By Carola Rico
The Watching San Antonio program is a concept for security surveillance created by the area’s Mexican and foreign residents. Thanks to its organization, the crime rate in San Antonio has dropped significantly.
Although it has not been easy to coordinate, and not everyone is on board with the program, residents managed to form a neighborhood watch group that benefits all who live there. Today, Watching San Antonio is an exemplary organization, with more than 30 high-tech surveillance cameras that are monitored by residents through their mobile devices.
This initiative began three years ago. Members of Watching San Antonio say their neighborhood had the highest incidence of robberies because of its size and the large number of foreigners living in detached housing.
At the beginning of October 2021, members of the group contributed funds to purchase and install new cameras with LED lighting that can be monitored from any mobile device. As of December 21, 32 security devices had been installed at different strategic points in the neighborhood. Thanks to this system, no crimes were reported during Christmas. The key, they say, is direct communication with 911 and the fast response capacity of public security.
Neighbors met with the crime prevention department of San Miguel de Allende’s Office of Public Safety and Security. Officials were surprised by how sophisticated the group already was through the use of WhatsApp, reporting among themselves, and a few surveillance cameras. Thanks to this meeting, communication flows between Watching San Antonio and the public safety and security department. In a short time, this group evolved to where today it can even communicate with the public prosecutor to provide evidence in images from their surveillance cameras.The members of Watching San Miguel were uncertain whether the incoming city administration would want to collaborate with them. However, Director of Public Safety Gabriel Saldaña contacted them, expressing the government’s interest in continuing to work together and maintaining constant communication. Watching San Antonio, has become the new City Council’s first neighborhood watch group. Based on the program’s success, residents of Guadalupe, La Aurora, and El Capricho neighborhoods have contacted Watching San Antonio to learn about the organization and security systems they use all year long.
Colonia Guadalupe an Example of a Community Against Crime
In the Colonia Guadalupe of San Miguel de Allende, a group of women lead the community neighborhood to fight crime, gathering recycling to sell it and thus acquire security cameras.
María Elena Rincón Llamas, president of the neighborhood, Ana Luisa Castañeda Caballero, in charge of the neighborhood security and Alma Viridiana Berra, in charge of preventive projects, such as the painting on the murals of the neighborhood, gave an interview to the newspaper Attention. They told us how they have managed to turn this emblematic vicinity into a place safe to live with harmony, coexistence and full of art.
The vicinity’s work is based on a manual containing rules and urgent and strategic points.
Their governance is made up of the president, María Luisa, and the representatives of each street. Each representative has their chat with their neighbors — this is how the communication is managed.
The duties of the president are to know and be informed about the situation of all the streets, as well as the needs and problems of the neighborhood, to work on the improvement of public services, security, community and coexistence with others.
The representatives of the streets must attend the meetings, be informed of the security projects so in turn they can pass the communications on their own chats and have feedback from there. There is also a separate chat among the street representatives only and another separate chat with foreign community due to the language matter, since this part of the Guadalupe community is interested to know what is happening on neighborhood matters.
With this organization, the settlers of Guadalupe have been able to provide support to the neighbors who are in severe situations.
The people who live in the Guadalupe neighborhood have been there for many years which has made their work easier.
In the informative and neighborhood chats, you can only promote: church festivities, cleaning, notice of paint on the walls, pets sterilization campaigns or the loss of a pet, inns and wellness spaces, thefts and drones to identify where they are from, donations and cultural events in the neighborhood.
In turn, they are organized into committees: the walls committee, the recycling committee, the small market committee, and the security committee. All the communications come from these channels and it is intended to get these notices out in Spanish and English.
Some ideas, such as vigilant neighbor signs were taken from the Colonia San Antonio.
The Guadalupe neighborhood already have identified those who commit the crimes that are mostly home robberies and car glazing. Thanks to the neighbors they have been arrested, but sadly, they are released very quickly and people make their complaints, but it is not enough for the criminals to spend more time in jail.
The great communication has made the neighbors dare to report and make the necessary complaints.
Subsequently, recycling was born in order to acquire surveillance cameras: three years ago they began to work collecting this waste and people began to collaborate by bringing their own and thanks to this system they have already installed 15 cameras and plan to install further at least one in each of 28 streets.
The training with the street representatives is planned to be carried out soon, to facilitate the use of the surveillance cameras application so that each one can be vigilant from their own phone. They street representatives also have acquired their panic buttons themselves, they are also in charge of placing all their systems and thanks to this they save that expense.
The Guadalupe neighborhood committee does not currently work or coordinate with the municipal authorities, but they hope that soon they will be able to have a rapprochement with the director of municipal public security Gabriel Saldaña.
