Everywhere is dust here on the outskirts of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, but it seems that in the house of Marco Antonio and Olga Maria A. the dirt and misery of the street are far away. However, it was not always like that, Olga remembers, “Last year we still lived in an old hut of corrugated iron. Dust came in through every crack in the iron sheets and during the rainy season the huts did not get dry for weeks. It was a great blessing that God has sent Martha to us.”
Martha Cecilia Barbosa Ladina is a social worker for the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association (DAHW) and cares for former leprosy patients – people like Olga Maria and Marco Antonio who do not receive any help from elsewhere. Together they recall the times of their sufferings which started 15 years ago.
Martha Cecilia Barbosa Ladino – the DAHW social worker fondly cares for “her people”.
At that time, as today, Marco Antonio was working as a car electrician, but 15 years ago he was still employed on a small, but regular salary. He could afford the school fees for the children and a small flat for his family. But then he lost his sensitivity in his left arm. He hurt himself frequently without noticing it and these wounds became infected.
At the health post was given the diagnosis: Marco Antonio had leprosy. The strong labourer’s life had turned upside down. “I cried and cried. Then I heard that leprosy makes limbs rot, before you perish in misery.”
The disease itself was cured quickly and the doctors were able to allay his fears – although his hands remained insensitive, over time he learned to deal with it. Outside his family, however, the old prejudices against leprosy prevailed: friends and neighbours turned away from the family, Marco Antonio lost his employment, could not pay the rent and school fees for the children any more.
Finally, they ended up in the poorest outskirts of Bogotá, in an old decayed hut of corrugated iron. Since many leprosy patients with the same experiences have settled here, Maria Barbosa is here, too. She cares for “her people” in this slum, the former leprosy patients to whom no one else would offer any chances.
DAHW helped the stranded family get onto their own feet again with a micro-credit: Marco Antonio could use the money to buy some tools in order to found his own small workshop. It is true that there are not so many cars in this quarter, but they are old and often need repairing. It was not long before Marco Antonio had gained a good reputation for getting even very old cars to run again for a low rate.
Olga Maria is sure that “Without Martha we never would have achieved this. She has not only provided us with a micro-credit, but she also helped us with the authorities. She even helped with the advertising, telling everyone here what a good mechanic my husband is.”
Matha Barbosa knows almost every inhabitant of the slum, because she cares selflessly for these people: a pair of crutches for Rigoberto - without which he could not even shop for his daily needs - or a new prosthesis for Elisa so that not everybody can see immediately that she has had leprosy. “Elisa always embraces me when she sees me,” Maria tells us cheerfully, “Now she dares to go out again, she is working once more, because nobody knows that she is a former leprosy patient.”
“Huts with water supply” – after the rainy season many of the old huts are barely habitable.
The idea to build small huts for her people was especially successful: at a size of 25 square meters, made from prefabricated parts, they are not expensive at 1,100 Euros. “Even so, nobody here has much in the way of savings,” Martha knows. But she also has a solution: “We give subsidies or micro-credits, which people repay over several years as they can.”
The basic principle is like that of a small Marshall Plan for the slums of Bogotá: the people cared for by Martha Barbosa are supported by DAHW, which acts almost like a bank. “We just apply social criteria – we do not check what they have already. Our sights are set on the fact that our people want to work, can work, and with our support they will succeed.”
In this way Martha Barbosa has helped many former leprosy patients to get a decent home. For Marco Antonio and Olga Maria, however, this would not have been a solution: “The house would have been totally sufficient to live in, but what would have become of the workshop?”
But Martha found a solution to this too: instead of giving a credit for the prefabricated parts she gave a credit for building materials – and all members of the family, even new friends and neighbours, helped with the construction work.
Today they live and work in their new house. They sleep beside the tools, the loss of which would make it impossible for Marco Antonio to continue his workshop. “Thus we also do not need to fear thieves, who like to burgle uninhabited workshops.” Olga Maria is pleased and proud as well. “Now we are living again like everyone else, we are no longer a leprosy family!”
It is precisely this feeling Martha Barbosa wants to achieve. “It is my wish that no former leprosy patient be ashamed because of the disease. Everybody should be taken for the person they are and should not be rejected because of a disease they have once had and about which too many prejudices are circulating.”
Co-author: Florian Kopp
