Yesterday we went to Peronia, one of the new shanty towns that have sprung up around Guatemala City to accomodate the more than 1 million people who travel into the city everyday to work. Slums where a family can pay 30 Euro for one room with limited water and sanitation. The community here in Peronia have been badly affected by a sand quarry which has essentially removed one of the local mountains.

In 2008 Yuri (Melini) received a call from a local priest, Fr. Elias stating that the community were under pressure because of their resistence to the quarry. Children were getting sick because of the constant dust, sore throat complaints were on the rise, the food was always covered in dust and the lorries were up and down the street all the time. In addition, the woods, where people had been able to send their children to play and which were a resource for the whole community, were simply being eliminated.

Yuri helped them with legal and communications advice and moral support.