Day 2 — Gangster’s Paradise?
Observing a gang intervention in Panama’s El Chorillo
Word(s) of the day — “la fortaleza” (strength), “el apoyo” (support)
Blue skies and a spectacular view to wake up to. And a full day ahead.
From the banking district where our accommodation is we made our way early to El Chorillo — a “corregimiento” (area) of Panama City that suffered much damage when the US invaded Panama in 1989. Today it is a dangerous rundown area with many gangs and is the site of Esperenza’s current (and fourth) gang intervention. We met Margaret at the American Trade Hotel in Casco Viejo and she drove us to a classroom to meet the young men from the Bagdad gang who want to change their lives.
Just to give some background information: Esperanza’s method is to approach the gang leaders or (in the case of this fourth intervention) BE approached and asked for support by the gang leaders who just want to get out of their current situations and have seen it work for others. With the gang leader on board it is easier to demobilize the whole gang and reintegrate the individuals into society. They undergo a 10 week course, including a trip to the jungle, where they learn all kinds of soft skills and life values.
At the end of this time they graduate with their life plans and hopefully keep on the straight and narrow by finding gainful employment in l0cal business in Casco Viejo. Those who show promise as an entrepreneur may then go on to Esperanza’s Social Venture Club, which is the focus of our project.
Seeing the first part of the program in action helped us to understand the environment these guys come from. At the moment they cannot leave the perimeters of their “patch”, their territory without being shot. This is a mere 200 square metres of land. Just two weeks ago 2 women were shot.
I was not sure what to expect, but I did not expect to be so impressed by the set up and by the guys themselves. We walked in and everyone had a uniform — a blue polo shirt embroidered with Esperanza’s logo — and name badge that they wore really proudly.
They are taught by our colleague Janeth from Esperanza. She does a great job and is truly “making lives better” — a real matriarch and I was really impressed how much respect the young men had for her “chicos…ESCUCHE!” (boys — listen up!). They learn social conventions, how to meet and greet people, how to dress for meetings, how to turn up on time and much more. For this they earn badges and are rewarded for good behaviour.
Margaret had two 100 dollar vouchers with her that she and a local business owner had donated and they had a kind of raffle to reward them for their hard work. Only those that had really completed their tasks could participate. Those who had earnt their badges were allowed to put their names in the hat. The jubilation of the boys who won was immense.
I was really surprised how such “earn and reward” methods work. I would never have expected that 19–35 year olds would be so proud to earn a punctuality badge. I guess that feeling of “getting a gold star” in your schoolbook never grows old.
Today they were learning how to make weekly budgets, their personal expenses. Skills they simply never needed before. And I just got chatting to them, it was easy enough to ask questions in Spanish but I am still struggling to decipher the answers. I noticed “beby medicin” on the list of one guy and asked him if he had a child. He is 19 and his daughter is 3. It turned out very many had one or more children at a very young age and when I asked what their motivation is for joining the Esperanza program the answer was almost always “mis chicos” (my kids).
A psychologist who works with Esperanza came to give us a quick tour of the immediate vicinity. We walked out into the blazing heat and he approached a good looking young guy, who was scarred all over his body, with an enormous scar running up his thorax, various stab and bullet wounds and what looked like acid burn on his arms and he took us to the gang leader, Jorge, to ask his permission for us to have a quick tour.
Jorge — also know as Obama or alternatively Peluche (teddy bear) — was a man with sparkle in his eyes. Avoiding the heat in the shade between two buildings he was leant back against the wall in a most relaxed manner. He was the one who approached Esperanza to ask for help (but isn’t taking part in the intervention program we had been observing— which is a slight bone of contention). He told us he had an idea for a business plan — a carwash with a cafe — and said he really hopes Esperanza can help realise this. After a quick tour we went back to collect Margaret and she drove us back to Casco Viejo.
We met up with Matt for lunch — delicious chicken soup with coriander — then we went to the office to get ready for our interviews.
We had invited 3 of the successful former gang members-turned-entrepreneurs from Esperanza’s program — Juan — who now runs Hope Seafood — selling freshly caught fish to restaurants in Casco Viejo and Alexis — who runs Servicios Elektron. Unfortunately the third entrepreneur Samuel didn’t come.
We had no idea how receptive Juan and Alexis would be to design thinking so we made a process sketch to explain out intentions.
Since one of our tasks is to define a framework for the Social Venture Club’s entrepreneurship training we wanted to find out how they had found the program — what they found great, and what things they would still wish for.
I am not going to go into this in detail but we quickly realised that the emotional support received by these guys during training was on their list of loves, but they all would wish for more support with learning many basic business skills. Another interesting insight was that these men are “scared” of their business getting too big, so they cannot meet demand and would therefore lose their reputations. I thought that the fact they could both even admit they were “scared” to total strangers is also testament to the good job Esperanza has done with psychological and emotional support.
We then met a lady called Cynthia — whose husband Yves was part of the Social Venture Club — and her mentor Maru. This was very interesting — since the rest of our scope of work is to provide a framework or handbook for outlining the mentor’s tasks and secondly to find a way to better match mentors and mentees. This seemed to be a match made in heaven. You could see the bond Cynthia and Maru had. However they were only matched based on a “gut feeling”. We are still wondering how to approach this task.
Cynthia was an incredible woman and cook who runs El Mana — a Creole cuisine kitchen — with her husband Yves. They had had a restaurant in Casco Viejo with a successful client base and catering contracts but had lost it (we are not quite sure why). They now cannot afford the rent for a place in Casco Viejo as the rent prices have skyrocketed.
She was most disappointed that women cannot join the Social Venture Club. It really seems that she wears the business trousers in her partnership. She highly praised the emotional support of Esperanza who organised some couselling for her and her husband which brought them on leaps and bounds and also pointed out business skills she had needed to learn and had been fortunate to receive from her mentor, Maru, and/or Maru’s connections. Cynthia was a woman with energy and a passion for business — we all wondered what an empire she could have built if she had been given a break and a chance when she was younger.
It was an arduous but most insightful and interesting afternoon. We then briefly met K.C — who is a property developer and co-founder of Esperanza.
Team Crecer met back at the hotel for pizza and debriefing of our activities. We already had a lot to tell ….
Night night.
