxfam staff are poised to respond quickly and effectively in a major emergency. The staff had gathered in the office that morning knowing a "disaster" was coming their way but with no idea what it would turn out to be, until "news flashes" began revealing an emergency that appeared to threaten both the city and the office itself.
First things first: in the simulation as she would in real life, Regional Director Susan Bird made sure all the Oxfam staff and their families were safe. Then she and her staff launched an all-out effort to get aid to the affected communities.
Yet, for hours—just as in real-life emergencies—there were 20 important questions for every answer available. How many people have been affected? Where are they moving to? Who's been left behind? What are the most urgent needs? What are the government and other NGOs planning to do? What support do our partner organizations need to begin delivering aid? Are the displaced people safe? Who needs our help the most? What's our plan of action?
"It's crazy. The numbers are changing every five minutes. It's difficult to get a grasp of what's really going on," said communications officer Tjarda Muller.
"In real emergencies, we have to be swift and coordinated. Lives depend on it." — Dawit Beyene, Oxfam America's deputy director of humanitarian response
Soon, Vanessa Lanza from Oxfam's Boston office was stretched to the limit in her role as staff member of a partner organization, trying to learn about the most urgent needs on the ground as she pulled together a sketch of how many families her group could assist with what kind of aid, along with a budget to submit to aid agencies she hoped would support her. "This is hard. I have so much to do. It's chaos for a partner to respond to the community and at the same time to coordinate all the sources of funding."
In another office, key emergencies staff met with the director to hammer out Oxfam's plan of action.
"We need to look at the risks people are facing," said Susan Bird. The plan would have to consider the potential for looting, aftershocks, crowding, lack of water, disease outbreaks, and violence.
"We're talking about 300,000 displaced people," Enrique Garcia, Oxfam's Regional Humanitarian Coordinator, reminded the group. He described the chaos that can ensue when even relatively small numbers of people gather at emergency shelters like gyms and schools.
The initial action plan began to emerge: the government had announced it would supply aid to the large shelters for displaced people, so Oxfam decided to focus its resources on the under-served groups gathering in informal shelters. But delivering aid after disasters is never simple. Latrines would be crucial for sanitation, but digging pits or trenches would be impossible where people were gathering in paved, urban settings. And the displaced groups would need plenty of clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing, but the staff had learned from past experience that there aren't enough tanker trucks in El Salvador to transport the water that would be needed.
"We'll have to bring trucks in from Guatemala," said Garcia.
Every now and then laughter rippled through the offices as staff members circulated offbeat messages and photos to ease the tension.
But for some, it was hard to keep in mind that this wasn't a real emergency. At age 52, Oxfam staffer Milagro Orellana (or Niña Mila, as she is respectfully called) has experienced many disasters, and the simulation roused painful memories. She recalled the day in 2001 when a powerful earthquake struck El Salvador.
"It was a Saturday, and I had gone to Santa Tecla to buy supplies. When I returned, I heard this sound like a bomb had exploded. I was still on the bus, which was shaking. I saw walls falling down from houses. People started running all over the place. Since it hadn't been that long since the war ended, I thought maybe someone had bombed a building. I was very afraid for the lives of my children." She trembled as she spoke of it. "When I got home I found my family out in the street, screaming."
Oxfam helped her get back onto her feet after the real earthquake, and on this January day she was pleased to help the office hone its skills for future emergencies.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, the organizers brought the simulation to a close. The action plan was complete, the partners had been activated, and the Oxfam response was up and running. The first two days of a disaster response had been squeezed into seven hours, but from the look of the tired faces, some of the staff might as well have lived through 48 hours of a real-time emergency.
Next on their agenda: the crucial final day of the exercise, where the office would map out a plan to improve its disaster readiness.
"It really put us in the mindset of a major emergency and allowed us to have a good look at what we're doing right, and what things we need to do better," said Susan Bird. "In this case, when the stress got too intense, we could remember that it was just an exercise. In a real emergency, we know there are people out there who need our help, and we need to be as prepared as possible to deliver it quickly and effectively."
Niña Mila looked relieved at the end of the day. "I feel good. It was a big experience for me. It made me feel like how I would actually act in a real emergency. I had no idea I could do this. So thank you."
]]>The Izabal region, which is located in northeastern Guatemala, along the borders of Belize and Honduras, is one of the country's richest in natural resources. It is home to the country's largest lake—Lake Izabal—which has a unique ecosystem that includes hundreds of animal species, some of which are endangered. The people who live around the lake give it a rich cultural mix—they are ladinos, Garifuna and Maya Q'eq'chi indigenous people. Their livelihood is based on fishing, planting corn, beans and cardamom, and ecotourism. The region's unique resources give it great potential for sustainable development.
Among the natural resources in the area are oil, gold, silver and nickel. The government has granted mining concession to foreign companies, including the Guatemalan Nickel Corporation (known as CGN in Spanish), which is a subsidiary of Skye Resources of Canada. CGN received a license to mine nickel in Izabal in 2005 and will begin operations in 2008. CGN has wrongly accused Eloyda Mejia and other members of ASALI of squatting on company property.
Critics of the mining project say it endangers the abundant natural resources in the region and offers little in the way of local development because companies pay only one percent of their profits in royalties and only half of that—0.5 percent—goes to the municipality where the mine is located.
ASALI was created to defend the lake, its surrounding areas, and its indigenous culture. In 2002, ASALI was successful in its bid cancel a license to drill for oil under the lake. Since then it has been educating and informing the local population about the consequences and problems that mining can cause in the region and about the alternatives for sustainable development that existing natural resources can provide. Oxfam America had been helping to fund the work of ASALI since 2006.
The case of Eloyda Mejia and ASALI are not isolated incidents. In recent years, those who have opposed mining in their communities—principally indigenous communities—have received threats and suffered acts of repression. In January of 2007, there were incidents in numerous communities in Izabal in which people were driven from their homes or in which their homes were destroyed by security forces and police.
"Communities and local organizations, which in Guatemala are largely indigenous, should have the right to express whether they are in favor or against mining, based on objective information about its probable impact, without suffering retaliation," said Oxfam America's program officer Andres McKinley. "These opinions should be taken into account by the government and the mining companies."
]]>In the past few years they have no longer been able to predict the seasons, so they don't know when to plant. Traditional signs found in nature—white cranes, flowering avocado plants, silver fish, and flashes of lightning—are no longer heralding the rains.
"The summer now is winter," says Howard Fernández, a farmer in the remote San Andrés de Bocay community in northeastern Nicaragua. "April used to be summer, but it rained the entire month. In May—wintertime—it doesn't rain. We listen to the thunder, we see the lightning that should let us know that the rain is coming, but it is not coming. Because of this climate change we are suffering the decrease of our farm's production."
The changing climate is having a devastating effect on the Miskito people, who live in wooden huts and subsist on crops planted on a few hectares of land and food hunted from the jungle and rivers. Already among the poorest and most marginalized groups in the country, they are now on the front lines of this new threat, which is hitting them practically and psychologically. As well as badly reducing their rice crop, this year's drought meant the river levels were much lower than usual, affecting the communities' vital transport artery. And then, after the drought, Hurricane Felix hit the Miskitos in September.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported decreasing rainfall patterns in Nicaragua. The panel's report also shows how the remote areas where these Native Americans live are becoming increasingly vulnerable from the impact of hurricanes, predicted to increase as a result of climate change. Oxfam is working with communities on a hurricane early warning system, which involves measuring river water levels and predicting possible flooding, to help them cope with these changes in weather.
]]>Dr. Almendares is a renowned defender of human rights and the environment. He has a long trajectory of work in the poorest communities of his country, providing people with free health care, organizing them, and passing on his knowledge. In his academic career, he has directed research at prestigious universities and institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and the Cardiovascular Research Institute in San Francisco. In his own country, he has dedicated himself to the sciences, first as a professor at the Medical School, later as its dean, and eventually as rector of the Autonomous National University of Honduras.
After the award ceremony we spoke with Dr. Almendares:
What does it mean to you to be nominated and then elected for this prize from InterAction?
I accepted this recognition as a noble and generous act by the organizations in the United States, and also as an act of solidarity with the people we are working with to build a better world that is more respectful of human rights and environmental justice. This honor has been a great act of moral support for me in the face of the all the risks we take in order to defend the life and dignity of human beings and to provide for a great love of humanity and our planet earth.
What inspired you to study medicine?
My greatest inspiration was my mother. I call it the theology of dreams. When my mother was pregnant she dreamed she was in paradise and that I worked with plants, the environment, and serving humanity. I come from a poor family. We lived in a poor neighborhood plagued with alcoholism, prostitution, and violence. Thanks to my mother's advice, I didn't get involved in all that. She never physically or psychologically abused me and she taught me a culture of non-violence. But it was a struggle to make it out of that environment. When I was in college sometimes I went hungry. I was malnourished and anemic. When I it was my turn to spend six months in bed, I learned what it meant to be a patient, and that as a doctor, one must be humble. When I graduated from the university with a degree in medicine, I had three callings: to work on behalf of the poor, to educate, and to dedicate myself to science.
These callings led you to establish various projects aimed at improving people's lives...
For many years we have run a clinic for poor people where we provide free medical attention. Mostly we work with the urban poor residents of Tegucigalpa and with indigenous people in some of the most remote communities in the country, where doctors rarely venture. In addition to providing medical attention, we do organizing work. For example, we work with 26 communities in the Tegucigalpa urban areas. We organized the women in these communities into a committee called the Honduran Committee for Peace. Now they have family gardens. Also, with the support of a Canadian organization, we have constructed more than 200 tanks to store the water that they get only once a month. We held natural medicine workshops to teach women how to treat common illnesses themselves. For example, chamomile, mint, and linden flower teas, and massage techniques, can relieve stress and tension. We have taught them how to treat a cough or diarrhea. We are also concerned about the environment and founded the Madre Tierra [Mother Earth] movement. Now we are working on a reforestation project. We asked the kids in the program how many trees they would like to plant. The told us one million trees. So, with the dream of planting a million trees, we are working with them in the poorest neighborhoods. We have already planted more than 15,000 trees and within this movement we have created a school of sorts, where kids are learning how to care for the environment and their health.
How is your work related to Oxfam America's work?
Through our work with Madre Tierra, we have been involved with Oxfam on the issue of mining. Madre Tierra has been studying the health impacts of heavy metals. We have been conducting research for five years in the Siria Valley region of Honduras, where there is a large mine. With the help of a Harvard student, we were able to get baseline data on the health conditions in the community prior to the mine, in order to make a before and after comparison. We go to the communities to conduct research and clinical exams and what we have noticed, interestingly, is that it is mostly the women who are ill, not the men who work in the mines. The women use the water often, to cook, clean, and wash clothes. We have seen many health problems in their skin, eyes, and nervous and respiratory systems. Oxfam America has helped a lot by providing us with information on technical and ethical issues. It has worked on a broad scale in many different areas.
In all these years that you have spent working with the poorest of the poor, have you seen any changes in the people, their situation or policies?
Yes, we have seen changes. The people have a better perception of their situation; they are more aware. This allows them to dissent and make demands of the authorities if they disagree with decisions they make. We also work in human rights. We have a center for torture victims and violence prevention, inspired by the teachings of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Francisco Morazán [Morazán, a Honduran politician and defender of democracy, was the last president of the Federal Republic of Central America in the mid-1800s]. We have been able to promote a message of non-violence with government institutions, which we see as directly related to the issue of health. We advocated for the government to incorporate mental health issues in its human rights agenda and women's rights into the health agenda. The government also approved and ratified The United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Your work presents you with some of the toughest situations in your country. What motivates you to keep going?
Despite it all, I always maintain great optimism and a love for the earth. I appreciate the cooperation from the international community. I have found great human beings in all the continents: Africa, Europe, Asia, and America. I am very grateful for this. We must always have love and compassion among us and with all that we do.
]]>Three people died (including a four-year-old boy, his 14-year-old brother, and their father) and 80 people have taken shelter in the church in the city of Berlin. At the temporary shelter there is a pressing need for drinking water, dry and clean clothes, blankets, personal hygiene kits, mattresses, and medicine. As a first response to this local emergency, Oxfam directed a $12,000 to its partner organizations to provide clothing and hygiene kits, as well as water and sanitations equipment such as 20-liter water tanks for each family to store clean water.
Forecasts call for more heavy rains in the coming days. Oxfam’s partner organizations continue to evacuate communities at risk.
Each year people who live in conditions of poverty confront emergency situations. Because they lack resources, they are forced to construct their homes of weak materials in precarious places, where lands are cheap or abandoned. This makes them more vulnerable to heavy rains.
Oxfam works with organizations to prepare these communities to confront disasters and mitigate the damage they cause. In group training sessions they draw risk maps, form early warning, emergency, and first aid committees, and identify buildings in safer areas that can function as shelters. Once organized and trained, the communities can confront an eventual emergency in a coordinated fashion. Additionally, when organized and trained, these communities are more empowered to demand their rights and do advocacy work with national organizations to achieve changes in the current civil defense law, which gives communities a limited role.
]]>"One part was washed out by the landslides," cooperative member Lucas Izapo told us. "Before Stan, the land was thick with coffee plants, everything was covered with coffee plants. When the landslide came, it took the coffee bushes with it. The hill was left bald, and covered in rock.
"Now I am fixing up my land, little by little. But it's not going to take a year to fix it, it'll take three, four, or more years before this part is back to normal. Because it isn't easy to build walls. This year I planted living fences with Yucca and Bower Vine. And little by little I am going to make a stone wall, to protect the coffee from the rain that falls [each winter]."
The cooperative was able to support its members with the donation of new coffee plants to replace the older ones, organic fertilizer, and $62 for each member. They needed to make this investment to care for the plants they still had left.
They cooperative also repaired the channel that drains the coffee washing stations. This was essential to renew their fair trade certification; without this certification their income would drop even more.
Like other places in Guatemala, farmers in Solola lost much of their corn. Lucas said it has been difficult to feed his family of 10.
"I had to work even harder to sustain us, because I didn't have my harvest which was lost the year before. I lost 160 to 200 pounds from that corn harvest. So I had to plant tomato and onion and sell it to buy the corn that I used to grow for myself. Little by little I was able to buy the corn—100 pounds, another 100 pounds—because I grew these other crops."
]]>Recovering the coffee crop is not a quick endeavor. In the majority of cases it will be three or four years until the harvest is at its normal level. And cleaning up the destroyed plots of land also takes time. It is an additional task that the coffee growers had to undertake in the moments when they weren't tending to the crops spared by the storm.
The first cooperative we visited was ASUVIM, in the province of Quetzaltenango, where we spoke with the president of the cooperative, Daniel Balux. The principle problem this cooperative faced was that nearly 30 percent of its harvest was affected by black bean, a deformation of the coffee bean that cannot be seen when the coffee is harvested, but only once it is dried. It changes the color and the taste of the coffee, disqualifying it from the gourmet and fair trade markets.
Can you tell us about the black bean problem?
Actually, we detected it here at the mill. We saw that we had black beans, but we didn't think it was so extensive, we thought it was just the first beans. But as we continued with the harvest it was the same. It was the whole harvest. The coffee looked good as parchment coffee but if we look at them all—the ones with a different color, they are black beans. We can't say that our members brought in bad coffee, because the cherries looked good, they didn't even look a little rotten or anything like that. The coffee was good. You can't say to the people, look, bring us better coffee or chose it better—[but] of course when they cup this coffee the cuppers will say it is green coffee, coffee that didn't reach its full maturity. So the aid for the black bean was something necessary [to compensate for the low price]. So, what did we do after all this? Well, thanks to the help that came from you, at least the members got their normal price. At least we could say to them, 'Look, the coffee was shipped at this price, but we are going to help you a little bit and we are going to pay you this much.' The people saw that at least there was an effort behind all this."
In addition to this monetary compensation that was given to the members, what other actions did ASUVIM take to overcome the crisis?
Here 60 percent of what people earn comes from coffee. If there are problems with the coffee, there are problems in the families. Either there is little schooling, or people are unable to complete projects they had planned or there isn't much food. Here in ASUVIM we also helped out with corn. We gave each member 800 pounds of corn. Part of it we donated, the other part the members had to buy. Each family of six consumes about 1,600 pounds of corn per year. [They lost 80 percent of the harvest.] What happened with the 20 percent that they were left with? They ate it in January, maybe into February, but by March they had to buy corn. Then the problem is that when there is high demand for corn, the price rises. So we helped them with this, with 800 pounds. We think it's 50 percent of the corn they eat, we could now say that at least they had corn to eat.
The other damage we suffered as an organization is related to the landslide here next to the patio where we sun dry the coffee. With the rain, little by little, we were losing more of it. So we were faced with an emergency. Either we did something or our patio would collapse. And the more time that passed, the worse it was. So we received aid from Oxfam America because the construction is big. But it was necessary because if we lose the patio, it'd be an additional expense.. We are still constructing, but we are making the wall. We aren't doing something that is simply going to fall apart next year and then we would have to invest in it all over again. We want to invest, to spend and if that means chipping in ourselves, we do it.
]]>Although 83.3 percent of the population considers rape to be a crime, 16.7 percent still denies it. This is an alarmingly high percentage which is then reflected in the high rate of rapes. In its 2005 report on crimes (through November), the Attorney General's office reported 2,296 registered cases of rape, sexual aggression and statutory rape. 40.2 percent of the people polled affirm that the place where these types of crimes most often take place is within the home—a place believed to be among the safest for women, boys and girls—and that the person who most often commits the crime is the step father (58.3 percent).
If the previous information sounds alarming, the panorama gets even worse. Seventy percent of those polled believe that the National Civilian Police (PNC) shows little interest in the rape cases that are presented to them, and 20 percent think the PNC could care less. At the same time, the PNC is one of the agencies where people most often go to denounce an act of violence. This was shown by another study done by the Human Rights Ombudswoman's office, which was also supported by Oxfam America.
This study, in addition to asking about the treatment that women receive in the different institutions of the State, also investigated the situation of gender violence within these very institutions. As well as a high rate of sexual harassment, there is a high degree of discrimination in the way women are treated and in opportunities that exist for them. Furthermore, the study reveals salary inequality between men and women. It highlights that although most of the women have a university degree, they usually don't denounce sexual harassment for fear of losing their job or other acts of revenge. Harassers operate with an alarming degree of impunity. In only 3 percent of the cases where harassment was denounced were the perpetrators fired or transferred.
The Human Rights Ombudswoman's Office convened many public functionaries from the aforementioned offices in order to share the results and said they would follow up.
]]>On January 13, 2001, a powerful earthquake shook El Salvador. In San José Costa Rica, houses collapsed, many residents suffered broken bones, and a four-year-old girl was killed. The main road was destroyed, so for a time the community was cut off from outside help.
In the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake, Oxfam teamed up with local partner REDES with the goal of helping Costa Rica and many other Salvadoran communities prevent future earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural events from becoming full-scale disasters.
The REDES program in Costa Rica is grounded in a community emergency committee whose members have taken charge of evacuation, communications, shelter, first aid, and other key tasks. After mapping out the risks and resources of the village, REDES and the committee developed an emergency-response plan designed to ensure that everyone—including those living in hazardous locations and people with limited mobility—could reach safety in the early hours of an emergency. A two-way radio was installed, providing the community with access to the REDES base, which is staffed 24 hours a day to handle emergency communications. REDES trained community members in first aid and other skills that are essential for first responders, and the community held drills to simulate emergencies.
In October of 2005, Hurricane Stan pounded El Salvador and put Costa Rica's preparations to the test. High winds, heavy rains, landslides, and washed-out roads that isolated the village all portended tragedy, yet the town suffered no deaths or serious injuries. At a gathering of the community's emergency committee and Oxfam and REDES staff, we heard about what happened from the people who lived through it.
As quickly as possible after the hurricane struck, Claudia Dalila Sánchez, who headed up the evacuation committee, led her team on a tour of the community. They evacuated people trapped by landslides and caught in other precarious situations, and they monitored the rising waters of Lago de Ilopango. "When the earthquake happened, we didn't know enough," she said. "For Stan, we had better information about how to take people out of danger."
"In both the 2001 earthquake and Hurricane Stan, the roads were destroyed so no vehicles could come in," explained Miguel Martínez, San José Costa Rica's emergency committee coordinator. "But the difference with Stan was that we were organized. After the earthquake, people didn't have the consciousness to help each other, but after Stan, the community was united. We scheduled turns so people could work on the road, and in a short time, we were able to clear it."
Carmen Sosa is a shy woman who waited until all seven of the committee leaders had spoken before telling her story. "During the earthquake, we didn't know what to do. My house fell. My husband was hurt by a roof tile that fell on his head. And since I didn't know what to do, I just cried. I saw all my things destroyed and thought, 'This is it. I don't have anything left.' But since REDES has given us training, we now know what we can do in these cases."
Carmen concluded with a self-assured smile that left us feeling that something about this program—either the new skills she's learned or the knowledge that she no longer has to face emergencies alone—has added a measure of confidence to her life.
Oxfam's partners work in many communities around the country, helping them take charge effectively at times of emergency. But our program goes far beyond teaching the nuts and bolts of emergency response: one of our partners co-authored a law that has created a role for communities in El Salvador's national system of disaster preparedness and response, and which requires for the first time that disaster preparedness be incorporated into development planning.
"We are working to help impoverished communities gain both the skills and the voice in the political process that they need to prevent future emergencies from becoming disasters," says Michael Delaney, Oxfam America's Director of Humanitarian Response. "So far, signs point to success."
Working through REDES and other partners, Oxfam America's disaster risk reduction programs in El Salvador are now reaching an estimated 200,000 people.
]]>DR-CAFTA is a regional trade agreement between the US and Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. If approved, the agreement would further open Central American economies to US exports and foreign investors. It would reduce local decision-making and fail to ensure international labor and environmental standards.
With Oxfam's support, representatives from El Salvador's FUNDE, Guatemala's CIDECA and Nicaragua's Centro Humboldt met with US Congresspeople and their staff.
Oxfam provides grants to the Central American partners, which lobby against DR-CAFTA and educate citizens about the consequences of the trade agreement, if ratified.
"Oxfam has allowed us to do a lot of research. And Oxfam has been instrumental in helping us come to the US to say, 'We really don't want CAFTA,' face-to-face," said Mario Rodriguez, 40, an economist specializing in intellectual property with CIDECA.
It's important for US citizens to lobby their Congressional representatives to make trade fair. But it also makes a big difference when Central American civil society representatives can speak directly to the US Congress to explain how their countries' development will be affected, said Stephanie Weinberg, Oxfam America policy advisor.
In addition to providing direct support to the Central American groups, Oxfam America also fosters connections between US farmers and farmers in other countries around policy debates like CAFTA. Working with US partners such as the National Family Farm Coalition, Oxfam has funded exchanges where American farmers from the National Family Farm Coalition meet with farmers in Mexico and Central America, and vice versa, with Mexican farmers touring US farms.
The exchanges help farmers from the North and South understand each other's situation and make tangible connections, farmer to farmer, about the impacts of agricultural and trade policies on their daily lives.
"My ability to explain to my fellow farmers why we should help didn't come naturally," said George Naylor, president of NFFC and a farmer from Iowa. "Meeting with farmers from other countries helped me understand."
After hearing the stories from the Central American and Mexican farmers he met, Naylor said he realized that CAFTA would further depress prices abroad and push more farmers off their land.
Any farmer can understand that threat.
"When everybody in the family ends up working off the farm, then what you used to think of as a 'family farm'—where everyone is involved in caring for the land and producing food—can't happen anymore," Naylor said.
]]>I believe there are interests that we share that are very important to the work we do in Nicaragua—natural disaster preparedness work, extractive industries, and irrigation issues.
Oxfam also helps build campaign support, political understanding and meaningful participation.
We have firsthand information about what's going on with CAFTA. We are trying to provide that information to those people who don't have access to it.
We are influencing public opinion and pressuring the government to prevent the agreement from being ratified in the countries throughout Central America.
At the international level, we are trying to convince members of Congress who are undecided that CAFTA is not the thing to do.
CAFTA will have very serious consequences on the Central American environment. Even though there is a chapter on the environment in the agreement, it is not enough to mitigate the negative effects CAFTA will produce if approved.
The intellectual property rights provisions will allow exploitation of all the local environmental capital that Central America has. This chapter will just benefit big corporations at the expense of local companies and communities.
The big corporations will tap the genetic information in tropical forests and use it for their own needs. In this agreement, foreign investors will benefit to the detriment of local businesses in Central America.
Biodiversity is an area in which Central America is very rich. And those resources are at risk under CAFTA.
Another major problem for the environment is genetically modified organisms. US agriculture allows the use of these kinds of products without a problem. If CAFTA takes effect, increased trade will bring these products to Central America. Right now, these genetically engineered products don't exist in Central America. This would lead to contamination of the local resources.
We don't know what type of problems these new seeds will introduce. We don't know what consequences there will be.
After the agreement was negotiated, the nature of the activities changed. We moved from a phase where we constructed proposals to a second stage, which involved getting information to the people about what had been negotiated.
I believe that the US Congress is near a decision. It will be very tight, a very close call. So, this is a very important time. This is the time to influence the decision.
We still have to wait for the final result, but we have provided them with important information so they can make an informed decision.
]]>Oxfam has allowed us to do a lot of research. And Oxfam has been instrumental in helping us come to the US to say, "We really don't want CAFTA," face-to-face.
We believe that public opinion has been manipulated. The business sector, which is pushing CAFTA, has said that people in Central America want CAFTA. The reality is totally different
For example, in El Salvador, this agreement was approved late at night and behind closed doors. In Honduras, when they approved it, the legislature had to leave through the back door because there were protestors out front. In Guatemala, the people are asking for a national referendum even though the president says they can't afford it.
We believe that this is an important decision for the future of our countries. There has to be a national referendum so people can say what they think.
I believe that the negotiations and ratification process is totally undemocratic—because the negotiations have been carried out, and still are being carried out, by a very small group of people. We have asked the Congressional representatives in Guatemala if they understand the agreement. And they say they don't even have a copy to look at. But they have been pressured to vote in favor of CAFTA. That's not democratic and says a lot about the process.
If CAFTA really is a good thing, why do they have to hide negotiations and do it behind the people's back?
I got news of the police repressing local people who were protesting against CAFTA. I don't think CAFTA has been approved yet, but it can happen at any moment. (Guatamala's congress ratified CAFTA on March 10, 2005. The agreement is awaiting ratification by the US congress).
We lobby the Guatemalan congress. At the national level, we are part of Mesa Global, which has been leading the protests this week. We also present proposals and research on issues related to the negotiation process and the potential impact of the trade agreement. We have been working with people involved in the negotiations and ratification of CAFTA, as well as with local organizations.
I'm very sad because I feel that the future, whatever it is, will be decided here in the US. They don't have the right to make decisions about our lives.
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