Hurricane Stan, Guatemala

1.5 million people were affected by hurricane Stan in Guatemala last October. Rural areas were devastated and 2000 people died with mud and landslides burying schools, roads and houses while blocking roads and isolating villages.

Indigenous communities such as the Mayans were particularly hard hit. They already suffer from extreme poverty and high levels of malnutrition and illiteracy. The hurricane has exacerbated this and left those already living in poverty, like the Mayans, without livelihoods as they lost their crops, agricultural land and animals to the floods.

Communities, supported by ActionAid, living in Guatemala’s southern coastal regions of Tacana and Ixcan were especially hard hit.

Our response

• ActionAid worked with partners providing food to 10,248 families and basic medicines to 22,986 reaching the most affected groups. Women and children received special attention.
• Communities participated in a food for work programme. Through this programme they received much needed food aid and at the same time they had a chance to participate in the emergency response. The community was directly involved in clearing roads, repairing houses and restoring their access to clean water.
• ActionAid knows that the benefits of this approach are extensive. Besides speeding up the recovery process, communities are strengthened and the likelihood of trauma and distress that a tragedy can trigger is reduced. People affected are not stigmatised as ‘victims’ but as active drivers of the emergency response and they can get back on their own feet much quicker.
• But there is still a lot to do. Villagers in Tacana are now more vulnerable to disasters than before Stan as the mountains where they live have been stripped of trees and have a high level of erosion.
• This winter the communities will be at high risk of landslides. The implementation of disaster risk reduction measures is key and ActionAid will be working with them to mitigate the impact of these disasters.

photo : ©ActionAid