Costa Rica - Los Guido
Los Guido is one of the poorest districts in San José, the capital of Costa Rica. Located on the southeastern outskirts of the city, it is home to approximately 30,000 residents in just 3 square kilometers. It was established in 1986 through a series of settlements. The main one, known as Los Guido Sector 7, was founded by families from Desamparados and other regions of the country, as well as foreign families. In 2003, Los Guido was elevated to the status of a district, becoming the thirteenth district in the canton of Desamparados.
This town is home to several vulnerable settlements, including some “precarious” or informal settlements—that is, urban developments that are not legally recognized and fall outside the scope of urban planning regulations, consisting of a dense cluster of dwellings, generally self-built under very poor conditions. The precarious nature of these places is likely to give rise to new forms of social exclusion and marginalization.
Problematic
It is in this situation, mixed with the goodness and kindness of so many, that the Ignis Mundi Mission is situated, oriented towards the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.
INFRASTRUCTURE
SOCIAL
In terms of infrastructure, the lack of sewer systems and septic tanks is particularly notable, leading to the surface runoff of wastewater and, consequently, a public health problem. There is also improper management of solid waste and inadequate collection services. Furthermore, the neighborhood lacks sufficient green spaces and recreational areas, and those that do exist are generally neglected. Drinking water outages occur daily due to insufficient water capacity.
This town is home to several vulnerable settlements, including some “precarious” or informal settlements—that is, urban developments that are not legally recognized and fall outside the scope of urban planning regulations, consisting of a dense cluster of dwellings, generally self-built under very poor conditions. The precarious nature of these places is likely to give rise to new forms of social exclusion and marginalization.
The 2021 PANI report titled “Update on the Situation of the Rights of Children, Adolescents, and Youth in the Canton of Desamparados” highlights the following relevant data regarding Los Guido:
“Since its founding, the Los Guido district has been plagued by substandard housing, and access to basic services such as electricity and water has been extremely limited; over time, these conditions have persisted. (…) It also highlights that within this district (…), gangs were forming that contributed to the establishment of drug trafficking within the community, and both the events linked to these groups and the illicit activities involved, as well as media coverage, greatly influenced the creation of a perception of danger in the district, which placed “a stigma on the community, reinforcing a view that had existed since its inception of it as an impoverished neighborhood, but adding the characteristic of violence” (Garro in Hernández, 2017, p.75). Likewise, Hernández (2017) highlights that the lack of recreational spaces fostered the expansion and socialization of gangs, paving the way for greater consolidation of the drug market and trafficking, increasing insecurity and mistrust among residents, which hindered community integration processes. Along these same lines, the Ministry of Justice and Peace (2015) notes that disputes and conflicts over public spaces were developing among these very groups, which generated greater concern among the population due to the constant competition among these gangs to expand their areas of operation and distribution, leading the actors and actresses within this local space to recognize the problem of violence and criminality.”
It was found that, within the entire Desamparados Canton, the district with the highest number of people assisted by the Joint Social Welfare Institute (IMAS) due to poverty in 2019 was Los Guido (20%),
Los Guido is the second district in the canton with the highest number of reported suicide attempts (14.38%)
Los Guido is the third district with the highest rate of depression (11.59%)
Below, we will highlight some real-life examples of people participating in our programs who exemplify the major challenges we encounter in our missionary work:
A (34) was also forced into prostitution by her own mother during her childhood; however, what affected her most was the extreme violence she endured from a very young age. The beatings she received were so severe that she lost hearing in one ear and developed what psychologists call “learned helplessness”—that is, she lost the ability to defend herself, realizing that no one was going to protect her, and that in such a situation, it was better to “cause as little trouble as possible.” The violence she and her siblings endured caused brain injuries in two of them, and to this day, they are considered to have intellectual disabilities. The beatings ended when her mother died, when she was 19 years old. Both relatives and neighbors knew about this situation, but no one ever did anything. According to data from the Ministry of Health, reported cases of domestic violence rose from 9,406 in 2021 to 23,046 in 2024, representing a 145% increase. In the case of Los Guido, a PANI report lists only 7 cases of physical abuse in 2019, suggesting that the majority of cases remain unreported.
— AM (60) earns about 400,000 colones a month. He is fortunate because he is one of the few people in Los Guido who has a stable job and earns the Costa Rican minimum wage. However, nine people live in his home: his wife, three of his children, and his four grandchildren. Two family members are in wheelchairs due to paraplegia and other illnesses. Everyone depends on M’s income to survive. Overcrowding forces adults to share beds with minors. Their home also suffers from a problem of trash accumulation and poor hygiene, creating a situation of extreme precariousness. Since the minimum wage in Costa Rica for unskilled workers is ₡367,108.55, the vast majority of residents in Los Guido have incomes below that figure, and almost none exceed it.
— ME (14 years old) is an intelligent boy with strong social skills; he is handsome, charismatic, and a natural leader. He has been a regular marijuana user for the past two years. For the past year, he has been dealing drugs among his peers and has been recruited by drug traffickers. His mother, a single mother raising two children, has been addicted since her youth, meaning she has spent 20 years dealing with alcohol, drugs, and prostitution. Sometimes mother and son use drugs together. E has been expelled from school several times and has faced complaints of violent behavior from both the schools he has attended and his own family. He is currently in an IAFA program. The 2021 PANI report titled “Update on the Situation of the Rights of Children, Adolescents, and Youth in the Canton of Desamparados” explicitly details the serious drug use problems in Los Guido.
— ES (15 years old) is one of the 14,000 teenagers who become pregnant each year in our country, according to figures from UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund). Although the average age of sexual debut in Costa Rica is between 16 and 19 years old, according to data from the Ministry of Health, in Los Guido we find that, at the Technical School, counselors are discovering multiple sexually transmitted diseases among their students, with prostitution being a common practice among them. The use of the subdermal implant, provided free of charge by the health insurance provider, is widespread among young women. However, this contraceptive method does not protect them from STDs. The counselor at Albertassi School in Los Guido reported to us that sexually transmitted diseases among his students are “a plague”
— STestimonials
A (34) was also forced into prostitution by her own mother during her childhood; however, what affected her most was the extreme violence she endured from a very young age. The beatings she received were so severe that she lost hearing in one ear and developed what psychologists call “learned helplessness”—that is, she lost the ability to defend herself, realizing that no one was going to protect her, and that in such a situation, it was better to “cause as little trouble as possible.” The violence she and her siblings endured caused brain injuries in two of them, and to this day, they are considered to have intellectual disabilities. The beatings ended when her mother died, when she was 19 years old. Both relatives and neighbors knew about this situation, but no one ever did anything. According to data from the Ministry of Health, reported cases of domestic violence rose from 9,406 in 2021 to 23,046 in 2024, representing a 145% increase. In the case of Los Guido, a PANI report lists only 7 cases of physical abuse in 2019, suggesting that the majority of cases remain unreported.
— A