That’s why an Oxfam America emergency response launched in La Pelota last October sought not only to meet people’s immediate needs, but to help them mitigate the risks of their community for the future.
When it rains hard, La Pelota is one of the first communities in the area to flood, in part because a vigorously growing plant called la ninfa clogs the local waterways. The plant is a sign of another problem people face: poor infrastructure for sanitation. Most families rely on pit latrines whose contaminants feed the growth of la ninfa.
In October, Tropical Depression 12-E hit. It rained for almost two weeks straight. On one side of La Pelota the lake overflowed, and on the other side its natural drain spilled its banks.
“It began to rain quite a lot. Little by little, the lake drained, but then the water level rose as it continued to rain,” said Juan Francisco Flores, a 32-year-old community member. “The lake doesn’t flow fast enough through the channel. The water backs up and that’s what floods the community… The stream was flooding on one side and the lake on the other. We were isolated.”
The response from the community to the flooding was well planned and evacuation was timely, due to preparedness work that had been done by Oxfam partner Fundación Maquilishuat (FUMA), in recent years. However, damage to crops was severe.
Together with FUMA and the World Food Programme, Oxfam America launched a food-for-work initiative that not only helped families in La Pelota survive in the first months after the emergency, but reduced the risk they would face in the future. FUMA and citizens of La Pelota decided to clean out the channel to allow the water to flow more easily and prevent flooding. Oxfam provided material to do the work, FUMA provided monitoring and technical assistance, and the families carried out the work.
The project provided people with 100 pounds of corn, 33 pounds of rice, 20 pounds of beans, and a gallon of cooking oil, in exchange for 80 hours of work a month.
“The food-for-work project has been well received. It was very effective to implement this project at this time of year, when people usually don’t have work,” says Sandra Quinteros of FUMA. “There’s been a selection process for the FFW program, with several criteria—that they lost at least 50 percent of their production; that they live on less than two dollars a day; that they have many children or older adults to care for; that they are day laborers; and that they are willing to work.”
The food-for-work project has been implemented in 99 poor communities like La Pelota, in 15 municipalities throughout El Salvador. A total of 3,800 families earned a three-month supply of corn, beans, rice, and oil for a family of five, enabling them to recover from their losses and now live in better prepared communities.
]]>The house is gone now, and Canjura, her husband, and their four boys have moved to a new cinder block house—with a tile floor and a composting latrine—built by an aid group a short distance away. But for many poor people settled in this mangrove swamp, all the problems remain of living on marginal land, made more hazardous by the increased flooding climate change seems to be triggering.
And that's why Canjura, with the help of Oxfam America and a consortium of aid groups, is now rallying with other local activists to bring their problems to the attention of the Salvadoran government and push for help.
The consortium, made up of five donor groups and six local non-governmental organizations, started two years ago with a program called PRVAS—or Programa Reducción de Vulnerabilidades Ahuachapán-Sonsonate. The program helps communities in the area organize themselves to better prepare for disasters, carry out small mitigation projects, and win the ear of local governments. The idea behind the PRVAS is to help people help themselves—and find ways to make a new civil protection law, passed in 2005, work for them.
"If we just continue from an emergency response perspective, all we'll do year after year is help rescue people," says Henry Giovani Magaña the coordinator for PRVAS. "We won't help people overcome their vulnerabilities—which is what we want."
We are sitting in a small community center, a low-slung ocean-front structure on loan to residents in this coastal region from a Salvadoran living in the US. Other buildings—some less substantial than this one—line both sides of the street. And further back, amid pools of murky water, stretch what's left of the mangroves in this area. The construction of a railroad down to the coast in the 1930s marked the beginning of their end.
Magaña explains that when the railroad came, landless families, in search of jobs and a place to live, settled here, and slowly the swampland began to get developed. Nearby, the Sensunapan River, now reportedly one of the most polluted in this tiny country, drains into the sea, its water silted and brown. The river serves as both a source of income—shirtless diggers scoop boatloads of sand from its floor—and dread: During heavy rains, the Sensunapan spills from its channel and floods the surrounding homes.
Though fill and levees have altered the landscape in these coastal neighborhoods, the basic topography has not changed—with consequences that have proved dire in the decades since for poor people clinging to this strip of land along the Pacific.
"Nature doesn't make mistakes," says Magaña. "It wants this to be wet. There are floods here all the time."
And now, compounding the trouble, are changing weather patterns that are making life even more challenging for the families struggling here.
"About five years ago we started to notice that the sea is coming in further, and when there are very high tides it's slowly eroding houses along the shore," says Hilton Alcir Aguilar, a volunteer coordinator for the five coastal neighborhoods participating in the PRVAS program in Acajutla. "And the rains are heavier. Before, it would take two hours of rain for water to rise high enough to flood. Now, it happens in one hour."
Canjura has spent all of her 30 years right here in the La Playa neighborhood. And in that time she has begun to see changes that are having serious implications for her family.
"When we have these temporales—the storms that rain for several days—the water rises. But with climate change, we're seeing more flooding and we're also seeing it in areas that didn't flood before," she says. "Here most of the men are fishermen and they used to be able to haul in a lot but because of climate change, the fish seemed to have migrated away from here. It's really affected their ability to support their families. Some are looking for work as bricklayers. Some have opened bike repair shops. And some continue to fish."
Her husband is one of those—a fisherman.
"It has affected us," says Canjura. "He's getting less fish. If we used to eat two tortillas at a meal, now we're eating one." Sometimes, she says, her children go hungry.
"When you talk to people about climate change here, they're much more concerned," said Magaña. "They know storms are going to get worse, and if they're already living in vulnerable positions, it will make them more vulnerable."
What are the answers?
One solution, says Canjura, is the construction of a levee system on the Sensunapan River that would protect the densely populated community along one of its banks. But the price tag is steep, and no one has agreed to fund it, she adds. Nevertheless, other smaller projects proposed by locals and supported by PRVAS members are now moving ahead.
"We're trying to organize community councils so we can put together project proposals and seek support," says Canjura. She points to the recent construction of a seawall in La Playa as proof of what's possible when enough people get behind an idea. Designed to keep high tides from slopping onto the coastal road and into the homes of people along it, the seawall was built with help from Caritas, the mayor's office, and plenty of manual labor provided by the community.
"All of us felt very proud," says Canjura. "We were very happy we were able to achieve that."
Other projects in the works include the paving of a dirt evacuation route in the community of El Milagro. All it takes is two hours of heavy rain before the neighborhood floods with water up to people's knees, says José Vidal Aguillón, chairman of a local community council. A paved evacuation route will allow them to get out fast—without vehicles getting stuck in the mud. A broad drainage ditch, also under construction, will help the floodwaters to drain away more quickly—and prevent possible contaminants in the water from lingering.
But construction projects aren't all that's needed to help poor people in coastal Acajutla weather the increasing challenges they face. They need a voice and they need influence—both of which PRVAS is slowly helping them muster.
"From the training in disaster risk reduction we've gone through with the PRVAS program, we've built our skills to advocate for greater aid from the government—and we're also getting more involved in working with the government," says Aguilar, the community coordinator. "The biggest achievement is the unity in the five communities—that we're united behind the same goal—and the influence we're starting to have in different government institutions."
With that influence, perhaps the communities will be able to lobby successfully for more opportunities for advanced schooling or vocational training in Acajutla—both critical if people are to become competitive in the job market. With fishing drying up, many of the Acajutla's breadwinners are going to have to find other means of making a living.
Canjura seems to be keenly aware of that. She has only a sixth-grade education, and her husband stopped his schooling after the third grade. But all four of their children are steadily moving up through the grades, even as finding the resources to buy the necessary school supplies is a constant worry for Canjura and her husband. Their oldest son will soon be entering eighth grade.
Would she like to see them go on to high school?
Canjura sighs deeply at the question, and is silent for a moment.
"That's my goal," she says finally. "I really want them to get ahead. But the way things are now, it's pretty hard."
]]>That was 15 years ago. Today, clean water in the small communities of El Recuerdo and Agua Zarca is as precious as ever—and still hard to get. There's no turning on the tap over a kitchen sink and letting the gallons gush. Here, many people trudge to a communal source, fill their jugs, and lug the heavy load home again. But seasonal flooding—sometimes hugely destructive and, with climate change, possibly becoming more severe—contaminates many of the area's hand-dug wells, exposing people to waterborne illnesses.
But now, with the help of Oxfam America and its local partner, PROVIDA, the well that Cruz worked so hard to dig on the school grounds in El Recuerdo is pumping enough clean water to satisfy the drinking needs not only of the students but of about 80 families in the surrounding area. The well is one of five "healthy wells" in southern Zacatecoluca province PROVIDA lined, surrounded with a filter, capped to ensure its cleanliness, and outfitted with a pump that sends water to a large tank for chlorination and storage.
"The families in this area are living in extreme poverty, living as subsistence farmers or low paid day laborers in the nearby sugar cane plantations," says Karina Copen, an Oxfam humanitarian program officer. "They face numerous challenges in having to adapt to the increased frequency and intensity of the flooding in their area. With access to a healthy well, they can at least know that in the next flood, they will have a safe source of water for their families and the good health that comes along with it."
Adaptations, such as these healthy wells, are essential for Salvadoran families living in the department of La Paz in the lower region of the Lempa River where seasonal rains, tropical depressions, and hurricanes, make it one of the country's most flood-prone areas.
Coupled with those natural hazards is the fact that communities in the region have significantly less access to improved water sources and sanitation than other parts of the country. The "healthy wells" along with 27 new composting latrines have been a boon to families in the area.
"Kids are getting sick less; families are healthier," says Santos Efrain Coto, one of the local leaders in El Recuerdo. "When they drank contaminated water they got diarrhea and parasites."
The improved wells are based on a model that's new to El Salvador and designed by an organization called Swiss Labour Assistance. Besides having their tops sealed with cement to prevent polluted flood waters from slopping in, the wells are lined with a type of plastic pipe, known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, that extends down into the aquifer. Packed around the outside of the lining is a filter of volcanic rock that prevents contamination from seeping through underground.
At the El Recuerdo school one day recently, teacher Ana Elsa Cubias describes how students used to bring their own water from home to drink during the school day. Now, the refurbished well guarantees them a clean supply right on the spot.
"They're drinking water from a protected source and the kids have water right in the classroom," says Cubias.
A short distance from the classrooms sits a large plastic tank, sky blue and able to hold 1,100 liters of water pumped fresh from the well. Chlorinated, the water from the tank flows to two taps standing just outside the gates to the school. They're accessible to whoever is driving or walking by. And to ensure the stored water stays safe for drinking, the water committee arranges to have the tank cleaned every couple of weeks—a task that falls to a child small enough to wiggle inside and scrub the interior walls with a brush and bleach.
"We make sure he bathes before he gets in the tank," adds Coto, the local leader.
In Agua Zarca, a few communities over, Jose Luis Funes Cruze says that before PROVIDA and Oxfam installed the new well, most of the local residents depended on their own backyard wells for drinking water—and that was a problem.
"The household wells take on a lot of rain water and a lot of filthy water when there's flooding," says Cruz, pointing in the direction of the polluted San Antonio River, which spills its banks during big storms. "The things people throw in—there are pigs up river. And the cheese factory is up river."
In the past, when their drinking supply has been contaminated, families in Agua Zarca have had to rely on the government or aid groups to truck in drinking water for them.
But now, with a new communal well their supply of drinking water is much improved.
"We're very grateful—the whole community is—to have that water," says Blanca Lidia Jiménez, who lives close to the well makes about six trips a day to fetch enough water for the seven people in her house. "We don't get sick so much when we drink the water from this well. The little kids would get swollen bellies, but with the new well that problem has been solved."
Still, the situation in Agua Zarca points to the challenges of providing clean water in this area. The community's new well was built on the only land available: next to a cow pasture—an arrangement that could be problematic during the wet season when rain sloshes manure about and allows it to seep into the groundwater.
The deep plastic lining on the well and its volcanic-rock filter help, though, says Guillermo Morán, a professor and researcher at the University of El Salvador's Earth Sciences Institute. He worked with Oxfam America and another of its partners, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), to evaluate the effectiveness of the wells while studying the health practices of families who use them.
The study is an important component of Oxfam's public health work: It promotes accountability and offers a different model for aid groups by linking their work with that of universities.
"We have the field experience and they have the technical expertise," says Miriam Aschkenasy, Oxfam America's public health specialist. "Together we're able to evaluate programs at a higher standard and at one that increases accountability."
In its draft report, HHI said that individuals who live in communities with "healthy wells" were less likely to have diarrhea and reported fewer cases of the illness during the time of the study. But the draft report also revealed that in two of those communities, some people were still using hand-dug wells for their drinking water while other people from places without "healthy wells" were making the trek to a community that had one to fetch their water.
"The study gives us insight in a way we couldn't have anticipated," says Aschkenasy. "It gives us an idea of where to focus in the future. We now know we need to find a way to encourage people who are still relying on the hand-dug wells to use the healthy ones instead. And it gives us great incentive to build more of them."
]]>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.
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