Organization Saved Lives in Caracas Slum

By Paul Jeffrey

CARACAS, Venezuela (UMNS) -- If there's a sign of hope in mud-covered Venezuela, it can be found in the steep ravine where the Catuche River flows into the center of Caracas. When days of rain provoked flooding the night of Dec. 15, the Catuche -- like similar rivers along the northern coast of Venezuela -- rose rapidly to levels unseen in decades, wiping out hundreds of homes with an unstoppable torrent of water, mud, rocks and tree trunks.

Yet unlike other Caracas neighborhoods assaulted by the floodwaters, Catuche's unique history gave its residents a fighting chance to survive the worst disaster to hit this country in more than a century.

"The organization of the neighborhood and the solidarity of the people saved hundreds of lives in Catuche," said Manuel Larreal, director of Ecumenical Action/ACT, one of five Venezuelan church-related groups that have joined together in ACT/Venezuela. The group's new office, which opened in mid-January, is just two blocks from the Catuche River in a building used by Ecumenical Action/ACT to dispense emergency assistance and psychological care.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has engaged in relief work in Venezuela with Church World Service, the relief agency of the U.S. National Council of Churches, and ACT, or Action By Churches Together, an ecumenical coalition organized by the World Council of Churches.

No one knows for sure, but perhaps as few as 15 people died in Catuche, a very small figure compared to other similar neighborhoods where hundreds lost their lives. Estimates of the death toll nationwide range from 15,000 to 50,000.

The history of what made Catuche different begins in 1992, when Jesuit seminarians living in the neighborhood started organizing local residents in an effort to clean up the Catuche River. Unplanned development had allowed hundreds of families arriving from the countryside to build houses right up to the edge of the river -- and in some cases directly on top of the river, leaving just a small tunnel underneath for the passage of the water.

With many houses dumping raw sewage directly into the river, the ravine became an unsightly and unhealthy place, and engineers warned that serious floods would violently rip through houses in the ravine.

What the seminarians started soon blossomed into a neighborhood-wide organization that brought together church groups, city government, local builders and international funders in a partnership designed to improve the quality of life along the Catuche River. Sewage pipes were installed, and families slowly began relocating out of the ravine.

As the neighborhood organization began to make change along the river, residents utilized the same structures to resolve other neighborhood crises.

Two years ago, 36 families moved out of shacks above the river and into church-sponsored four-story apartment complexes overlooking the ravine. They were the first of hundreds of families that community leaders hoped to relocate in the coming years. Then came the December flood, and within minutes many of those families lost their homes.

"We had a 15-year plan to heal and recover the river," Larreal said. "Now we've got to do all that work in the next 18 months."

Although they face staggering challenges in the months ahead, community leaders in Catuche are markedly more hopeful than their counterparts in other affected areas of Venezuela. "We lost our homes and personal possessions, but the organization remains," said Liliana Padilla, a researcher at a Jesuit center in the neighborhood. "That gives us hope at a time when hope is in short supply."

Donations for Venezuela relief work can be made to UMCOR Advance #9826450-8, earmarked for Venezuela floods, and dropped in church collection plates or mailed to 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling 1-800-554-8583.

January 21, 2000

*Jeffrey is a missionary with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.