Flurinas Rede im Europarat, Strasbourg, Juli 08

Encouragement to return to work in Mexico

I work for a Mexican NGO that is based in Mexico City and works in the improvement of the life circumstances of youngsters of 15 to 25 years of age.
I will come back to the work of my organization later. First I like to speak about Mexico in general, because this is the actual reason why I wanted to reach the international NGO conference: the encouragement to return to collaborate with Mexican development and human rights organizations.

Mexico is a country of enormous differences. Of which its most significant difference is the gap between wealth and poverty. International sources say that half of of Mexico’s population live in moderate poverty. A fifth of the population lives in extreme poverty. When I mention the word poverty than you must know that the words “poor”, “middle class” and “upper middle class” are always relative. A family with two children that is put in the category “middle class” in Mexico City often lives in a one ore two bedroom apartment and has a monthly allowance of less than 400 Euros. They are very lucky when they can afford a higher education for their children. So what I want to tell you is that in western European standards, we would also call these kind of middle class “poverty” which would result in to a much higher percentage of 70 or 80 percent poverty in Mexico.

The development of the past years that has come into European newspapers as “rise of the Mexican economy” does give a false impression to us Europeans. This so called improvement of the market leads to the benefit of maybe 10% of upper class. All the rest of the population does not see any improvement or change of their live situation what so ever.

In this sense, the rise of Mexico’s economy is a disadvantage for its inhabitant, you could also say: it is a curse, because in the meaning that Mexico is a more developed country than its southern neighbors, development founds of the UN, of western countries and development organization have got less or have been stopped permanently.
The consequences of this cut of aid are very severe. Mexican NGOs that have development projects hardly find European founds and run out of money. Money which is dearly needed, because especially in the poor rural areas where all the population lives in extreme poverty and human rights are not respected, the circumstances of their lives are not different from the lives of the population of Central America, where western countries concentrate their work.

As you know, Mexico has always been faced a major migration problem. Every migrant from Central America arrives in Mexico on their very dangerous journey north and also a huge quantity of Mexicans head north every year because they have no future in their own country. That fact has not changed with the so called improvement of Mexican economy.

By cutting the aid for Mexico, no improvement of live circumstances can be reached and the percentage of Mexicans that migrate towards north will not get less. Only by improving live circumstances by giving funds to Mexican NGOs, this phenomenon of migration can get changed.

I want to talk briefly of the work of my NGO INICIA, as an example of Mexican and Central American development work.
INICIA works in the human rights of youngsters of 15 to 25 years of age and in the improvement of their life situation. This age group of youngsters represent 30% of Mexicos population and 55% of its working inhabitants. Despite being a large demographic group, youngsters face existential problems:
They are permanently discriminated and disrespected. They often have to drop school to support their families. With or without education – their access to the professional life is extremely limited and when they find work, it often is under very poor circumstances and working laws are hardly complied. The unemployment rate of today’s youngsters is three times as high as of a generation before. The access of youngsters to a health system designed for their health problems like accidents, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drug addiction etc is very limited.Youngsters suffer exclusion of deciding processes about their own life as they are hardly represented in politics or public institutions because one does not let them enter in this institutions. This results in non compliance of juvenile law and non execution of juvenile programs.

It is mostly youngsters that decide to migrate to the United States to find better life there. The journey north is very dangerous. Near the frontiers there are many gangs that rob and often kill migrants that want to cross the border illegally. Once crossed the border, the desert of Texas or Arizona is deadly ground and often, migrants die few steps into the promised land. If migrants find work in the US, it also is under poor circumstances and badly paid.

In INICIA, we are working in networks of NGOs that work with youngsters in all Mexico and Central America.
We have projects in Violence prevention connected with the promotion of juvenile development that we initiate together with Honduras and Guatemala.
A Central America project of the promotion of strategies of the compliance of juvenile rights. We work in a network together with organizations in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.
We have a project in the Mexican state of Chiapas where we work in workers rights of the population and include employers in the education of dignified work with the goal to minimize the migration movement in this area.
Our strategies include direct actions with youngsters, programs of learning and enforcement, creation of alliances with juvenile organizations, private and public institutions and studies and investigation over a long period of time.

Like us, there are other Mexican NGOs that have to struggle finding badly needed funds to improve circumstances of a very poor population. I would like to encourage you to think about your strategy and return to Mexico.