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News Article
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After fanfare, broken promises
•Residents of Juárez project urged to act
•Family says ‘No one’s interested in us’
By Timothy Roberts
JUAREZ — With great hope and fanfare, the State of Chihuahua at the beginning of the decade opened a model housing project in Juárez called Riveras del Bravo.
Just across the Rio Grande from Socorro, it was to have more than 9,000 homes subsidized by the government, surrounded by parks, schools, shops and places to work.
It was not supposed to have an open sewer running through it, fouling the air each afternoon as the sun bears down on the brown earth and streets lined with abandoned homes. But it does.
Today there are no shops, no parks, no local jobs. There is a small elementary school, but most children travel miles to attend classes. Many homeowners have abandoned their houses. About 40 percent of homes in the project are empty.
“We need someone to listen to us,” José Luis Dionicio, who lives in Riveras del Bravo with his wife and two small children, says through an interpreter. “No one is interested in us. Politicians ask what we need, but they never fulfill their promises.”
Listening is the first item on the agenda of a new organization called El Pacto. It was created by Plan Estratégico de Juárez, a privately funded non-profit studying the social, education and economic needs of Juárez. El Pacto will focus on citizen empowerment in specific neighborhoods — like Riveras del Bravo.
The situation in Juárez, where drug cartel violence has taken more than 2,000 lives so far this year, looks increasingly bleak. The killing continues even though more than 5,000 federal soldiers are patrolling the streets, along with the beginnings of a rebuilt police department.
In this maelstrom, El Pacto wants to work at the street level, encouraging citizens to demand more of their government. This, too, is a way to fight the violence, says Lucinda Vargas, executive director of Plan Estratégico.
“We think we will be hitting at what is really causing the violence,” says Vargas. “The violence and crime are really the consequence of things that we have neglected.”
On Nov. 21, El Pacto held a community fair on a dusty expanse of dirt, where retail shops might have been, to introduce itself and to announce that it was going to survey the citizens to catalogue the neighborhood’s needs. There was a youth orchestra, story telling and arts and crafts for the children. The City of Juárez offered free haircuts.
Just a few blocks away, a brown malodorous river oozed through the development in a channel intended for agricultural irrigation.
“The odor is bad, especially in these hours,” says a woman through an interpreter. She did not want to be identified. “They don’t do anything to take away the smell. We don’t know what to do because people come and talk and talk but nothing gets done.”
Asked about what actions the city or state have taken to fix the problem, Abel Gonzales Carillo, who lives a block from the smelly channel, says “Oh, no, no. They have done nothing. The government approved that canal.”
A city hall spokesman said the problem is not the city’s fault. A spokeswoman for the city’s community centers said she would return a reporter’s phone call asking about the state of the neighborhood, but didn’t.
“Riveras del Bravo is a microcosm of what Juárez is,” says Vargas. “It embodies all the problems that Juárez has. Urban decay and neglect, crime, insecurity and social problems.”
El Pacto is hoping that it can organize the community behind goals of the residents. The citizens would then approach city hall or the state capitol.
“Not in a confrontational way, but in a way that they can see that the citizens are doing their part,” says Vargas. Government officials will see that the residents “are organizing, that they are aware of their rights and are simply asking for something that they are owed.”
The government, El Pacto volunteer Carola Amparan says, “hasn’t been able to solve all kinds of problems. El Pacto isn’t against the government, but is trying to build up citizenship so that citizens can work out these problems with the government.”
Amparan is one of 12 El Pacto volunteers to get the message out and take the survey. With the community they will develop a plan for next year.
Community organizing around citizen empowerment is relatively new in México, says Howard Campbell, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. He warns that changing attitudes would be slow work.
“No one thinks Juárez will become safe overnight,” he said.
Most importantly, this effort, if successful, “could lead to more optimism. Juárez needs some happy stories of success,” he says.
The final event of the day was a concert by the Orquestas de Ciudad Juárez, a youth orchestra. The organization, led by Jove Garcia Montoya, wants to plant orchestras across the city. It provides its young orchestra members with an instrument and with lessons. It also has an after-school program in which students receive a music lesson, orchestra practice and physical exercise.
“Many parents work at the maquiladoras and are not home when school is out,” says Garcia. “We keep the children busy so they don’t get involved in anything bad.”
Recently he asked a student what he wanted to be when he grows up, and he answered “un sicario” or hit man. Garcia was discouraged to hear the child’s reply. He was much heartened a few days later when the child showed him his violin.
“My weapon,” he said.
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