Swimming with Gangs

Central America is famous for a number of things: volcanoes, civil wars, stunning natural beauty and conversely very high levels poverty. 

Sadly, gangs is also something which has become ubiquitous to Central America.  Most famous are the gangs which have spread across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the USA.  There are two principle gangs known as the Mara 18 and the Mara Salvatrucha.  These gangs are organised at the national level, have become involved in the drugs trafficking trade and are in part responsible for having made El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala the most violent three countries in the world that are not currently in conflict.

In Nicaragua, the Maras do not have a quite a presence, but gang membership among young people is certainly a major problem.  Nicaragua, being the second poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean (Haiti taking the number 1 spot) has meant that there are a large number of gangs organised at the local, neighbourhood level, as above all, a meanns of getting by.

Managua, for example, is made up of many different barrios (neighbourhoods), and normally each of these barrios has at least one or two gangs, with the membership predominantly consisting of youths between 8and 24 years old.  An alarming amount of kids who live in these barrios do not have the opportunity to complete primary education, and due to economic necessities economic needs, many are forced to focus on working to help support their family, rather than continuing with their education.

As such, living in poverty, working from a very young age, possibly abused in their own family, lack of education and lack of other sustainable opportunities means that gang membership becomes an attractive option.

Being a gang member in one of Managua’s barrios usually means a sense of community and pride.  It also means access to alcohol and drugs, and a daily routine of playing football on the streets, promiscuous behaviour, and as a possible alternative to working, robbery.

Dealing with gangs such as these is obviously a very tricky business.  You can lock up the gang members who commit robbery or worse crimes, you can make gang membership illegal, but unless you address real socio-economic needs which lead young people to join gangs, you will never be able to properly tackle the issue. 

At Casa Alianza Nicaragua, one of our main policies is to provide alternatives, so that kids can make the choice, in this case, to make the choice between gang membership or a sustainable and healthy alternative with Casa Alianza.

As such, last Friday we headed into one of Managua’s most gang dominated barrios and headed out with around 30 gang members, between 11 and 19 years old, to a swimming pool and recreational centre.  The idea was, to give them an alternative so that at least for the day, they were doing something different to their normal routine, and perhaps through this, might just begin to see the benefit of joining Casa Alianza’s residential centre, instead of being on the streets.

We provided the kids with transport, entrance to the park, lunch, refreshment and drinks, so that they would equally not have to worry for the day about where their food and drink is coming from.

The kids had a fantastic day.  They played football, basketball and spent the entire morning enjoying the swimming pool.  Rather like the volcano hike of a few weeks ago, once again it was possible to see these kids not as gang members but as normal teenagers.  Normal teenagers going through very tough stages, but in reality desperate for a normal and healthy existence.    By providing this day out, we were at least able to offer a healthy alternative for one day, so they can see, if they decide to join us at Casa Alianza, they will be given permanent access to this way of life

Gang membership and a life on the streets give kids a certain toughness which can be very hard to break through.  On Friday at the swimming pool we made a break through, to be able to see these kids as normal adolescents who want to change.  In the mean time we will keep doing what we can to provide these kids with alternatives, so that a life on the streets and being in gangs will no longer be a necessity, but an option, and one in which, if they choose not to be in the gangs, they know at Casa Alianza they can receive food, education, recreational activities and unconditional love, respect and understanding.