La Carpio: Exposing The Hidden Violence Of Poverty and Marginalization In Costa Rica
La Carpio’s 40,000 residents, around half of whom are immigrants from Nicaragua and other Central American countries, live in an area of 296 square kilometers, surrounded on two sides by rivers and another by a landfill which receives over 700 tons of waste daily. Founded by squatters in the mid-1990s, waves of poor families have continued to inhabit La Carpio at rapid rates, moving into increasingly hazardous zones due to limited space. Although schools, health clinics, and a single paved road have been constructed in the community due to residents’ ongoing pressure on the government, this infrastructure remains inadequate. Over half of the crowded population lives below the poverty line (compared with 22% of the national population) and has no formal employment, and few residents have title to their land.
The lack of educational opportunities for La Carpio residents presents yet another structural barrier to positive peacebuilding in Costa Rica. Until recently, Finca La Caja was La Carpio’s only school, providing classes to more than 2,000 children while heavily underfunded, with retention and graduation rates significantly lower than other urban primary schools. While the government has recently invested in the construction of new schools due to ongoing demands by residents, this has led to intra-community conflict due to the need to demolish homes (La Carpio is so densely inhabited that there is no open space left on which to build) and the fact that many affected residents do not have titles to the land and have no safe location on which to rebuild with the meager compensation offered by the government. The construction of health care facilities has led to similar conflicts, and the limited health care now available is still inadequate and largely inaccessible (for economic reasons) to address the medical needs of La Carpio’s growing population.
Source: www.monitor.upeace.org
