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POSSIBLE IN ROSARITO
By Allan Brown
The state of
Baja California, Mexico, is ready to fund, develop and construct a major sports
complex iin Rosarito Beach as part of a proposed physical rehabilitation and
sports center for people with disabilities that has been proposed by the
Association Integral de Familia y Amigos (AIFA) de las Personas con Capacidades
Differentes de Playas de Rosarito, a Rosarito non-profit group. The state
government is enthusiastic in its support for this project and has budgeted the
funds and earmarked them for the project. Professor Saul Castro, Director of the
High Performance Sports Center in Tijuana, represented the state of Baja
California in meetings with AIFA and the municipality of Rosarito Beach. He
expressed the state's strong commitment for the project. Most of the more than
$2,000,000 would be federal government funding that will be channeled through
the state to the project.
The project will produce many very important
benefits for the city of Rosarito Beach and its citizens with disabilities. The
construction of the proposed sporting and rehabilitation complex would provide
many needed jobs for Rosarito Beach - both for the construction phase and also
for the operation of the facility over the next decades. It would create a
world-class sports training facility for people with disabilities and would
prepare disabled persons for athletic competition at the local, state, national
and international levels. It would create desperately needed physical
rehabilitation facilities for persons with disabilities in Rosarito Beach,
provide job training and employment counseling services for disabled citizens
and offer psychological counseling services to persons with disabilities and
their families.
AIFA must provide six hectares (10,000 square meters -
approximately 15 acres) of land to house the rehab and sporting complex, which
they do not have. If such land cannot be obtained, the state government will not
construct the complex and the funding will be lost.
Because the proposed
center will serve people with disabilities in the Rosarito Beach area - many of
whom do not have private transportation - the land required for the center must
be close to the city of Rosarito Beach, serviced by good roads and it must be
reasonably level.
AIFA has had extensive conversations with the municipal
government of Rosarito Beach about the proposed center and has requested that
the city provide six hectares of land from the thirty-seven hectare parcel that
the city is holding in the New Rosarito area east of the city. The city
government has plans to construct a new city park in this area - El Gran Parque
de la Ciudad - and Ejido Mazatlan donated a parcel of land to the city for that
purpose. The city requested twenty-seven hectares of land for the new park, and
Ejido Mazatlan generously donated a thirty-seven hectare parcel to the city -
providing more than enough extra land to house the new rehabilitation and sports
training center. Locating the new sports complex and physical rehabilitation
center next to the city park would enhance the attractiveness and appeal of both
the park and the sporting and rehabilitation facility and reduce total
development costs. So far the city has not made the six hectares available to
the new facility to be constructed.
A recent survey conducted in
Rosarito Beach identified more than 1,600 residents with disabilities living
there. These self-reported numbers are no doubt far too low. Census numbers from
the USA in 2000 report that more than 19% of Americans have one or more
disabilities, and that nearly 10% if all Americans have a disability that
seriously limits their ability to walk, provide self-care or have their speech
understood by others. In contrast, numbers from the Mexican census of 2000 show
that only 1.9% of Mexicans are considered disabled. There are not ten times as
many people with disabilities in the USA compared to Mexico, on a per capita
basis: the difference is in the reporting and each society's definition of
disability. Apparently Mexican people are counted as disabled only if they have
a severe of very serious disability that profoundly impairs their ability to be
independent. Whatever the actual number of people with disabilities is in
Rosarito Beach, we know this:
1. There is a large number of persons with
severe disabilities in Rosarito Beach.
2. Currently there are no services for
people with disabilities in Rosarito Beach. There is a school that attends to
children with disabilities up to age 11, but that school is not able to
accommodate kids who use wheelchairs or children with profound disabilities or
brain damage. And after age 11, even those limited services end.
3. The
nearest physical rehabilitation center - Centro Rehabilitation Integral Tijuana
- is at the far end of Tijuana, nearly a one and one-half hour ride away from
downtown Rosarito Beach - EACH WAY.
4. There are no city vehicles capable of
transporting people in wheelchairs, so disabled Rosarito Beach residents
requiring therapy must travel to the far end of Tijuana by car or taxi and must
be loaded into the vehicle like cargo, with their wheelchair or other mobility
device strapped onto the vehicle.
Clearly, there is a desperate need for
physical, occupational and speech rehabilitation services in Rosarito Beach -
along with services to provide job training and counseling for people with
disabilities and counseling services. Just as clearly, those services must be
located where they can be accessed easily by poor people who do not have
accessible transportation available.
Meeting these needs was the goal of
the project proposed by AIFA. Sports training for people with disabilities has
long been recognized as an effective way to offer physical and mental
rehabilitation, reduce disability-related illnesses, increase independence,
enhance quality of life, improve the performance of the basic activities of
daily living, improve self-image and develop social communication and social
interaction skills. For these reasons the concept of a sports training facility
for people with disabilities was combined with the more traditional physical
rehabilitation and counseling services in the proposed new center.
The
proposed new center includes a gymnasium, basketball courts, weight room, track
for walking and running, swimming pool for aqua therapy, spaces and equipment
for physical, occupational and speech therapy, job training and counseling
areas. Architect Jorge Espinoza of Rosarito Beach donated his services to draw a
basic site plan for the new center, and that plan was submitted to the city and
state governments.
The state government responded with great interest,
and agreed to pay for and develop all of the facilities directly related to
sports training for people with disabilities - subject to AIFA providing the
required six hectares of land - while the facilities that were directly related
to rehabilitation, counseling and job training would be the responsibility of
others (AIFA, the city of Rosarito Beach, outside foundations, etc.). In other
words, funding from the state of Baja California would cover approximately
$2,000,000 of the cost of the entire project. AIFA estimates its cost of the
rehabilitation portion of the project to be $600,000, and it has already
received conditional commitments from third parties for part of that funding,
and has plans to raise funds to cover the remainder of the cost.
All that
is needed to get the project going is six hectares of land.
If the city
government decides it cannot provide the land from its parcel, AIFA will need to
find a private donor in order for this important project to go forward, and time
is short. It would be most unfortunate to let this opportunity slip away because
of six hectares of land.
People who are interested in helping to provide
an improved quality of life for persons with disabilities in Rosarito Beach can
contact AIFA by calling Elizabeth Carbajal at the International Mail Center at
661.612.0155, or via email at aifasoloporamor@yahoo.com or intmail24hrs@yahoo.com.mx
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