A Farmer, A Construction Worker and A Community Leader
José de Anchieta de Niz is 44 years old. He is married and has three children. Like his neighbors in the rural Juazeiro Grande area of Mirandiba, Brazil, he is a small-scale farmer. Unlike the others, however, José worked in housing construction for fifteen years.
When CRS funded an emergency response project to repair 24 dams destroyed by the 2004 floods, José worked to reconstruct the dam near his house in Juazeiro Grande. He was a manager on the project due to his previous construction experience, but also worked as a manual laborer in order to finish building a levee before the rainy season began.
José de Anchieta de Niz&' construction experience was helpful as the community worked to rebuild the dam.
On the overall experience, José said, "The construction of the levee was great because we earned money for our work, and because we were able to help our community in the process. The salary was average — the purpose behind our work was more important."
The work was serious, but the atmosphere on the construction site was light. José said that the workers were always talking and laughing. The dam is close to all of the workers' houses, so at noontime everyone would go home to eat lunch.
CRS, together with the ALSAM Foundation, began an emergency flood response project in 2004 that encompassed many projects throughout Brazil's northeast semi-arid region, which was not equipped to handle the unexpected heavy rains. All of the dam sites in Mirandiba were identified and selected by CONVIVER, CRS' local partner organization.
When CONVIVER chose to repair a dam in the Mandacarú region of Mirandiba, José agreed to oversee that project too. Most of the workers in Mandacarú were women and none had previous construction experience, so José made the one-and-a-half hour round trip from his house to the dam site regularly. He was impressed by the workers there. "The women at Mandacarú had so much will to work. I have to give them credit."
The new levee at Juazeiro Grande provides a reliable water source for the entire community.
Since the completion of the levees in 2005, the dams have been filled by rain. At the same time, CRS and CONVIVER began a fruit seed-bank and expanded a number of community vegetable gardens, including those in Juazeiro Grande and Mandacarú.
José is the elected Juazeiro Grande community accountant and takes part in weekly CONVIVER planning meetings. He has taken on these added responsibilities to ensure that every development project is successfully implemented, and to see that action is being taken to address his neighbors' needs. Everyone in Mirandiba wants to see improvements in sanitation and irrigation, and José is willing to work to make these dreams come true.
As important as his work with CONVIVER is, José's primary concerns are his animals and crops. Aided by the expansion of the community gardens and the water security provided by the dams, José planted 14 mango trees in his section of the new community garden in 2006.
