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The Road
to Hope by Chencho Alas
Every time that I go back
to El Salvador, my experiences there fill me with hope. They
show me that peace, as an idea and in reality, is possible.
So, we need to work for it.
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Last July, Mark Chupp, a Mennonite mediator with the University
of Cleveland, directed us in a Participatory Research
Action workshop. We carried out research in Tierra Blanca,
a small town in south Usulután of 4,000 people. For the
last eight years, two gangs, originally formed by repatriated
gang members from Los Angeles, had terrorized the community.
Each gang controlled its own turf; disturbing the lives
of children, teens, and adults. Very often, the two gangs
would confront each other in the central plaza armed with
"trabucos," homemade guns that look like 12-gauge
shotguns. Life was not easy for people in Tierra Blanca;
during the course of our research, they told us that the
gangs were the worst problem they faced.
We
interviewed members of both gangs and, on August 5th,
I served as a mediator between the two groups. I told
Dick Salem, a mediator and member of our board, about
our progress. He advised me to have another meeting
including more representatives of both groups. We did
so on August 19th, in a church. The two groups pledged
to make peace. Unfortunately, the police arrested one
of the gang leaders while he was still inside the church,
which some community members took to be a betrayal on
my part. However, when one lives in hope, new roads
open themselves.
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This former member
of Gang 18 has not used drugs or alcohol for three months.
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Tierra Blanca's Provisional
Committee, which we formed during our research, continued
struggling to bring the two gangs together. Among other successes,
the gang members came to see themselves as "youths"
instead of gangs. On October 27th, we had a new meeting in
which 25 members of both gangs participated along with Tierra
Blanca's Provisional Committee and the Coordinadora's newly-formed
CIPAZ (Peace Initiative Committee). By working together, our
hope and work have resulted in an end to violent conflicts
between the gangs, these youth at risk work together on community
activities (like cleaning the cemetery before the day of the
dead), freedom of movement, and they have begun to win the
hope and esteem of the community.
This same hope has driven
our work in the United States. On November 10 and 11, the
FSSCA Board of Directors met in Seattle. Our meeting was very
productive. We deepened the board's mission, taking it beyond
just the traditional board functions of setting policy and
raising money. Each of the twelve board members gathered there
understands that peace as an ends requires us to have a global
and planetary vision; to fulfill our personal commitments,
especially that which we have made with the campesinos of
El Salvador. They will live in peace when they grow and bake
their daily bread, when they establish better family relations,
and when they improve their environment. They are doing this,
and for that reason we are helping them. And you, how can
you help us to make this hope grow?
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FUNDRAISING OVERVIEW
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Through the support of foundations and many generous people
like you, the FSSCA has raised nearly $400,000 this year
to support work for Social Justice and Peace in Central
America. This includes $115,000 in grants for the conflict
management and mediation program from the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation and the U.S. Institute of Peace,
which will fund it through Fall 2001!
The FSSCA Board has held a successful fundraising drive
this Fall, bringing in over $35,000 in two months. The
Shefa Fund, Communitas Charitable Trust, and the Overbrook
Foundation have also provided valuable support throughout
the year.
Individual contributions have allowed the Coordinadora
to complete their field office in Ciudad Romero while
a grant from the Jewish Joint Committee for Hurricane
Mitch Relief has provided for the construction of a
disaster relief shelter.
In the area of home construction, 93 families are expected
to move into their new flood-proof homes by April, and
the Coordinadora will begin building another 120 soon.
By the end of the year, you will have provided more
than $75,000 in direct support to the Coordinadora,
allowing it to continue work in its five program areas:
Disaster Prevention, Production and Environment, the
Culture of Peace, Local Participation, and Organization.
Finally, the American Jewish World Service has just
approved $50,000 in grants for irrigation and to continue
the micro-credit project.
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Do
you have a computer that you aren't using?
In El Salvador it
can be put to good use in a classroom. Over the
next two years, we hope to collect at least 40 Personal
Computers for use in the communities that the Coordinadora
serves. To donate a working Pentium I or better
computer, please contact us here in Round Rock,
Texas.
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"Beginning to walk on the waves
has a sense of adventure, ease, but then thinking
and darkness and grasping for Christ’s hand
is the reality of suffering, doubt, struggle. But
the courage and suffering of these people never
ceases to call me."
--Maura Clarke (1931-1980)
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| The
Salvadoran military brutally massacred four missionaries:
Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan
on December 2, 1980. Their crime was helping the poor
survive the severe social injustices that Central
America was suffering. Twenty years later, their sacrifice,
and that of 80,000 other martyrs in El Salvador, continues
to inspire us. |
FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
Our new formal name is FOUNDATION FOR SELF
SUFFICIENCY (CENTRAL AMERICA)
In order to work more directly with the peasant
communities in El Salvador, the old organization officially
known as the Foundation for Technology, Environment and Self-Sufficiency,
was dissolved and a new not-for-profit was chartered in Illinois
under the name of Foundation for Self Sufficiency. This was
basically a technical and legal change; the staff, board and
goals remain the same. From now on, you can make your checks
out to the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency, or FSSCA.
Journey to
El Salvador by Guy Tobin
I want
to share my experience of El Salvador as a member of the August
2000 delegation to San Salvador and the Local Zone of Peace.
Each time I find myself telling the story of my journey, the
deeper I feel the need to reach out and tell others. It is
a truly inspiring and humbling experience and just about every
human emotion is evoked during the 8-day journey.
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We
were fortunate to visit many of the projects and stay
for three nights with the peasants in their homes. The
hope and love of these people hit me as hard as the
crushing poverty in which they live. I truly saw the
eyes of God in the deep brown eyes of the children.
I noticed how Chencho was always drawn to the children,
and they to him. I asked him if he ever feels the presence
of his friend Romero when he is working, and he said
"When it is difficult, like the gang intervention
you participated in yesterday, I touch my wallet that
contains a drop of Romero's blood on a piece of paper
and I feel that he is with me."
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An
interchange between local youths and Amy, one of the
August delegates.
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One person
who left a lasting impression on me was a young woman named
Ruth who hosted a few of us at their family home in San Hilario.
I felt special that we were the first delegation to stay in
this particular village and I wanted to help Ruth and the
family in every way that I could. I thought about Ruth's life,
her future, the young life in her womb and how their lives
would be so different from mine and my young children. I believe
that the Lord makes opportunities available in our lives when
we are ready--that we may feel have taken a long time to arrive.
Why didn't I know about this life changing opportunity ten
years ago? How could my life be different if I had got involved
with helping others sooner? These are just some of the questions
that come to my mind when reflecting on the course of my life
since my early twenties. Now at thirty-six, I feel my eyes
have been opened by Chencho and the Salvadoran people and
I look forward to helping further the goals of the FFSCA and
Coordinadora through spreading the word, fundraising, and
returning to "The Savior" soon.
There are a few statements that have stayed
with me from my trip: J.P. Villanueva, a fellow delegate,
said "It hits you that the people are materially poor
but spiritually wealthy, and we are materially wealthy but
spiritually poor"; Someone mentioned that we now have
what Mother Teresa called the "burden of knowing."
I asked Rabbi Joshua Saltzman of the American Jewish World
Service about his work in Central America and how I could
retain and nurture the feeling I was having in El Salvador
so that it wouldn't fade away upon returning to Seattle. His
answer was "There is definitely something special here
(El Salvador), and to just "do the work."
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You
can read more about the August 2000 Zone of Peace
delegation on our webpage here
including the computer training that two Washington
teachers gave in Ciudad Romero.
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Zone
of Peace Delegations: 2001
March 23-30 &
second week of August
Please contact us
if you would like to participate in this life changing
experience. Spaces are limited.
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Foundation for Self-Sufficiency
in Central America Newsletter
Fall/Winter 2000
The Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America
is a US non-profit organization (501c3) dedicated to supporting
the movement for Peace and Justice in El Salvador and the
rest of Central America.
1411 Lisa Rae Dr.
Round Rock, TX 78664
(512) 388-7957 http: //fssca.net (f) 388-2057
El Salvador office: 011 (503)
274-2781
Executive Director: José "Chencho"
Alas
Assistant Director: Sean Hale
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