More than 12,000 people were living in desperate conditions at Nueva Vida, a relocation camp just 30 kilometers outside Managua. Babies were dying of malnutrition. Elderly residents were dying from poor sanitation and a lack of medical care. Children ran through the camp without shoes or clothing.
San Felipe Humanitarian Alliance stepped in and quickly made a difference. One of our first projects was supplying materials so residents could build wooden cots. It sounds simple, but getting people off the ground was essential to slowing the diseases spreading through the camp. And it sounds simple, but giving people the means to build their own beds restored a measure of control over their lives in a way that handing them a bed never could. Because residents built 10 beds for others before receiving one of their own, the project also fostered a sense of personal responsibility.
With no school or organized activities in the camp, San Felipe turned a canopy at its center into a makeshift recreation and learning space. With help from local residents and a handful of international volunteers, we rotated activities for the children, from baseball games and art projects to lessons in growing vegetables. Eventually, public school teachers began arriving and used our canopy for daily classes.
Our greatest accomplishment in Nueva Vida was establishing a permanent medical clinic, Clinica San Felipe. We hired two full-time doctors, and with medicine and supplies donated by the Spanish Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Northwest Medical Teams International, we opened an on-site pharmacy and began providing medical, dental, eye, and prenatal care. Clinica San Felipe gave the residents of Nueva Vida a real chance at the new life the camp's name promised.