Alternatives for Disabled

The first sight that meets the eyes of the Shalom reporter are the strong arms of Miguel Angel Guinac Ajanel propelling his wheelchair along the corridors of the Weitz Center for Development Studies in Rehovot, Israel. President of the Association of Disabled Ex-Servicemen and Specialists of the Guatemalan Army, Guinac heads the thousands of soldiers for whom the war did not end with the Peace Accords. Alongside him, Juan Cedillo Brito, of the Vicha Gala Department, is Regional Coordinator, in the Ixil Area, of the "Manuel Tot" Guatemalan Association of Disabled Persons, an organization which represents thousands of ex-combatants of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG) -that is the opposing force in the conflict which ended in 1996. Dialogue is not easy. Cedillo says: "The Ministry of Defense takes care of its ex-servicemen, but no aid is accorded to the disabled URNG soldiers." Guinac, the image of the soldier, grips his chair. "The programs must be depoliticized. This is in the Peace Accords. We must learn how the Israelis take care of their disabled. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

"I am from the north of Quiché," says Juan Cedillo Brito. "We have a radio station -Radio Ixcan -to further the integration of the non-Spanish speaking Mayan population. We represent 750 persons in 16 regions where there is a large number of persons disabled by the armed conflict. Our aim is to monitor and reinforce the processes of social organization for self-management, development and community integration of the disabled persons, in conditions of equality and dignity." Dr. Anibal Robles, psychologist from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, head of the Department for Care of the Disabled Worker, adds: "In departments such as Quiché, Petén, Guatemala City and the South Coast, the priority projects are for vulnerable persons. Integration is very important because it contributes to peace."

The course participants were moved by their stay in Israel. Robles continues, "Far from Guatemala, in such a different climate, we can meet with each other, discover each other as we really are. Guatemala is a complex society -there are 'ladinos' and indigenous Mayans, historically marginalized in the country. White, ladino, indigenous, Maya are very loaded words. Here we know and accept what we are, we talk about what we have gone through and the result is a reconciliation process.

"We happened to come to Israel at a time of great tension here and this, paradoxically, helps," he emphasizes. "Since we were in Jerusalem, we decided to visit Bethlehem, within the Palestinian Authority a few kilometers to the south, but an army patrol stopped us on the way and turned us back. Even without understanding the news in Hebrew on TV, we understand very well what is happening, because we have the experience of three decades of violence and conflict in our country. The climate in Israel makes it easier to talk about our differences, something that I do not know whether we could do at home. It is very educational. Being in Israel, there is no way of not understanding the value of peace, the importance of working together, the importance of the project that we are developing. We have an obligation towards the people disabled as a result of the conflict."

The interview with the Shalom Magazine reporter interrupts a meeting where the participants, without the presence of teaching staff, try to agree on the bases of a Micro-Enterprise Support Center in the municipality of Nebaj, Quiché. The aim is to promote local development and economic enterprises. The questions discussed are practical: how to contract a professional manager to oversee institutional support; whether the Company Investment Fund could provide resources; how the Center will operate. The model, say the course participants, is Israel's Initiative Promotion Center (MATI). It is more than a model, however. Israel seems to serve as proof that this is an aim that can be achieved. All the rest, from the will to act down to the nice, courteous tone of the discussion, is 100% Guatemalan.

"What is our impression of Israel? The visit to the city of Raanana had a great impact on us. The high level of the Beit Levinstein Rehabilitation Center, where civilian and military disabled are treated, is impressive. Our conversation with Mayor Zeev Bielsky gave us insights into the mentality of a municipal politician in Israel. The mayor perceives his task as manager of a concern that must operate, develop and yield profits. As regards the community welfare services, the mayor's major preoccupation is to create jobs. To attract businesses to his city, tax payments are waived during the first years. The results are clear: modern industrial complexes, new residential quarters, the city is growing. It was very educational to talk to him. This is not just a politician, this is a hands-on mayor."

Rafael Toledo, coordinator of the UNOPS/PRADIS Project (project for disabled funded by the UNDP and implemented by UNOPS) in Guatemala, notes: "We were impressed by the response capacity, the access to social security, the allocation of State resources. What we learn here means for us a mission to be carried out in our country."

Besides Raanana, the course participants visited the town of Carmiel, to study the Technological Incubator, successfully operating there to promote start-up high tech concerns. They visited kibbutzim and moshavim, learning about the unique forms of organization of Israeli agriculture. The course was diversified by visits of a tourist, historic and religious nature to Jerusalem and Galilee.

Benjamin Abileah, former head of MASHAV and currently head of MASHAV's evaluation unit and mentor of the project, relates the history of the Nebaj Center. "At the time of the State of Israel's 50th anniversary celebrations in 1998, Canadian Minister of Foreign Relations Lloyd Axworthy considered that the best way of celebrating the event would be through a joint project for the two countries. We examined the special capacities of each country and sought a field in which our efforts could best complement each other and yield the maximum benefit for the good of mankind. Canada has a lot of experience in physical rehabilitation of the disabled in the community, while we have acquired experience in economic rehabilitation, namely the development of micro-enterprises. We have an internationally reputed center, MATI, which has formulated and successfully implemented effective methods. In the theory of economic development, the basic and key role of the micro-enterprise is becoming increasingly clear, and not specifically in relation to the rehabilitation of the disabled."

"The three partners in this Center -Canada, Israel and Guatemala -act in parallel and each pays its own expenses. Israel is responsible for the economic rehabilitation aspect. We do this through the Weitz Center course in Rehovot, and with the assistance of our expert, Israeli economist Roberto Spindel, who works both in Guatemala and in Israel. The location selected for the Center is the municipality of Nebaj in the Quiché District, in the Ixil Triangle of Guatemala. We have already held two on-the-spot courses in Guatemala, one in the capital and the other in Nebaj. At the Rehovot course there were 26 Guatemalan participants, who work for the rehabilitation of persons disabled by the Guatemalan armed conflict. This is an extremely heterogeneous group, not only in its composition, but also in the fact that some of the participants are severely disabled, in wheelchairs, and this presents very special logistic requirements. Some came from non-governmental organizations or are activists in voluntary associations, others are representatives from the Guatemalan central government, municipal officials or heads of international projects, the UN, European Community, and many are former soldiers from opposing sides of the conflict. The only requirement for participation was to be an activist in the field of rehabilitation of the disabled in Guatemala, and to have the possibility of applying what was learned in the course, on returning to Guatemala, after termination of the course."

The Weitz Center course is part of the Israeli component of the project. Its main aim is to consolidate the development center at Nebaj through study of the models developed in Israel for disadvantaged populations in conflict zones. The course contents are designed to develop the professional skills of the participants and to equip them with practical skills, such as the ability to locate and mobilize existing resources for the good of the community.

The course began with a presentation by Julia Margulies, director of the Division of Training and International Cooperation of the Weitz Center for Development Studies. Roberto Spindel, the program's academic coordinator, developed the theme of promotion of local initiatives, with initiative in the micro-enterprise and small business as development tools. The Israeli team also included Arye Kogan, an economist, who was charged with drawing up of projects. Together with Yosef Roizman, an industrial psychologist, the participants explored the productive activities suited to the disabled. A simulation exercise was carried out, coordinated by Dr. David Bentolila, and each of the participants made an individual presentation.

Roberto Spindel says: "This is a project with unique characteristics, with three countries cooperating in a region ravaged by armed conflict. The Guatemalans have just emerged from an armed conflict that raged for two generations, and we have to understand that it is not easy for them to sit down together and work on a shared project. However, they are doing so, because of the humane necessity of helping the disabled of both sides and for the future of the country."

"It is an innovative project, since it adopts a comprehensive rehabilitation approach and does not limit itself to relieving the physical difficulties of the disabled. This last aspect is the responsibility of the ICACBR (International Center for the Advancement of Community-Based Rehabilitation, an independent center based in Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, the professional counterpart from the Canadian side) team that has developed a community-based approach. Israel is charged with economic rehabilitation."

"The Nebaj Center," he further explains, "is a support platform for the micro-enterprise. The group formulates a project together, but everyone knows that this is not a theoretical exercise. In a short time everyone will meet again in Guatemala and they will establish the Nebaj Center and implement the decisions taken here."

Operating along the traditional lines of a training course, the Rehovot course acts as a pressure cooker, in which the sides in the conflict are obliged to live together and work together, to formulate projects together and to thus create a mold of behavior and cooperation.

Spindel continues: "We have developed in Israel a model of economic rehabilitation for the disabled called MATI, the Hebrew acronym for Initiative Promotion Center. Our specialty is job generation through small and medium-sized businesses, an expertise developed during the early years of the State and the mass immigrant absorption of the time, from high-tech enterprises to kiosks, agro-industrial and agro-tourist enterprises. Our effort is focused on assisting in consolidation of the idea of the enterprise, supporting and promoting it, helping in the daily operation of the enterprise, and in its contacts with the outside, from the acquisition of inputs to the marketing, and all aspects of the micro-enterprise. The Center will be located in the city of Nebaj, the focal point of the Guatemalan conflict, and will be financed by international organizations."

"The model," he adds, "does not operate only in Israel, which has long had 40 operational centers. In the last 6 years I have been working in Argentina, where it has been transferred successfully and is supported by the IDB. It is a proved and tested model, a model that works."

"Our approach is practical. We must overcome the fear of trying new things. What is most important is to believe that we can do it. We must see with our own eyes and be convinced that the Center works, that this is an applicable approach, that the disabled -but not only the disabled -benefit from the interaction with the Center and succeed in creating micro-enterprises that allow them to earn a living with dignity, from their own work. We must be conscious of the fact that the disabled cannot continue doing what they did before, which was agriculture, because they have lost their capacity for this type of physical labor. They must seek an alternative, and it is at this point that the Center finds its vocation. We do not teach professions, but skills. How to take the initiative and be a leader, how to manage employees and partners, how to approach banks and financing institutions and to obtain support, how to work with the authorities, etc. Teaching of these skills is not designed exclusively for the people disabled by the conflict, but for a broader population of disabled in general, for people uprooted and displaced by war, the refugees, for all those persons who for some reason have lost their livelihood and who must survive economically."

Benjamin Abileah sums up the basic premise and the hopes of the project: "The Israel-Canada community rehabilitation project for the Ixil Triangle of Guatemala embodies MASHAV's basic philosophy: to train the trainers, and to concentrate on the creation of skills. I am convinced that the Nebaj Center, the project of the Weitz Center course on Local Economic Development, will inaugurate a new method of action. The very unique circumstances of Israel have obliged us to develop abilities and experiences in certain very special fields, such as the economic rehabilitation of disabled soldiers. This experience is invaluable for other countries and regions of the world and we are prepared to share it unconditionally."