"Support for the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of three Miskitos Indigenous Communities in the North of Puerto Cabezas Municipality Affected by Hurricane Félix" in September 2007

Hurricane Félix with category five in his route through Nicaragua have hit one of the traditionally poorest regions of Nicaragua, lived mostly by indigenous people. The poverty of the indigenous communities in this part of Nicaragua is characterized mainly because of the abandonment that suffers from the different central government in Nicaragua historically. The region face the isolation to the public services (education, health, sanitation, and housing), including the lack of access to the regional and national markets of employment. The local economy relay on subsistence and is affected by vulnerabilities, associated with natural disasters, warlike conflicts, and invasion of its territories and subsequent irrational exploitation of its natural resources, linked to the advance of the agricultural frontier and the inaccessibility to productive credit line that is barred by the national financial system.

The municipalities of Puerto Cabezas and Waspam were the most damaged by this Hurricane. On Friday the fourteen of September 2007, from 4 am to midday more than 80 communities, ranging from 500 hundreds to 3500 populations wake up and find them selves in chaos and extreme anxiety, not knowing where went their few belongings. Most of any standing objectives were blown down including building and trees. Some 90% of the buildings were of wood on tilt, which historically is the housing type in the region and all of this was blown down.

The hurricane route that went inland was about 70 to 80 km wide and break in through some 250 km inland. Hour's later behind the hurricane was only massive destruction and wreckage and several hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded. Day after the massive destruction, the Regional and National Government have created an emergency committee and have attended the most critical phase with emergency relief effort and this was extended with food ration program to face the disaster hunger situation. At the beginning of the program this was a strongly supported and assisted by some international donor's organizations and the assistance of some governments. The assistance included logistic and supplies mainly food, medicine clean water. The reconstruction of homes and rehabilitation in the agriculture production effort started very scattered, and it stayed as a pledge by the government and is still in the waiting list, since there were not enough resources to support other than the basic supply of food to keep alive. It has been warned by the government, that the food supply program will probably be ending during the month of April 2008). The reconstruction and rehabilitation support will stay as good will promise.

Several hundreds of people in each community are still in desolation and many still live in small wood structured tents attached with plastic roofs, provided during the first month of emergency. The regional authorities have advice to the communities to prepare to struggle themselves since the government can't support with the reconstruction of homes and they are recommending each community to organize and face their situation.

The huge work of reconstruction and rehabilitation have stayed in planning stage for now and the government will require help from the international donors such as civil society organizations, governments, private, multilateral organization and any other group willing to support to alleviate the disaster. Without this help form the government each individual family belonging to the affected communities will face their own struggle for standing back on their feed. This kind of situation has happened earlier during the aftermath of the civil war of the 80,s, reason why the communities is on the belief this will is happening again.

The municipality of Puerto Cabezas was founded April 15 1929. It belongs to the Autonomous Region of the North Atlantic (they RAA). It is located among the coordinates 14o01l of North Latitude and 83o23l of Longitude West. The limits are: to the North with the Municipality of Waspam, to the South with the Municipality of Prinzapolka, to the East with the sea Caribbean sea and to the West, limits with the Municipalities of Rosita and Waspam. The territorial extension of the municipality of Puerto Cabezas is of 5,984.81 square Km. The climate of the municipality is subtropical humid, with temperatures from 23 to 32 CC. The annual precipitations oscillate between the 2000 and 3,500 millimetres. The distance from the municipality of Puerto Cabezas to the capital city Managua is of 565 kilometres. The city of Bilwi is the Autonomous Regional Government's headquarter. The approximate population of Puerto Cabezas Municipality according to the calculations of INEC (national institute of statistical and censuses of 2004) is 54,530 inhabitants, of which 52% lives in the semi-urban area and 48% in the rural area. This municipal population is distributed in the following way: the Miskito ethnic group is 72.3%, the Mestizos is 21.7%, the Creole ethnic 5.7%, the Sumo/Mayangna is 0.3%. The Puerto Cabezas municipality count with 24 neighbourhoods and 63 communities. This project contemplates to work with three communities of this municipality that belong to the territory of the North Plain of Puerto Cabezas.

The main economic activity of the territory is the agriculture which is dedicated for the self-consumption and to commercialization of any surplus if available. Most of the families in the rural communities have their gardens and farm fields. Typically this is some up to one to three hours walking distance, peculiarly distributed along the rivers side and few inland. The main crops are: rice, beans, tubers and root crops. In most of the communities domesticated fruit-bearing trees grow typically and during summer sow vegetables, overalls are cultivated in small surfaces near their homes which production is of low yield, practically for the self-consumption. Also, beside this traditional crops their others that complement such sugar cane and corn and other distinctive of the region. The territory doesn't have a good road system among the rural communities, due to the defective conditions of the very few highways, roads and bridges leaving isolated most communities of more distance. The population lacks appropriate systems of supply of water and energy. Hurricane Félix with category five in his route through Nicaragua have hit one of the traditionally poorest regions of Nicaragua, lived mostly by indigenous people. The poverty of the indigenous communities in this part of Nicaragua is characterized mainly because of the abandonment that suffers from the different central government in Nicaragua historically. The region face the isolation to the public services (education, health, sanitation, and housing), including the lack of access to the regional and national markets of employment. The local economy relay on subsistence and is affected by vulnerabilities, associated with natural disasters, warlike conflicts, and invasion of its territories and subsequent irrational exploitation of its natural resources, linked to the advance of the agricultural frontier and the inaccessibility to productive credit line that is barred by the national financial system.

The municipalities of Puerto Cabezas and Waspam were the most damaged by this Hurricane. On Friday the fourteen of September 2007, from 4 am to midday more than 80 communities, ranging from 500 hundreds to 3500 populations wake up and find them selves in chaos and extreme anxiety, not knowing where went their few belongings. Most of any standing objectives were blown down including building and trees. Some 90% of the buildings were of wood on tilt, which historically is the housing type in the region and all of this was blown down.

The hurricane route that went inland was about 70 to 80 km wide and break in through some 250 km inland. Hour's later behind the hurricane was only massive destruction and wreckage and several hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded. Day after the massive destruction, the Regional and National Government have created an emergency committee and have attended the most critical phase with emergency relief effort and this was extended with food ration program to face the disaster hunger situation. At the beginning of the program this was a strongly supported and assisted by some international donor's organizations and the assistance of some governments. The assistance included logistic and supplies mainly food, medicine clean water. The reconstruction of homes and rehabilitation in the agriculture production effort started very scattered, and it stayed as a pledge by the government and is still in the waiting list, since there were not enough resources to support other than the basic supply of food to keep alive. It has been warned by the government, that the food supply program will probably be ending during the month of April 2008). The reconstruction and rehabilitation support will stay as good will promise.

Several hundreds of people in each community are still in desolation and many still live in small wood structured tents attached with plastic roofs, provided during the first month of emergency. The regional authorities have advice to the communities to prepare to struggle themselves since the government can't support with the reconstruction of homes and they are recommending each community to organize and face their situation.

The huge work of reconstruction and rehabilitation have stayed in planning stage for now and the government will require help from the international donors such as civil society organizations, governments, private, multilateral organization and any other group willing to support to alleviate the disaster. Without this help form the government each individual family belonging to the affected communities will face their own struggle for standing back on their feed. This kind of situation has happened earlier during the aftermath of the civil war of the 80,s, reason why the communities is on the belief this will is happening again.