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“Most of All They Give Us Hope and Joy.”
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A Volunteer’s Perspective
on Delegations to El Salvador
by Brianne Sheets |
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Over the past six months, I have had the pleasure of working with five delegations from the United States as a logistics coordinator for the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America (FSSCA). These delegations travel from the U.S. to the town of Ciudad Romero, El Salvador. I have come to understand that you find the true value of these delegations in the experiences that delegates and community members share. As delegates and locals connect through stories, bread, wisdom, and love, they encounter a truly invaluable experience.
| On Sunday, March 17, eight students
from Middlebury College landed at the El Salvador International
Airport to spend their week-long vacation in Ciudad Romero. As a
recent college graduate myself, I respect the students who choose
to spend their Spring Break in the dust and heat of El Salvador.
It takes a committed person to forgo the chance to be on the beach,
sipping (or gulping) drinks with umbrellas, without a care in the
world. For two days during this particular week we worked in the community of San Hilario. |
 College students spend their spring break in El Salvador |
María Elena, a long-time community
leader here, organized work for us in a permaculture field breaking
up dry, hard land so the next crop could be planted. After getting sufficiently
sweaty, dusty, and sunburned working with hoes and pickaxes, the group
deserved a break under a shaded tree. .Sitting down on the leaves, dirt,
and underbrush the group relaxed with water bottles in blistered hands.
Resting, the group was eager to know more about Elena. They wanted her
to share her story
She was eight years old when her family fled to Honduras to take refuge
from the violence created by the start of the Civil War in 1980. At
13 she entered a political school in Honduras
to train to be a fighter, and by the age of 15 had returned to El Salvador
fighting as a guerrilla. One student asked, “Why did you want to
fight for your country?” She answered, “Because in the political
school we learned about the events in our country and I realized I had
to make a decision. I had to decide between staying in Honduras, and
possibly getting killed, or go to war, fight for a more just El Salvador,
and possibly getting killed.” Another student asked, “And
when did you decide to leave combat?” “I didn’t decide,”
she replied, “I got shot in the back and the bullet came through
my chest, right here, below my breast. I still have a huge scar. I also
got wounded on the lower part of my leg, and they grafted skin from
my hip to heal my wound.” “When?” the students eagerly
ask. “In 1990, when I was 18,” answered Elena.
| After a long day of work, everyone “tiene hambre de un chucho” is as hungry as a dog! As we do for every meal, we broke up into groups and dispersed into a designated home in the community to enjoy typical Salvadoran food. When my group arrived at our family’s home, a beautiful spread of rice, beans, vegetables, cheese, avocado, tortillas, and fresh fruit juice awaited our attack. |
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Over the course of the week this Salvadoran
family becomes like our own. We tell jokes and practice our less-than-perfect
Spanish. They laugh at us, we laugh at ourselves, and we interact with
the kids.
This sacred time that we share bread presents the opportune moment to
engage in discussion and share our questions and observations from the
day. To the family, the delegates ask such questions as, “Do you
have any relatives in the States?” “Do they send you money?”
“What work do you have?” “When your crops aren’t
in season, what do you do?” “Do you eat your chickens?”
“Do your children go to school?” “What are your dreams
for your children?”
Other questions and concerns are also brought to the table, for instance;
“That little girl has never had a stuffed animal?” “Do
you think it hurts the kids to walk without shoes on?” “What
is the effect of the Central American Free Trade Agreement in El Salvador?”
“Since they can’t make profit on corn anymore, what are they
going to do?” “Where do they all sleep?”
Through this questioning, the true worth of the delegations becomes
apparent: the students start to think about things that have never even
crossed their minds. They realize their lives are the exception, not
the norm, and their comforts and luxuries are actually a fantasy or
unattainable dream to most. They start contemplating the depth of suffering
in the world and how maybe they really don’t know much at all.
They get angry that systems in our world allow these injustices to knowingly
plague these people each and every day. They get even more upset by
the fact that El Salvador is not the poorest country in the world, that
there are people in worse condition, with less. Their hearts begin to
break a little.
This is a beautiful thing, because a heart that never had love in it
to begin with cannot be broken. It is beautiful because the stories
the students hear, the reality they see, and the discomforts they feel
can all be told to their friends, family, and community members through
stories. They are the hope for the suffering of the people in El Salvador,
and for that matter, the world.
One of the greatest lessons to be learned from a delegation is that
something can always be gained through seeking out and respecting the
perspectives of others. In that spirit, I will close with the words
of a Salvadoran I respect very much. When asked why she thought the
work of the delegations in the Salvadoran communities is important,
Elena said, “They work by our side, they listen and want to know
our stories. Most of all they give us hope and joy.”
Brianne Sheets, a graduate of Gonzaga University, just completed
ten months as a volunteer in El Salvador.
To find out how your school group can spend an alternative spring break
with the Coordinadora, email Delegations
Coordinator Shell Balek, or call 512-388-7957.
| Dear FSSCA supporters: I am proud to greet you as the new Chairman of FSSCA and to report on the great progress of our partner in El Salvador, the Coordinadora. This network of 84 peasant communities in the Lower Lempa River basin is expanding sustainable agriculture with new markets for their products, bringing potable water for the first time to many communities, and developing an environmental plan for the protection of the Bay of Jiquilisco. |
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At the same time, the Coordinadora has helped start
a new sister organization for twelve charter member peasant communities
in the other main watershed that is tributary to the Bay of Jiquilisco.
The recent designation of the Bay as El Salvador’s largest Natural
Protected Area and its recognition by UNESCO as global biosphere reserve,
makes community organization and collaboration surrounding the Bay particularly
important for the peasant communities as well as for the natural systems
on land and in the Bay. The new organization’s focus, much like
the Coordinadora when it started, is flood control, disaster prevention,
and increased food production.
I look forward to working with you to expand support for the exciting
work of the Coordinadora, a vibrant model of the success of communities
working together to identify, prioritize and meet people’s needs
sustainably and in harmony with the environments in which they live.
Jeffrey Haas
Chairman
SPECIAL THANKS
The solidarity of many generous individuals and organizations is making
this work for peace and self-sufficiency possible. Outstanding donor
organizations during the last few months include:
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J.M. Kaplan Fund
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Communitas
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The Copen Family Fund
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Wildlife Forever Fund
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The Overbrook Foundation
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The Act of Giving Foundation
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We are also thankful for the gifts made in honor and memory of hundreds
of people, especially as part of the Tree Projects.
Finally, we are grateful to those who volunteer, raise money, and promote
this important work in general.
What I Didn’t Understand:
Reflections on Poverty, Community, and Hope
by Sean Hale
| I used to think I understood
poverty from hearing my dad’s stories. He came from a poor
working family of 13; his father died before his youngest brother
was born—leaving the family with nothing. I used to think I understood poverty because when I was seven my dad lost his job, because he was organizing a union, and remained unemployed for 4 years. During those years we ate a lot of government cheese and never had new clothes. I used to think I understood poverty because of my wife’s experience. She slept in a little room that barely fit two twin beds. Until she was twenty, she shared one of those beds with her mom and her grandma had the other. |
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But while in El Salvador two years ago,
a peasant woman named Isabella helped me understand poverty in a way
I never had before.
Isabella, a humble but confident leader, lives in a little peasant town
where a well-off family might have a house made of cement blocks about
the size of a two-car garage. Isabella is a strong woman. In addition
to raising her four kids and tending the family corn crop, she’s
devoted to her community: she serves on the local health committee,
she works with the local shrimp co-op to organize their work schedule,
and she helps her neighbors keep their chickens vaccinated.
About two years before, Isabella had received twenty chickens through
a project supported by the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency and our partner,
the Coordinadora. For the first time, her family had a steady source
of protein from the eggs. She even made a little bit of money selling
eggs to her neighbors for less than the stores charge, around seven
cents each. She explained how during the first year of the project,
after basic family expenses, she saved $20. It took her an entire year
to save $20! I wanted to understand what that saved money meant for
her, so I asked her how she used it. “One day my son was playing
with a friend and—you now how little boys are—that friend
ended up with a broken arm. When the boy’s mother showed up, it
was a big relief to have that $20 so they could go to the clinic and
get a cast.”
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It took Isabella another year to save up another $20. Her father became ill and had gone to the hospital in a big city about an hour away where her sister lived. Isabella then got a phone call from her sister: their father, in a state of dementia, had walked out of the hospital and was wandering the big city, alone and lost! Tears rolled down her face as she told us this story. She took that $20 and used it to go to the big city to find her lost father. |
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Isabella taught me more about economic hardship that day than I’d ever known before. I learned how $20 can make a life or death difference. How someone can cry, grateful for less money than it takes to fill my gas tank.
Isabella also taught me about hope. If
we woke up tomorrow and found ourselves living in the economic situation
she lives in, how many of us would just curl up in a ball and want to
die? Somehow she finds the strength to wake up every morning and keep
going while saving her nickels and dimes. On top of that, she helps
her neighbors and community. You’ll find that same sense of community
and hope over and over again in the Coordinadora.
Isabella told this story to me and a delegation of about twenty people
from the U.S. Together, we walked away from her house with a stronger
idea of what poverty means in different parts of the world. But instead
of depressing us, it gave us a renewed sense of
optimism. We saw how much one person accomplished while struggling against
constant need. We saw how the strength of her family and community relied
on her continued involvement. We saw the importance of a mere $20.
I saw how little I had understood before. Now, thanks to Isabella and
other people like her at the Coordinadora, I think I’m beginning
to get it.
Sean Hale is the Interim Executive Director of FSSCA. To learn more
about the Chicken Project or how to join a delegation to El Salvador
and hear these stories for yourself, please visit www.fssca.net
An Outrageous Act Of Hope
by John Hickman
In January 2000 Jim Burns, an FSSCA Board Member, invited me to “come and see” El Salvador. Jim, Don Sly, and I drove cars and supplies from Seattle to El Salvador to deliver to communities supported by the Coordinadora.Along the way we picked up FSSCA Founder, Chencho Alas, in Austin who acted as our guide through Mexico, Guatemala, and in El Salvador.
| On that trip I saw for the first time the work that was being done in the Bajo Lempa region to develop sustainable agricultural projects, prepare emergency response systems, establish conflict resolution and mediation programs, encourage political participation, and strengthen the organization of the Coordinadora. The goal was (and still is!) to empower the people of the region to achieve self-sufficiency. |
 In August 2007, Marta showed John and Vern how to make tortillas by hand |
I felt at the time that the work was remarkable
and there was evidence that much had been accomplished in the eight
years since the end of the war. I wanted to get involved somehow to
do what I could to help these hard working, courageous, and hope filled
people. Chencho invited me to consider serving on the FSSCA board as
a way to help and I felt compelled to say, “Yes!”
I visited the Bajo Lempa region again in the fall of 2002. Chencho and
I met with youth gangs in Tierra Blanca, who wanted help mediating their
local gang conflicts and asked for a project to provide a positive activity
to work on. I visited a site in San Nicolas that the Coordinadora hoped
to acquire. They had dreams of a market, gallery, restaurant, hotel,
radio station, and maybe a cyber café for the site. The agricultural
work was beginning to show results and there were education programs
under way at the newly completed office and dormitory facilities in
Ciudad Romero. There were a couple of computers at the offices that
had been donated, but they were not being used extensively and had no
Internet access. There was good leadership in place but it was not clear
that there would be a new generation coming up to take over.
In August of this year I returned to the Bajo Lempa with a delegation
from Seattle. The development in the five years
since I had visited amazed me. The sophistication of the agricultural
education and production programs impressed me. As did the computer
lab at the school, complete with Internet access and an award-winning
teaching program, which readies young Salvadoran minds for the 21st
century.
The San Nicolas site, now owned by the organization, exemplified the
dreams imagined five years before, including the Cyber Café,
the award winning radio station, the soon to open coffee shop, and the
almost ready to go cashew operation. To stand in the gallery and see
artwork by former gang members was a powerful sign of progress for me.
The most impressive change I saw, over and above the tangible achievements,
was seeing the involvement of the younger generation. Nohé, the
president of Ciudad Romero, is an articulate young leader. Mario, the
radio DJ, is full of enthusiasm. Anastacio is clearly energized by working
with the technology at the Cyber Café. It was so encouraging
to see young people excited about what was going on.
Most of all, the Coordinadora owes this success and progress not to
a collection of projects, but rather to the 100 communities that have
come together with a shared dream. They have created a collective, long-term
vision for their region and have earned the trust, loyalty, and participation
of hundreds of families who work together to make it a reality.
It was when we visited the Turtle Project that I was able to put the
continuous progress of the Coordinadora into words. We were told that
less than 4% of the baby turtles released into the ocean survive into
adulthood. It makes the turtle project an Outrageous Act of Hope. Likewise
I regard the work of the Coordinadora, in the context of the history
of El Salvador and the discouraging issues confronting the world, an
Outrageous Act of Hope.
John Hickman participated in the FSSCA Governing Board for six years.
He currently serves on our Advisory Board.
Fall 2007 Newsletter
The Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America is a US non-profit
organization (501c3) supporting Peace and Justice in Central America.
| 314 E Highland Mall Blvd., Ste 208 Austin, TX 78752 |
(512) 388-7957 (fax) 371-7472 www.fssca.net |