From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERBOX 5.1MIGRANTS MAKE A DIFFERENCEZacatecas is a Mexican state with a history of migration to theUSA that goes back over 100 years. For the past 15 years,Zacatecan migrants have been forming ‘clubs’ in the USA to sendremittances to finance social infrastructure projects back home.One of the first clubs was formed by migrants from Jomulquillo,a farming village in an area of Zacatecas that was depopulatedas a result of successive droughts in the 1970s. ‘Fourteen yearsago we were having a party’, remembers Antonio Rodriguez, a53-year-old chef who has been living in Los Angeles since thelate 1970s. ‘We said to ourselves, we have good clothes and carsand at home they have nothing – and we decided we had to dosomething about it.’The Jomulquillo club has since raised thousands of dollarsthrough social events, raffles, and collections. It has financed ametal bridge to span the village stream, while drainage, sewers,and running water have been installed. The school has beenrefurbished, a dance hall built, and a paved road now linksJomulquillo with Jerez, the nearest market town. ‘The old peoplecouldn’t believe it’, says Mr Rodriguez. ‘We felt very good aboutthe work we did there.’ By the end of 2005, migrant groups andgovernments had invested $230m in a total of more than 5,000small-scale projects across Zacatecas.Sudanese migrants in Qatar have performed similar sociallyconscious miracles of generosity in their home communities.Perhaps the most spectacular remittance-funded project is theinternational airport in the Indian state of Kerala, opened in 1994and funded by some of the four million workers, mainly in theGulf states, who were fed up with the delays and hassle withgrasping customs officials at Delhi airport and who wanted adirect route home.Source: Financial Times, 31 August 2007 and 29 August 2007336