New Horizons > June 2002

ECLOF Peru responds to fire disaster

On 29 December last year, many Peruvians were in the streets of their capital, Lima, taking advantage of end-of-year sales or making last minute purchases for the New Year. Street vendors were selling fireworks for the forthcoming celebration when suddenly one stand caught fire; the fire spread rapidly out of control. The result was appalling.

An estimated 300 people died in the blaze, out of whom 200 were burned beyond recognition. A further 400 people were reported missing.

The fire engulfed the 12 city blocks, or seven hectares of the commercial area known as Mesa Redonda. The main shopping gallery in Mesa Redonda alone was gutted in a matter of minutes. Nothing was left but rubble and ashes. Some 700 shops, many of them small enterprises, burned to the ground.

ECLOF one of first on scene
Within days, Rev. David Limo, President of ECLOF Peru, told staff that the Episcopal Anglican Church of Peru had received a contribution of US$25,000 from Episcopal Relief and Development in New York. It was to be used by ECLOF Peru to set up and cover the operational expenses of a credit programme to help the victims of the Mesa Redonda fire.

Gallery shop owners
ECLOF Peru decided that the most rapid and effective strategy would be to concentrate on assisting the merchants in the different shopping galleries of Mesa Redonda. Martín Villafuerte, the director of ECLOF Peru, drew up a plan in consultation with the leaders of the merchants' association.

They agreed that shop keepers who wanted a loan to rebuild would sign for an ECLOF Peru loan, but that disbursement of the money would be made directly to the building contractor on presentation of invoices, once reconstruction was complete.

Government credit facility
Then in late January, one month after the disaster, the Centro de Operaciones de Emergencia Provincial de Lima (Provincial Emergency Operations Centre of Lima - COEP) announced the opening of a credit office and the availability of special loans for shop owners. As it was already actively implementing its own disaster credit relief programme, ECLOF Peru was designated as one of four lending organisations to participate in the COEP undertaking.

The four institutions agreed that a list of the kinds of loans available should be publicised and applicants could then choose from the different possibilities available. For example, there were merchants who needed loans for working capital. Others wanted credit to build or rebuild their shops or move locations. The COEP designated ECLOF Peru to grant loans for the building or rebuilding of shops. A committee headed by the Red Cross identified those who qualified for a loan.

A special COEP commission was also set up to oversee the work and to give advice to the merchants.

Taxi owners
As part of the overall COEP disaster relief programme, the Red Cross announced that it was making available US$35,000 to be used to grant loans to taxi drivers who had lost their vehicles in the fire. ECLOF Peru was chosen, over three banks, to set up and administer the programme.

Today, through the three programmes, ECLOF Peru continues to offer fair loans for working capital and other needs to those whose livelihoods were destroyed by last year's fire.

Reduced to ashes. Hundreds dead and livelihoods wrecked in the Mesa Redonda shopping gallery.

Putting the final touches to new shops after the fire that killed at least 300 and burnt 700 shops to the ground. On 2 March, exactly two months to the day after the agreement between ECLOF Peru and the Anglican Church went into effect, the merchants in the main shopping gallery of Mesa Redonda celebrated the gallery's official re-opening.

Rt Rev. William Godfrey (right), Bishop of the Anglican Church of Peru, and Rev. David Limo signed the Episcopal Relief and Development (New York) grant agreement between the church and ECLOF Peru to set up the Emergency Assistance and Rehabilitation Credit Programme for the Victims of the Mesa Redonda Fire.

Martín Villafuerte, Director of ECLOF Peru (far left), supervises the signing of a loan contract by the head of the gallery merchants' association.