A workshop on world cuisine during the Action Week against Racism. The objective is to value interculturality and to recognize differences as a richness. During the workshop, the migrants became teachers and the students got to know a person, a history, a country, a culture, traditions and a recipe.
The Intercultural Space in Sierre - A place where migrants can feel welcomed, where they can bring their life experience and enrich the local community with their culture.
Mohammed and Dania are Palestinian and lived in Syria. Before arriving in Sierre, 4 years ago, Mohammed was a civil engineer. Today, he can no longer do his job for language and diploma equivalence reasons. Dania teaches Arabic to children twice a week at the House for Integration.
Rimma comes from the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, she came to join her Swiss husband in Champlan.
Charles-André (Switzerland) and Mickaël (Wales) met in the framework of the Parrain-Marraine programme. The programme aims to strengthen the reception of newcomers in the community, to facilitate their integration and participation in social life.
Michelle (Haiti), Christophe (Switzerland) and their three-year-old twins.
Lucia and Suzanne are two sisters from Portugal, they settled in Sierre about twenty years ago. Notre Dame de Fátima is the name under which the Virgin Mary is invoked, as she appeared to three children in Fátima, a small village in central Portugal, six times during 1917.
Located in the cordillera Blanca, lake Palcacocha’s volume increased 34 times in the past 40 years. Since 2012, a siphon system helps lowering the water level down to 14 million cubic meter. A level all the experts consider as still highly dangerous. If an ice avalanche falls into the lake, the waves generated may destroy the unstable moraine and create a mudslide that would reach Huaraz in less than one hour and a half.
20 kilometers away from Palcacocha, the city of Huaraz never stops expanding. Attracted by the jobs opportunities in the mining industry, people flow from all over the country. As a consequence, criminality is on the rise as well as the price of land. Even in the highly exposed areas of the city.
Nicolasa Tolentina Palacios Gamarra (64 years old) and her granddaughter. She shares her small house 20 meters away from river Qillqay with seven relatives. She’d love to move to a more secure part of the city but cannot afford it as prices went up very quickly during the last twenty years. The lack of a real warning system is problematic: every time the water level gets higher, some rumors and fake alarms start spreading, creating panics in the neighboorhood. Nicolasa sees it with a fatalistic eye: «when your time has come, your time has come».
Huaraz is a very young city. An earthquake entirely destroyed the city in 1970 so many of its inhabitant arrived only during the past 40 years. Very few people who lived the last flood caused by Palcacocha, in 1941, are still in Huaraz now. This hinders sensibilisation of Huaraz population about the imminence of the danger and its gravity.
In 2013, the ministry of environment hired a group of artists from Lima to create a serie of mural paintings indicating the escape routes in case of flood. Much remains to do as there is currently no siren system, no precise plan of the dangerous areas, no trainings and no precise information to the exposed populations.
Dr. Alberto Espinoza Cerrón, the newly elected mayor of Huaraz. For him, the first issue Huaraz has to deal with is the chaotic development of the city. «The area where my house is located isn’t even on the official map of the city!». As his clinic is in the center of the path for a flood coming from Palcacocha, he also feels concerned. «We are prepared. We work with civil defense and municipal police. We also have evacuation trainings.»
When the last flood caused by Palcacocha occurred in Huaraz, in 1941, the population of the city was approximately 35’000 people. Now, the city is between 150’000 and 180’000 people and counting.
Along Rio Santa, the river located west of Huaraz, approximately fifty jobless people coming from all around the country installed tents on the river banks since September. They came to Huaraz to look for jobs. This illegal camp is heavily exposed during the rainy season and the authorities unsuccessfully tried to evict them. A candidate for the regional presidency, notorious for his populistic promises, guaranteed he would build a wall to protect the camp from the river if elected, but many experts agree that even a solid wall there wouldn’t be a serious protection in case of flood.
Raúl Ortiz, defeated candidate for mayor of Huaraz and a local businessman, focused his campaign on the issue of the lake. His project was not only to solve the problem by reducing the lake level of five more meter, but also to store and use the water coming out of that lake to secure access to clear water for the coming decades. «Security and water for Huaraz» was his campaign message.
Located 20 kilometers away from Huaraz, lake Palcacocha already broke in 1941, destroying half the city of Huaraz and killing approximately 5000 people. By then, the population of the city was 35’000 inhabitants. It is now 4 to 5 times bigger. Experts evaluate the potential of casualties in case of a lake outbreak to approximately 10 to 15 thousand dead people.
If some politicians push for the creation of an Early Warning System (a system using camera and microphones to detect any anomalous situation at the lake), this shouldn’t be considered as a definitive solution. «With an early warning system, you can save lives, but if the whole city, it’s economy, it’s history are destroyed, what’s the point?» says engineer Cesar Portocarrero.
As a temporary solution, the local authorities started building a siphon to reduce the volume of Palcacocha of 3 million cubic meters. These siphons work without pumps but need a constant monitoring. Juan Victor Morales, one of the guards in charge of these siphons. He also uses a radio station and a satellite phone to warn the authorities in case of an avalanche.
«During rainy season, the water of river Qillqay becomes very dark, that’s when it gets really scary» says Adrian Loyola Medina. He lives and owns a little business next to the river Qillqay since 1971. He remembers that 30 years ago, the river was so clean you could drink its water. Now, the river is full of waste and heavily polluted.
Late October, the local government of Ancash organized a press conference at the lake to reassure the population about the danger of Palcacocha. When demonstrating to the journalists how the satellite phone works in case of emergency, nobody answered the phone.
«Even the cemetery is completely saturated. That gives you an idea of the chaos of the city». Raúl Ortiz, candidate for the mayor election.
Cesar Portocarrero, engineer in charge of the construction of the dam installed in Palcacocha during the 70’s. In 2009, he proposed the authorities a system to lower the volume of the lake. Valued 10 million soles, the project was deemed too expensive and a provisory siphoning solution was built instead. According to Mr. Portocarrero, the local authorities don’t act strongly on this issue because there’s no political gain associated with risk reduction. «If everything works, there’s nothing to show. Politicians prefer immediate results.»
Yasmin Padilla, student and break-dancer in the Urban Style Crew is training in Parque Fap. The young generation of Huaraz is much more conscious of it’s impact on the environment and how to interact with it. If their parents were mostly attracted by mining opportunities, many young now train to become mountain guides or work in the touristic field.
Alejandro Mejia, assistant operator for the center of operations of Defensia Civil of Ancash department.
Juan Victor Morales, one of the guards constantly monitoring lake Palcacocha inspects the siphons, looking for any leak. The next step of the project would be to dig the moraine to reduce the water level to the desired height, install a concrete tunnel and put the moraine rocks back to create a natural barrage. This could be part of a project to secure the access to clear water for the decades to come, but for now, the authorities have showed no sign of interest in the realization of this plan, making the temporary solution a permanent one.
20 kilometers away from Palcacocha, the city of Huaraz never stops expanding. Attracted by the jobs opportunities in the mining industry, people flow from all over the country. As a consequence, criminality is on the rise as well as the price of land. Even in the highly exposed areas of the city.
