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Since the pandemic began and as more than six million Peruvians lost their jobs, Marsivit Alejo, a 13-year-old teenager who is in the first year of high school, decided to put aside her passion for drawing and making dream catchers to coordinate common pots, Neighborhood solidarity initiatives to raise money that have multiplied in Peru to buy food with which to prepare breakfasts and lunches for those who have been left without resources due to the coronavirus crisis. The six that she organizes benefit dozens of families from Monday to Saturday in Villa María del Triunfo, a district in southern Lima made up predominantly of human settlements that began as invasions of land in hills. The young woman and other volunteers use firewood on the dirt floor or borrow a kitchen and charge the equivalent of 30 cents for each portion.
Despite the fact that his own family belongs to the 57% of Peruvians who do not have 24-hour running water service and have to supply themselves with a tanker truck and the 24% who do not have sewers, Marsivit decided to help because he saw the face of hunger . Before the pandemic, 20% of the population in Peru was poor and did not have enough to eat, but the figure has increased by 10 points with the pandemic, said the Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, Patricia Donayre this week.
"My parents and my sisters have always instilled in me that I should be a better person and be persistent, that's why I try to do this well and that the help reaches the people who really need it," explains the student in the dining room of her home to EL PAÍS. ”There are families that do not have resources because they have lost their jobs, and we cannot deny them food; there are single mothers who cannot pay either, so they are in charge of chopping the food, serving, washing the pots, cleaning ”, she explains.
Between March and May, 2.3 million people lost their jobs in metropolitan Lima due to the quarantine, and in the second quarter there were 6.7 million fewer workers than last year in the country, which has already become in which it has the highest mortality rate in the world from covid-19. Before the pandemic, 70% of employment in Peru was informal, often taking place on the streets or on public transport. From one day to the next, only essential activities were allowed. In April, the government transferred funds to district municipalities to deliver food baskets to millions of poor families, but residents regret that much of the aid did not come due to corruption or incompetence. "The mayor is not known here, the baskets did not arrive," says Anderson Alejo, Marsivit's father.
Aurelia De la Cruz is one of the citizens who prepares food in the common pot of the Paraíso human settlement, the main one in which Marsivit collaborates. De la Cruz cannot read or write. "Thank God there is WhatsApp and I can send voice messages to people who from time to time help the common pot," he says containing his emotion. When lunch is ready, notify a group on instant messaging and then go on to announce the call with a microphone and a loudspeaker: "Neighbors, good afternoon, lunch is ready, please come and pick up."
Solidarity networks
The 27-year-old lawyer Sandra Paico was one of the first people to transform her routine in March to deliver food in downtown Lima to people who were left without resources when they imposed the confinement and health emergency in Peru. He called his initiative For a quarantine without hunger. “The nucleus was 15 people, although the group had 50 collaborators for all the tasks. When we went on television we began to receive a lot of contributions. There was someone who donated a whole pig and we took it to a popular soup kitchen that served 700 people. Those who needed help communicated via Facebook. We have seen that poverty has grown a lot, ”laments Paico.
The soup kitchens have been another response to the historic 30.2% drop in Peruvian GDP in the second quarter of 2020, the largest since the Central Reserve Bank registered that indicator. Last Thursday, the Minister of Economy and Finance, María Antonieta Alva, estimated that the impact of the pandemic will translate into a 12% annual decline in the economy. In Peru, soup kitchens emerged in the 1980s as a response to the economic crisis, but thousands remain to this day with some supplies provided by the municipalities and the symbolic payment of those who require a low-priced daily menu.
After three months of solidarity work in various districts of the capital, Paico fell with pneumonia compatible with covid-19, and had to stay home. "A person donated fuel and moved us carrying the food baskets, that was until June, but since several of us got sick we have not been able to count how many people we have delivered food and warm clothing to and how many contributed," he says. “We have been willing to be a bridge. The people who trusted have allowed us to reach out to others. I studied at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and there we learned that problems are solved collectively, this has not been welfare but solidarity. I know what it means to go hungry, I grew up with my mother and sometimes we ate once a day ”, adds the lawyer.
In the most populated district of Lima, San Juan de Lurigancho, another group delivered food to the needy between March and June. They were called Los Cazafantasmas de Arriba Peru , by the name of the human settlement where they live and by the suits they used to disinfect sidewalks and facades. A group of ten friends organized to go out every day to disinfect with a machine and hoses that they bought with savings. In exchange, the neighbors gave them a few coins for cleaning and with this they bought food for people in abandonment.
"Some have already returned to their jobs and that is why we have stopped disinfection and social work. It is also complicated on Sundays because it is forbidden to go out, ”says Jhunior Calcina, one of the ghost hunters . In the same district, the nun Yenny Chipana is one of the coordinators of the Eulalie Durocher soup kitchen that serves 100 lunches a day, mainly for Venezuelan migrant families, after thousands of them lost their jobs. "We would like to have more support so that we do not stop serving those we no longer reach," says the sister of the congregation of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Cáritas Lima office has delivered food and medicine baskets to some 700,000 families in extreme poverty, but in July they changed the way of working for those in need. "Weekly we support 50 common pots in Lima, but due to the crisis, the donations we receive have dropped and we are looking for allies to support the support in nine districts of Lima," says Cynthia Tello. In addition, between April and July, Cáritas Peru delivered food and hygiene items to 898,874 families.
Citizen committees
According to the sociologist Nekson Pimentel, in the districts of Carabayllo and Comas, in northern Lima, they face the crisis through other processes. For example, citizen committees that in past years were formed to fight against corruption of local authorities, against land trafficking, to demand care in a hospital, or to defend public space, in the pandemic have organized themselves “for the solution of hunger and survival ”.
”This has a long time: the population is more precarious and more unemployed. The government has had slow measures, with complications in delivering subsidies to the poor, and the district authorities are always disoriented. The money from the food baskets was embezzled (by the municipalities) ”, says Pimentel, who directs the Peruvian Center for Social Research (Cepis).
Pimentel criticizes that of the budget that the Government allocated to attend the pandemic, 0.4% of GDP was for subsidies to the poor and 12% for loans to large companies. “A precarious population cannot be required to remain confined for so long. Informality (labor) is the product of structural and social imbalance. They have not wanted to see inequality in the face of a small percentage of the population with accumulated wealth, as (the economist) Thomas Piketty points out ”, he adds.