Benjamin Kreider worked as a SALTer with CASM over the past year. This post is part of our ongoing series on migration.
We used to be afraid when it rained. Afraid that the water would rise and wash us away, that our belongings would be ruined, that our children would get sick. Now when it rains, we see it as a gift for our gardens.” Vanessa Hernandez says with a proud smile. Hernandez is the feisty community leader for El Trebol, a new housing project in Honduras and an example of micro level migration.
A street en El Trebol. Anna Vogt
If you head north from of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, through the toll booth, past the clothing factories and the tortilla flour plant, and then turn right down a dirt road along a small river, eventually you will come to the community of El Trebol: glistening white houses lined up in straight rows, small gardens in the front yards, clothes hanging up on lines next to the houses, and kids playing soccer between houses or on the community field adjacent. These 165 families once lived in the bordos of San Pedro Sula.
A bordos community on the banks of the river. Anna Vogt
After Hurricane Fifi devastated San Pedro Sula in 1974, the city built dirt retention walls to line the rivers and control for heavy rains. Eventually people started living on these structures. They called them bordos, which means edge. Residents in these communities live literally on the edge of the rivers that pass through the city, but figuratively also at the edge of society, marginalized, with limited access to resources. In the eyes of the law, this land belongs to the city, but people have been living there illegally now for multiple generations, some for as long as thirty or forty years.
San Pedro Sula, the industrial capital of Honduras, has for years attracted an influx of migrants from the city seeking work, education and a better future. For many, however, the jobs are few and options limited. People end up living in the bordos when they cannot afford other housing. The population of the 16 different bordos has grown tremendously in the last 10-15 years, with current estimates putting the population at 14,000 families, or about 70,000 inhabitants, although it is difficult to gather accurate data.
“In this world we are all immigrants in one way or another,” says Claribel Zelaya. Claribel moved to the bordos of San Pedro Sula from a coastal city in Honduras, and though her children were born and raised in San Pedro Sula, she still considers herself from the coast. The question, “De donde es? (Were are you from?), can be a complex one.
Illegal electricity hookups in the bordos. Anna Vogt
The bordos are not pretty places to live. Residents face a lack of formal services such as running water, sewage systems, and electricity, forcing people to illegally splice into electrical and water lines or go without. Powerful and warring street gangs control the bordos, charging war taxes, controlling the drug trade and often committing crimes with impunity. Many in the communities live in constant fear. Mosquito-bourne illnesses such as zika, chikungunya and dengue fever are widespread. People work hard to try to scrape a living in spite of challenges, in a variety of professions, such as in factories, as security guards, in small personal businesses, selling fruits and vegetables, or collecting trash and sorting plastic and cardboard to be recycled.
CASM, the Comisión de Accion Social Menonita or Mennonite Social Action Commision, has worked in the communities of the bordos for 15 years. CASM supports and helps organize the governance and leadership structures in the bordos as well as administering a variety of projects in areas of health, education, and the promotion of human rights. CASM dreams for the full resettlement of people living in the bordos to more healthy, safe, and dignified environments, like El Trebol.
The story of El Trebol began when the government planned a new bridge to expand the highway, crossing over where part of a bordo existed. The government quietly planned to re-locate the affected families to another bordo. However, community leaders, with the assistance of CASM and other NGOs, found out about this plan and loudly raised their voices in protest and advocacy, saying that the government could not simply move people to other undignified housing, but must take responsibility for providing homes for them. CASM, along with a variety of governmental organizations, including the Millenium Account and the InterAmerican Development Bank, teamed up to make the construction happen. MCC provided material resources and a YAMEN worker that focused on the rights of children in the bordos and assisted in the resettlement through CASM.
The groundwork of years of political advocacy, accompanying local leaders, organizing marches, and providing support for meetings, transportation and food, paid off when the resettlement finally took place.
Inauguration plaque. Anna Vogt
670 people, most under 18 years old, moved to their new homes beginning in the spring of 2015. On August 9, 2015, the President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez inaugurated the community, erected a plaque in his honor and donated a small playground area. While 164 families can feel like a drop in the ocean when compared to the approximately 14,000 families that live in the bordos of the city, it was a huge success after years of striving. Now close to a year later the community leaders are dreaming up a special time of prayer and celebration of thanksgiving.
Vanessa Hernandez has been involved as a community leader for many years – first organizing before resettlement and now as the president of the Trebol community. Initially there were doubts about whether resettlement would actually occur. “But after the first 20 families moved, the rest of the community began to believe that it was a real possibility,” she said. Now after the years of activism, planning meetings, bringing together funders and government officials to help with the resettlement, Vanessa works to build up this new community.
Vanessa notes that the biggest challenge is finding good employment. El Trebol is a fair distance away from factory and city jobs and transportation costs whittle away what can already be a small paycheck. The formal and informal employment opportunities people had while living in the bordos were difficult to leave behind. Another challenge is education. One local school is overcrowded and the other is a long walk away and requires crossing a major highway. The community lacks an adequate community health center. For some families, the process of resettlement was difficult, knowing that not everyone could come and some family members and friends would stay behind. Only families who lived directly where the new bridge crossed were resettled.
Left to right, Claribel Zelaya and Vanessa Hernandez. Benjamin Kreider.
“It is one thing to take people out of the bordo, but to take the bordo out of the people is more difficult,” Vanessa says. It is difficult to change mentalities and lifestyles. For example, while living in the bordos, people did not pay for the water or electricity (something that this new community requires). There are difficulties adapting to new conveniences, disagreements among neighbours, and new questions such as water drainage, zoning and leadership.
However community members are grateful for the improved quality of life they can experience in their new community. They note the change in having efficient concrete block homes. “It is by the goodness of God that we have a roof and now can strive for our dreams,” notes Vanessa. For her, these roofs and walls mean that they began a different kind of work, of constructing community among neighbours. She notes the change in their children, who can play in the streets after dark without fear. This work is multi-faceted, but Vanessa says that having a common purpose is critical. For now, the community is focusing on access to healthcare, employment and investment in the education and growth of their children.
Daisy Torres was once president of the bordo leadership and now she lives in El Trebol. She, along with a few other women, received courses in sewing. They now make and sell curtains. She remembers how she had to have an open mind upon arriving to El Trebol. “You will never live in peace if you don’t try to get used to new things,” she said, “Right now I have adapted to my neighbours.” Though people can react negatively when faced by difficulties such as limited employment, she says that: “We have to search for the exit to the problem. This is the solution.” For her, sewing and having her own small business is one such creative solution.
Daisy Torres. Benjamin Kreider.
The small community is bursting with signs of hope. There are small gardens in front yards, small shops and tortilla stands, there are children playing in the streets after dark. The ongoing work of the local leaders in finding solutions and dreaming for this young community of migrants from around the country is exciting and new.
“In the end, I thank God we are here,” said Vanessa Hernandez, “Thanks be to God that we are fighters, and now all of us can think about the future of our children.”
A front yard in El Trebol. Anna Vogt