The Other Way Of Peace-Making: 200+ Men Working On Lake I Blvd
Last night we told you all about the project to dismantle the City Center in Belize City. It will take months to complete, because it is not a demolition, and almost everything has to be re-used somewhere.
But while the long delayed removal of this eyesore is news, the social dimension of the story was the real interesting part: contractor CISCO construction has designed the project to be manual labour intensive and they're hiring males form gang affiliated areas to do it. And while that is providing employment for a few dozen men from the Back-A-Town area, we were blown away to find over 200 men form all different areas working on the Lake I Boulevard! That's the Boulevard that will connect the Western Highway to a new Bridge that will span the river across to Chetumal Boulevard in the Belama Area. Phase one of the project is all about landfill: 12 thousand loads of clay will be spread across the area over five months.
That's a lot of loads, and to provide employment; they're doing it all by hand! And many of the hands are those idle ones that used to be "you-know-who's workshop" – but now those hands are holding shovels and pick axes. We found out more:
Jules Vasquez Reporting
It's two thousand eight hundred feet of road, about half a mile, and there are 200 men working here. The men are from different areas in the city, many of them gang affiliated, names that you hear in the news like Southside, Supal, PIV, Ghost Town - with those names, you might think it's a war zone. Well, not even close try a work zone.
The men are divided into four different teams, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta teams - and indeed the gang turf dynamic does factor in: the larger gangs like PIV and Ghost Town have their own teams - the others are mixed.
But there's no beefing or gang rivalry on display here - it's just work:
Jules Vasquez
"Explain how you manage it; a lot of these people are from rival gangs."
Giovanni Heredia - Project Manager, CISCO Construction
"Actually, we've spoken to all of them, and they understand that we're all out here to work, to achieve something positive. We're all here to do the same thing, to feed our children. Everybody gets along well, and they keep busy, like what our guys say, they just want to know when the other truck of clay is coming so that they can keep busy."
Jules Vasquez
"Now, there are men out here from different areas, how do you guys 'hold it down' because I know, within those groups, you might have certain small 'beef' with other man."
Emmett "Dadda-D" Baptist - Bravo Team, 40 workers
"Everybody choose to put that aside, put away any grievances that you have against each other. Out here is not the place for that. Out here is to make your money, and make sure Friday, when the evening set, you have a cold one in your hand, and you got your big 'tubumbu' to blow. You'll be set."
Roger Anthony - Charlie Team, 57 workers
"We don't have have any 'beef', you understand. We just - everybody pass and greet each other like normal people. It's like nothing was ever really happening."
The focus is on work and for the contractor the focus was on creating unskilled, labour intensive work. It's an unconventional approach but one that pays an invaluable social dividend:
Jules Vasquez
"Any rational or scientific approach to this would say, how much bulldozer do we need, how many loaders? But, I don't see any of those equipment out here."
Francis Woods - CISCO Construction
"We just have one compactor out here, and the spreading is done manually. Basically, 1 man can spread a truck load per day. So, we have 200 men out here, which is what we have, we can spread 200 truck loads today."
Allan Garbutt - A and J Construction, Alpha Team, 80 workers
"What the machine can do like in a such a short time, it is faster, but 100 men, you're providing jobs for them. So, I think that's a good thing."
Jules Vasquez
"You're achieving the same work output with this large deployment of labor, as you would with heavy equipment?"
Francis Woods
"Absolutely, it's unbelievable; I've never seen anything like it. I didn't think that they would be able to put that much material down with shovels, picks, hoes - that kind of stuff, but they're doing it. And I could almost guarantee you, if 300 truck loads come, we have 300 men here, they'll push it down the same way."
Jules Vasquez
"In one day?"
Francis Woods
"In one day, by 3:30 - 4 o'clock."
One man one truck load per day - that's pretty amazing but on this day many of the men were sitting under makeshift tents waiting for their next load:
Francis Woods
"Our problem right now is not man-power; it's getting the truck to come here with the materials."
It is a neat, functional division of labour. The teams are divided into groups of five - and with PIV and Ghost Town, the Gang Leader is hired as the contractor. His team is divided into sub-groups of five, and they keep a strict record of how many loads of clay each group spreads.
Make no mistake, it is very hard work, backbreaking labour, in striking sunhot they do it in slippers, but many are shoeless - but it's on a production basis, meaning the more loads of clay they can spread every day the more they get paid, and they swarm every load:
Francis Woods
"It always works well; these guys do the math very quickly. Like I said before, they're very smart. They do the figures; if they get so much a load, they do the math that at the end of the day, how much loads can they do, which mean that they'll be going home with so much dollars in my pocket. That motivates them like nothing else."
Emmett "Dadda-D" Baptist
"In the same way that load is falling, money is coming into your pocket. If that load doesn't go, no money isn't coming. That's how it works, so if you can tackle 3 or 4 loads in an hour, you do that."
Jules Vasquez
"I see that when they bring the loads, those guys jump on it."
Roger Anthony
"Like ants, quick, It doesn't last long. This one is going to come right now, not even 15 minutes and it will be done."
Jules Vasquez
"Why are they so eager to work it so fast?"
Roger Anthony
"The more we do, the more money we make."
Jules Vasquez
"So far for today, you all have dealt with 15 loads, but you are telling Giovanni here that you would want about 25."
Roger Anthony
"I want 25; I want 54 for the day."
In fact there is more labour than clay available - every morning, workers come with their shovel and pick axes but have to be turned back:
Francis Woods
"It's really neat for us because we can't over-exceed the amount of people who need jobs. There are a lot of guys who need work, so if we can get 400 truck loads dropping off material, we can get 400 people to knock it down per day."
Allan Garbutt
"These guys they really want to work. If these guys can get 100 loads per day, they would spread it."
Jules Vasquez
"Even in this hot sun."
Allan Garbutt
"Even in this hot sun."
And while the availability of highly motivated manual labourers is one thing, what's more remarkable is the insight it provides onto a profound social problem which has been, apparently, largely misunderstood. It's simple; people just want an opportunity:
Jules Vasquez
"Anybody looking objectively at it would say, 'Why are dealing with those men? They don't want to work.' What has been your experience, your findings, working with them."
Giovanni Heredia
"My personal experience is that these guys do want to work; they just haven't gotten any opportunities."
Jules Vasquez
"These are many people who no contractor would hire because they would say, 'Those guys are lazy. They want to hang out all day.'"
Allan Garbutt
"That's not the case, Jules, a lot of these guys out here are talented. From what I see right now these guys out here, everybody has somebody to take care off, a kid, mother, a sister - bills, you know. They are very talented; I don't have any problem with these guys. It's just straightforward talking. They get the work done, no hassle, no problem."
Jules Vasquez
"A lot of people might see these guys and say, "Those men are from Ghost Town and Mayflower; they don't want to work. They want to hang out, rob, and smoke weed. Obviously, this is proving otherwise."
Roger Anthony
"Well, that's why we come out here to work and show society as well. We can work also; we want to work, but it's just because the job isn't available. Mr. Cisco got a contract, and he, right away, he came."
Jules Vasquez
"You think something like this could hold down the violence?"
Roger Anthony
"Of course, it will because men are out here working from 7:30 until 5, and when you go home, you're tired. You don't have time, so, I think it will hold it down."
Jules Vasquez
"Now, how society sees a lot of you guys, they would say, 'Those guys, they don't want to work. They want to rob, smoke weed and hang out.'"
Emmett "Dadda-D" Baptist
"Well, the way to answer those people is that Mr. Cisco has the cure. He's giving us jobs, so that we can earn, and show the people that the gang men want to work. The reason why men do what they do is because they want money. They have their families to feed. If you don't have money to feed your family, how will we eat? All of us will punish and suffer. So, Mr. Cisco has the cure for it, hire all the ghetto youth them, and show them, it's not all about killing and hate on each other. Its about coming together, getting things done, and have the jobs continuing to flow."
The ability to earn about $250 dollars a week is what's fuelling this intense effort:
Jules Vasquez
"Explain to me why some many people want to work this work."
Emmett "Dadda-D" Baptist
"Right now, you see how the thing is set up. No kind of money is flowing, so the ghetto youths they want to make a little money. So, it has to be unity, for us to work together then, and once the job involve us, we will work in unity because at the end of the day, we need to make a little money. If you have money in your pocket, you don't need to be out there to worry about who to rob, or who to do this or that to."
Roger Anthony
"It means a lot to them. They can buy things for your kids. You can buy food for your house. It means a lot. Everybody is happy."
Jules Vasquez
"How do they feel at the end of the week with that money in their pockets?"
Allan Garbutt
"Jules, well I'll tell you, those guys they make me feel happy. It's just like any politician who just won an election, it's the same way that these guys feel. I wish you can see it when they are being paid."
Emmett "Dadda-D" Baptist
"I like how Mr. Cisco do it, because he pulled us out of each area and show the people that it's about peace unity and love."
Phase two of the project is to build the bridge and the boulevard, and the final phase is to build a new sporting facility, drop in center and bus terminal.
Channel 7