Gaining new hope and new lives
Nearly 80,000 Venezuelans will enjoy the benefits of the El Diluvio-Palmar project. Many are already benefiting from fresh prospects while the irrigation system is under construction “A Venezuela with Odebrecht sazón”
written by ◦ Humberto Werneck photos by ◦ Holanda Cavalcanti

The El Diluvio-Palmar project, the first large irrigation system built in Venezuela in the past three decades, will convey water to hundreds of small farms, creating the conditions for developing agribusiness activities in the Maracaibo region of the western part of the country. Until now, the main economic activity there has been livestock husbandry on a small or medium scale.

About 77,000 people stand to benefit from the project, either directly or indirectly, through increased work opportunities and a better life. They will no longer be forced to emigrate in search of jobs, and this will solve another serious problem by encouraging the orderly settlement of a problematic part of the Venezuelan border that is currently exposed to the activities of guerrillas and the traffic in drugs from Colombia.

“What we are doing here is much more than building an engineering and construction project,” says Odebrecht Contract Director Ivan Joventino, who is responsible for the El Diluvio-Palmar irrigation system project. “We are also making a major contribution in human terms.”

The first contract for the project was signed in the late 1990s with the National Rural Development Institute (Inder), an agency of the Venezuelan Government. At the time, the project consisted of a 48-km pipeline-and-channel network. Five years later, Odebrecht was invited to broaden the physical and, above all, the social scope of the project by adding secondary and tertiary branches to the system. Begun in November 2003, the project is scheduled for completion by July 2007.

According to Civil Engineer Tibisay León, the President of Inder: “There is a relationship of mutual teaching and learning between Inder and Odebrecht.” And she adds: “Together we have overcome all the obstacles that have arisen in the course of this enterprise. We are working in a coordinated and cohesive manner with team spirit.” Tibisay León points out that the benefits of this project include the creation of new jobs in the region, and the appreciation of indigenous culture.

Agricultural Engineer Dulce Hermoso, from Inder, is the coordinator of the El Diluvio-Palmar Management Unit. In her view, “The contribution that Odebrecht has made goes beyond technology – it is also human and social.” This positive feedback is very gratifying for José Claudio Daltro, the Odebrecht officer responsible for Administration and Finance in Venezuela, who sees it as recognition of the company’s “hard work based on social responsibility.”

Working in a high-risk area

About 30 subcontractors are taking part in the construction of the pipeline and channel under Odebrecht’s supervision. The system will obtain water from El Diluvio reservoir, when the dam is completed. Located near the Perijá mountain range, which borders Venezuela and Colombia, the reservoir will be formed by the Palmar and Lajas rivers. The water will travel through steel pipes for the first 9 km, and an open 38.3-km trapezoidal channel lined with a polyethylene geomembrane will take over from there.

The pipes are 9 m in length with varying diameters - 3.20 m, 3 m, and 2.80 m – the solution found to facilitate transportation by sea from the Brazilian city of Recife to Maracaibo, Venezuela, since the sections of pipe fit inside each other in threes. The water that will flow through the pipeline will make it possible to irrigate 20,000 ha of land, including 10,000 ha during the initial phase. Rainfall on the Maracaibo plain averages 1,000 mm per year, but the conditions for water accumulation are poor, partly because the average temperature in the region is 33ºC.

Odebrecht´s main social programs in the vicinity of the project

The biggest challenge of the project, however, is not technical, but social, since it is being built in a high-risk area. Whether pursued by soldiers from their own country or in search of supplies, guerrillas from neighboring Colombia regularly infiltrate Venezuelan territory. Farmers are often held for ransom to raise money for the guerrilla movement. Between January and early August of this year, no less than 13 kidnappings were reported in the region. Farmers are forced to pay protection money, and painted fence posts signal “fincas vacunadas” – literally “vaccinated farms” – meaning that their owners have paid off the kidnappers to avoid being taken.

In the specific area where the El Diluvio Project is being built, the situation is less dire thanks to the presence of security forces made up of members of the Venezuelan Army, the National Guard (the equivalent of the FBI or Federal Police) and a private company called Oriandes. Suspicious planes no longer land on the strips of ground being cleared to build the canal. "It has been two years since an incident was reported here,”says Army Major Benjamín Santana Morales, one of the people in charge of the security system.

The people building the project are also kept safe by an alternative security program that is informal but highly effective – the so-called anillo invisible de seguridad (invisible security cordon) formed by local residents. On their own initiative, without pay, the local population has developed a sort of “neighborhood watch” – an information network that is always on the alert to detect and warn of any abnormal movements in the area. "If we don’t take care of the people who are helping us, then who will?” explains farmer Julio González, the leader of the 1,200 inhabitants of Los Jagüeyes, one of the four indigenous settlements in the region. "We are the beneficiaries of this project, so we have to take care of it,” adds Julio’s sister, Maritza González, the leader of 1,540 members of another community, called El Laberinto. Some of the benefits she mentions arrived well before the canal. And they are among the main concerns of Peruvian Civil Engineer Julio Robles, from Odebrecht, the project’s Development Manager: "We have to carry out programs that will allow the project to establish roots,” says Robles, who firmly believes that it would be no use building a channel that ended up as nothing but a scar running across the Maracaibo plain because it lacked a social dimension.

This is what the project is all about. Water still comes from afar, brought in in tank trucks (many times, through the intercession of Odebrecht), but the situation is changing. "Odebrecht is the first company that has taken us into account,” says Maritza. For example, unlike the hiring policies on previous projects, the people building El Diluvio are hired locally instead of being brought in from other parts of the country. As a result, rural workers (60% of whom are of indigenous descent, like Julio González) have had the opportunity to receive professional education and training, which immediately opened up prospects of better wages. To give an idea of the change this has made in their quality of life, farm workers make 40,000 bolivars (about USD 17.00) per week, construction workers on the El Diluvio-Palmar Project make 19,641.25 bolivars per week. A machine operator – like former farm worker Julio Cesar Cuadrado, Maritza’s husband – earns at least 23,950 bolivars per day.

Many of the women have found work as domestics – a brand new job market – in the homes of technicians brought in to build the channel. They can also find formal employment at the Odebrecht camp. Others have discovered a new market for their homemade sweets. Yarizza González observes that even some maleteras – local prostitutes who roam the streets carrying beach mats – have changed their line of work.

“People’s quality of life is over 50% better here,” says Julio González. And he is not just talking about work opportunities. The machines had not even arrived by Christmas of 2001, when local children met their first Santa Claus (or San Nicolás as they call him). Since then, he has visited them every December, spreading joy with gifts from Odebrecht. This is additional evidence that Euzenando Azevedo, Odebrecht’s Managing Director for Venezuela, is right when he says, back in Caracas, that: “Venezuelans like our way of life, which prevents any possibility of rejection,” basing his observation on the experience of living in that country since 1994.

The way of life Euzenando is referring to reflects the company’s unwavering disposition: "Odebrecht is committed to carrying out projects in Venezuela, but it has also undertaken a commitment to this country,” he emphasizes. "We are here to work with and for the Venezuelans. We arrived with a vision of a long-term future – we’ve come to stay.”

Thanks to the company’s efforts, the children living on the Maracaibo plain no longer drop out of school, as they once did. As a result of one Odebrecht initiative, their schools are now much more comfortable places to learn. The El Laberinto educational unit used to have just one bathroom; now there are eight, and the principal has her own office.

Improvements like these, and not just at the school, have ended up creating a healthy rivalry with the City Hall of Jesús Enrique Losada municipality, which was initially wary of the newcomers. However, this natural suspicion has completely vanished, replaced by an atmosphere of cooperation. Has Odebrecht paid to have the school painted? In a flash, Mayor Mario Urdaneta has a new nurse’s office built. Is the school out of ink? The mayor provides it. A beneficial competition is underway, and everyone stands to win. "In life we must be like a bell,” says Yarizza González in her poetic way. She explains: "There has to be a coming and going, a giving and receiving. Here at El Diluvio-Palmar, we are the bell tower of this church that is taking shape.”