Colombia Reports

Here we find US citizen Mark Kaseman, who has been for four years around Medellín bringing food and clothes to hundreds of the city’s poorest.

If you are interested in make a donation to the children of Mark, please visit this page in Colombiareports.com. He has all our trust and recommendation. In the name of the people of Colombia, we thanks persons as him, who let their own countries to give a hand for a best Colombia in supporting those who are more in disadvantage.

Colombia Passport join this Campaign to make a Colombian child smile in the hope of a best future.

The National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia, DANE (its Spanish acronym), published a comparative study about the standard of living of Colombians. The study analyzes the conditions of living of poor and not poor families in Colombia in what it has to see with housing, public services and members of the family such education, health, care for children, work force, expenses and incomes.

The typical Colombian families for 2008 were made by an average of 3.7 persons, while in 2003 it was 3.9 persons per family. Electricity registered an increase to 89.4 percent of the national population.

Other important data according to the research of DANE:

Natural gas national coverage was of 47.4 percent in comparison with the 35.3 percent of 2003.

Drinking water in 2008 was of 86.7 percent.

Sewer coverage was of 73.9 percent in the Colombian homes.

The increase in technologies like the hand phone has caused a reduction in the fix phone service in many Colombian families. In 2003 a number of 54.7 percent of families had a fix phone, while in 2008 it was 44.3 percent. As a consequence, 83.8 percent of families reported that at least a member had a hand phone in 2008 (it was only 17.7 percent in 2003).

In health, the 86 percent of Colombians reported to be inside the General System of Social Security in Health.

Illiteracy in persons older than 15 years old had a reduction in 2008. In 2003 it was 7.7 percent of illiterate Colombians older than 15. In 2008 it was 6.9 percent.

Colombians between 12 and 15 years old attended school in 2008 in a 90.6 percent, that was 86.4 percent in 2003.

The 44.9 percent of the Colombian families live in an own property.

29.8 percent of the Colombian families are leaded by the mother, an increase in relation with the 28.6 percent in 2003.

As the possession of goods and services are also indicatives of better standards of living. DANE produced also the following results:

a) Subscription to television grew 12,8 points, from 35.5 percent in 2003
to 48.3 percent in 2008.

b) DVD in 2003 was just 2.2% of the families. It was 47.1% in 2008.

c) Washing machine became 40,1% in 2008.

d) Computer at the homes was 11.2% in 2003 and became 22.8% in 2008.

Internet registered also a national rise in usage in Colombia. The regions with more Internet coverage were in 2008:

• Bogotá came from 14% of the service in the houses in 2003 to 27.8% at the end of 2008.
• Antioquia registered a number of 15.5 percent.
• Valle del Cauca was 14.5 percent.

According to the report, Colombian families are more optimistic about their standard of life. They said to the researchers that the conditions have improved in the last years

Only a 15.9 percent of the families said that the living conditions worsened during the last years.

Although the concept of poverty can have many dimensions and opinions, 48.3 percent of the families said that they considered themselves as poor.

Reference

Press Release of DANE, Bogotá, 03.18.2009. Link: http://www.dane.gov.co/files/comunicados/cp_calidadvida_0309.pdf

The case is not so simple like closing the company that became in the space of one year one of the biggest financial empires of Colombia and even Latin America. The story is just starting and it will be another long chapter of the national history.

More enigmatic is the person behind what some means of communication call the biggest fraud in the Colombian history. A young man of just 28 years old and without any title in economics from any standing university of Colombia or elsewhere, could build a financial empire that checkmate banks, financial scholars, journalists and politicians.

Even more: David Murcia Guzman could do in few months what the radical political opponents of the current government were unable to do in eight years: to reduce the popularity of president Uribe just at the doors of a political referendum that would claim for a third reelection.

Something is true: we have to read the case with more attention and take seat in the events to come in a country learned to look for scapegoats to hide deep and complex realities.

Once again the Colombian reality has to see with an old problem: social inequalities. In the DMG case we find again two versions of the problem: a late reacting judicial system looking to condemn scapegoats and claim victory, and the confusing speech of a part of the people defending persons like Murcia.

I am not going to condemn Murcia in this space, because it is not a tribunal. My duty is to say what is happening on the news in Colombia. But it is possible to rise a question: What happens in Colombia that the most simple people goes behind this kind of proposals like easy money investment, drug trade and many others?

We are not comparing Murcia with Pablo Escobar, the strongest chief of the Colombian mafias, but we are comparing the support of the poor for these two figures of our history with the same passion. They became popular heroes and in a deep way they are so.

The case calls on the needs of Colombians, those who made more than the fifty percent of the population. The ones who live with salaries of less than 200 US dollars per month. The farmers that prefer to grow coca than accept other ways of living in almost marginalized regions of the country like the Putumayo State.

DMG thought us that many Colombians need urgent attention to rise their standard of life.

It is not just the love for easy money that describes the Colombians, as it was expressed by a journal. At the end, the love for easy money can be found worldwide. But when you listen the testimony of a poor lady who bought a credit card from a company like DMG in the hope to overcome poverty, the slight vain description of just loving easy money crushes against the reality of several Colombian families that have to struggle for a daily living.

The most interesting is that persons like David Murcia know it. They know it, because they come from that same people, from the poor. In this way, the speech of Murcia is nearer to the people than any so call prestigious bank in Colombia.

Undoubtedly, the Uribe’s government is facing the strongest political and economical crisis since 2001, because it has not to see just with DMG or the Pyramid system companies. It is seeing with the pocket of poor peasants and workers, the same ones that could vote against his reelection in the coming March referendum.

In that way, it would be better and wiser to change the direction of the process that goes to the intention of a complete destruction of the DMG group. It would be wiser and visionary to try a more intelligent, just and legal way to rescue DMG, that means to rescue the poor investors.

At the doors of the crush of Wall Street last year, president Uribe said that speculative capital should be controlled to avoid financial crisis like that of US. That would be the exact formula in this case: DMG could be controlled by the state and at the same time it should prevent any crush in economics.

Accused or not, Murcia is a brain to be incorporated in favor of the development. Even if his proposal has a kind of originality, he is also the son of Colombian society and how it has been built during the last 200 years. If we go to investigate the financial practice of the big honest economical empires in Colombia and Latin America, it is true that we are going to find fraudulent practices there like tax evasion through the use of humanitarian causes. Even if it is possible to find honest people, corruption is everywhere in Colombia and some of the leaders of corruption seat even in the seats of the Fathers of the Nation as lawmakers.

Therefore, Murcia is a consequence of the system. He is what our society is producing.

As we have to overcome corruption, violence and poverty, it is necessary to change many elements of our traditional systems and open participation to the whole nation. We already know that the elimination of the opponent is not the best solution. The answer for our Colombian problems is dialogue and reconciliation. This too with Murcia and DMG. In his own speechs and the speechs of president Uribe, are the solutions and both can have the support of the people, if they are so cleaver to work for their good.

One of the things we discussed in classes this year was that nice T-shirt bought in the market by USD 2 with a rabbit head and the unmistakable “Playboy”. Of course, the Cambodian boys, with a little English, think that “Playboy” means “Being smart”. Many of those T-shirts came in big containers with donations from countries as far as USA, Canada or Europe.

When you opened those containers with donations from good-heart people who wanted to support the Cambodian development, you can find curious things: I have seen coats for a Siberian whether with gloves and cotton hats, big bras, sledges, huge old computers with Windows 1986, typewriters as old as 1964, used clothe with wholes, big clothes for people as tall as 1.90 meters height, big shoes with number as 40 to 50…

What is the problem is that poverty is understood since our point of view. Actually poverty is not a matter of having things or not. If you are in France and you have a big mansion with all the technologies and comodities, you could consider that a Cambodian family with a wooden house in the middle of a swamp is the poorest family of this world. Therefore, you decide to equip this family, to help them to overcome such poverty. You send to them the last in technology in television sets, refrigerators, ovens, those beautiful and costly clothes you do not use more… when you sent it, the Cambodian family is very happy to receive it, but after they sell all of those things in the market and get their money, the same they will use to make a great party, drinking beer and telling their friends that they got their own good-hearted foreigners abroad to care for their needs, while they feed their ten cows, growing in their rice field and spending a lot of many in their traditional feasts.

I can see also many foreigners going around with Cambodians suppose-to-be poor guys. Better I would say, I see many Cambodians going around with their foreign that looks after their needs. What happens now here is that everybody is “poor” and everybody asks something, while the real poor are actually covered, far in marginalized territories, or hidden under their own ignorance.

I think it does not happen only in Cambodia, but around the world in poor countries. Feeling sorry about our people is not the best way to overcome our situations. It is proven that in front to foreigners; many just sit down to wait to be fed. Having a good-hearted foreigner as a friend that feels sorry for me is actually a good investment.

I think the best way to help poor countries is education and values formation. The idea is creating educative spaces, donating knowledge, skill and experience, in order to make the Cambodians and any other people around the world, to do by them. Teaching how to catch the fish and not giving the fish. If you give the fish once, he will sit down to wait for you a second time for the second fish. Therefore, you are promoting laziness.

Some groups of foreigners expend time and human resources moving to Cambodia to build houses for the poor. That is a beautiful experience since a point of social services. However, the house is built by foreigners and the Cambodian family goes to live there. The house will not be repaired by the Cambodians, because they will sit down to wait those helpful foreigners to return and do by themselves. I have seen some of those foreign-made-houses and I do not see the Cambodians living there caring enough as it were their own house.

At the other hand, those small seminars, courses, levels, technical schools, formative conferences, directed by foreigners and followed by Cambodians; prove to have a best future.

Stop to send us things! Send us education! It is what we need.