The owners of seven stores in the Los Comuneros Shopping Center in downtown Neiva, who were affected by a fire the night before, showed they had something in common. In the midst of the sorrow for the losses, they announced that they would overcome this adversity of life with work and effort.
The Phoenix Bird is one of the greatest symbols of a much-mentioned quality today: resilience, which is the ability to accept, face, manage and recover from negative events. This is what those affected in Los Comuneros showed.
The prompt reaction of the official city fire brigade managed to control the conflagration that took part of the efforts and dreams of the owners of seven stores located on the second floor. These, in the company of the authorities, evaluated the losses and although they did not have a consolidated statement, it can be deduced that they are in the millions.
The affected
Diario del Huila, heard the voices of these victims of an accident that apparently originated from the overheating of a fan. This is still a matter of investigation.
Holman Moscoso Diaz
Who was most affected because he lost a good part of his efforts of several years, was Holman Moscoso Diaz, an electrical engineer dedicated to clothing; for things in life and as a family inheritance. The one who started it was his mother who, faced with the need to make uniforms for her children, ended up starting a micro-enterprise.
Holman learned from her mother, but she went further and based on her training and desire to grow, she got loans to buy the machinery that would give her work another dynamic. That is what was lost. There are more than $200 million pesos that she will now have to renegotiate with the banks.
In the midst of sadness and with a broken voice, he told us that he will continue fighting to get ahead.
“I have been working here at Los Comuneros for 12 years, of the 22 that I have been with my art in the textile field, we started with computerized embroidery, then we continued with endowments and today we woke up at zero, God took away our material, but also thanks to Him we are alive and we can continue working, fighting, which we will do with faith and effort”, he declared.
There are two direct jobs and six indirect jobs, people who worked satellite, with the same number of families that will have to start over.
When inquiring about the evaluation and the losses, he maintained; “My God, I have already made an initial evaluation and the losses exceed $200 million pesos, in industrial machinery and merchandise, which was also quite a lot.
What saddens him and hurts him the most is that he had built everything with resources through credits that he had just begun to pay. “I will have to go sit down with the representatives of the banking entities to try to make them understand my situation and can refinance or give me a solution, that someone advise me in this case, my God,” he said, in the midst of the confusion. that overwhelms him
It is what hurts him the most, because credits and financing are always sought with the aim of growing and making the company grow, “God took away our material things, but not the desire to continue fighting, working”.
On the subject of insurance, he said that he did not have them, he had them, until before the pandemic, what is insured, he understands is the infrastructure of the two stores, but he has not sat down to talk with the administrator about how they are going to help, “I haven’t sat down with the administrator because now I don’t have the head for it,” said Holman, who sometimes believes that everything is a nightmare from which he is going to wake up.
At the age of 42, of which he has been working for 22, Holman Moscoso brought out some encouragement in the midst of his sadness, to finish off by saying; “I am a person from my Neiva, from my Huila, with desire, that is how they say that if they say that we are lazy we show the opposite, we are people of work and struggle.”
Other victims
Traders were also affected; Faber Rodríguez, who lost part of the merchandise that he kept in a place that he used as a warehouse. The first thing it shows is solidarity with Holman, who was the most affected. “Unfortunately he lost everything, there was a total loss,” he commented.
In the case of Faber, the losses were due to fabrics and t-shirts that he sells in another store, but he had a good quantity of what was produced in that one since the place where he works is small. “I have not quantified the losses, but it can be said that part of the dreams were burned,” he said. Basically like Holman he will now have to renegotiate loans to move forward.
Finally, a third victim, Wilton López, suffered the loss of a quarter of his premises where he runs a small cafeteria during the day. “It is not a total loss, but now we must add the time that we are going to stop opening until the premises are fixed and this apartment is reconditioned,” he said.
He argued that they need any help, because they have a family, children to support and for now they will not be able to work and produce, he concluded.