Community Housing Projects

It takes 10 minutes to drive to Barrio Los Mercados from La Mariposa – but it is a million light years away from the lifestyle at La Mariposa. 

The rains have started with afternoon torrential downpours. These shacks (can we really call them “buildings”?), housing young families and elderly folk, some in their 90s, are extremely vulnerable to flooding and wind damage. Walls and roofs are of zinc sheets, cardboard or plastic sheeting. Floors are compacted earth. Sulphuric gases from the live Masaya volcano pass overhead, rusting the zinc super fast and creating gaping holes.

Unemployment here is close to 100%. Most scratch a living selling fried plantains or seasonal fruit, walking the streets carrying baskets loaded with mangos or bananas, on their heads. This part of the barrio has no regular supply of drinking water.

Familia Hernandez-Canda is a young family of five. With selling seasonal fruit in the streets as their only source of income, putting food on the table is the main concern. However, as he stands in front of his house made entirely of plastic sheeting, the father tells us: “I worry for the health of my children. I don’t want them to grow up in a dangerous environment and I worry about the rain coming in and making the situation worse.”

We all accept that the climate crisis impacts disproportionately the poor – who have contributed the least. In Los Mercados we see the harsh reality.