Colectivo CEIBA

Vozz El Salvador: Youth Cover 2012 Elections and Organize Local Forum

2012-01-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

Check out our first youth project for 2012 and Donate Today via Paypal. Project description below:

During the years 1980-1992 El Salvador suffered a civil war that resulted in more than 75,000 people dead, thousands wounded, and over one million who fled the country. Years of instability and violence gave rise to problems that are still present in Salvadoran society today, including growing gang violence, economic inflation, and general social unrest. Nevertheless, a strong civil society and a growing network of nonprofits has helped the human rights movement in El Salvador and many, especially youth, remain hopeful and active in civil society. The mayoral election season is a pivotal moment for participation, and it is one sphere in which every Salvadorean is faced with the task of finding solutions for the challenges facing their country.

There is an evident need for a youth-driven election project focused on education and training, citizen first-hand reporting, interactive events for conversation-building, and collaboration with the local municipalities to create lasting ties of civic engagement and participation. Vozz, a name created by youth in Guatemala City’s crime-ridden Zone 1 to capture the spirit of having a voice or voz to their stories, will create opportunities for youth to be trained by local reporters and seasoned election trainers, to share their stories from their municipalities on election day, and to distribute those stories both to a central website and to local and global syndicating partners such as YouTube and Demotix.

VOZZ is a citizen journalism training project which was implemented as a successful pilot project during Guatemala’s election in August 2011. More than forty trainers from 22 municipalities were trained in the age range of 16- 24 years old. Youth were taught the fundamentals of journalism and reporting, the use of reporting tools like cameras and cellphones, and the electoral process. The reporters returned to their communities, replicated these trainings and reported both during and after the elections. The project continues as an online space in English, Spanish and Kaqchikel for Guatemalan youth to share their stories around local events, environment, information and news that impacts them.

This project will be launched in El Salvador as a second pilot test to coincide with the 2012 municipal elections. There will be three components to Vozz El Salvador:

● TRAINING OF TRAINERS We will focus on creating a training of trainers “bootcamp” program which will convene two youth from each of 20 municipalities and provide scholarships for them to attend two weekend trainings in San Salvador in February 2012. The first training will focus on the fundamentals of reporting, the electoral process in El Salvador and the use of multimedia tools for reporting safely and accurately. The second training will focus on educating this same core team on three youth laws that could serve as tools to hold local governments accountable during the mayoral elections.

● A PUBLIC FORUM. A public forum will be held in Santiago Texacuangos where youth from youth-serving organizations will publicly interview local candidates for mayorships on issues concerning young voters. This forum will also livestreamed online so more people both nationally and abroad can view it. The semi-urban municipality where the forum will be held is located 30 minutes south of San Salvador, where CEIBA has worked to develop youth organizations in communities and to create partnerships with the local municipal government to help implement new laws to protect and empower youth.

● SOFTWARE PACKAGE AND CURRICULUM. An out-of-the-box easy to install open-source software package ready for online launching. This software package with language localization capacity will also be accompanied by a digital and printable curriculum that contains trainings focused on election coverage and participation. This electronic “Journalism and Political Participation Do-It-Yourself Election Guide” will be in both Spanish and English and available for nonprofits and civic groups across Latin America to use as an initial civic engagement tool and gateway to civic knowledge.

Increasingly, youth in the country are in crisis – unemployment is at an all time high, hundreds migrate to the U.S. daily in search of work or fleeing violence, and gangs and drug trafficking disproportionately affect youth – the murder rate among young Salvadorans is 92 per 100,000 people. Thirty percent of youth in El Salvador 2009 last election exercised their right to vote. The factors that account for low youth voter turnout are misinformation and lack of voter education, as well as youth sentiment that political parties and leaders fail to represent their concerns or to provide them with opportunities to participate. Many youth voters are also not interested in voting because of the perceived lack of importance of the activity of voting. The mayoral elections to be held in March 2012 are an opportunity for young people to get involved at the most local level of political participation and to hold their future leaders accountable for the concerns and rights of young people.

The issues of crime, gang violence, and drug trafficking has generated negative stigmas and stereotypes of youth in El Salvador and all of Central America. The Salvadoran government has perpetuated such stereotypes, passing harsher anti-gang laws or increasing militarization of the streets. Young people equipped with the tools to understand and digitally discuss the problems affecting youth will be powerful actors in public policy. Not only will trained youth be more confident to participate in their local communities, they will have the online skills and mentorship necessary to return to their own municipalities and replicate these spaces for story-telling and civic engagement, and to conduct trainings from the toolkits provided. By the end of the project, young people in this geographic region will connect with other youth globally and locally, will serve their communities by producing accurate information, will act as a watchdog in a fledgling democracy, and will amplify the space for freedom of expression by exercising their basic right to choose and share their stories.

This project will directly benefit more than 200 Salvadoran young adults ages 18-24 who live in 20 municipalities considered to be areas of social exclusion. Forty youth will be trained as the core group of citizen reporters to cover the 2012 Mayoral Elections, and 160 youth will be invited to participate in the Youth Forum in Santiago Texacuangos. The project has the potential to benefit hundreds more Salvadoran youth because it requires that the first youth trained return to their home municipalities and conduct their own training, in partnership with local youth organizations. In addition, Vozz will publish an open-source electronic “Journalism and Political Participation Bootcamp” curriculum in both Spanish and English, available for the benefit of thousands of NGOs and local government across Latin America so that they can apply our project to elections throughout the region.

Organizations: HablaCentro and CEIBA

CEIBA has been working on youth participation and violence prevention since February 2010. As part of a human rights commission on a national youth network, CEIBA actively participated in the creation of the Youth Policy (Politica de Juventud, passed March 2011) and the Youth Law ( Ley de Juventud, passed November 2011). CEIBA is also part of the local RAC (Red de Atencion Compartida) for Santiago Texacuangos which is responsible for helping the local government implement the LEPINA (Ley para Proteccion de la Ninez y Adolescencia. Law for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, passed January 2011). Lawyer Jonathan Velasquez, a founding member of CEIBA, is certified in LEPINA by the Salvadoran Supreme Court. Dany Portillo, another CEIBA founder, is currently the Director of Youth and Culture in the Secretary of Culture for the Salvadoran Government. CEIBA has the community context, experience with youth on the local level, appropriate insertion into national advocacy organizations, and ties to national and local government to undertake this kind of project.

HablaCentro has trained close to eight hundred people through work with nonprofits, civic groups, and other organizations since 2010. The organization has also created a community of 1,141 contributors, 9,027 articles, and more than 4,128 text message alerts. On average, HablaCentro serves 20,000-30,000 visits per month across all the 6 hubs located in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. HablaCentro also created a number of strategic partnerships to form the foundation for real social change and impact.

HablaCentro.com is a local mobile-driven network of regional citizen information websites in Latin America where contributions can be anonymous. Contributors, especially young people, from each country share and discuss information in various languages, including local indigenous languages. People use whatever means is available to them – computers, email and cellphones – to contribute and access the websites. A team of mostly volunteers share information and tools to participate and own the websites within each country. The core of the network is to provide a space for anyone to share their views or news reporting, and to train community groups and citizens about how to tell any story in such a way so that it has impact, relevance, timeliness, can be verified, and has geographic significance.

HablaCentro began as a pilot project, HablaGuate, in Guatemala in May 2009. When the prominent Guatemalan lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was murdered and a group of people requested a tool to be able to tell their stories from the ground. One month later HablaHonduras was created on the eve of President Manuel Zelaya's ousting in order to provide an alternative news outlet for the community reporting those events. Within a month the traffic reached 30,000 visits without any marketing efforts. One month later, HablaVenezuela was launched after a request from a core group of Venezuelans organizing against the governments educational cutbacks. Two months later, HablaCostaRica and HablaElSalvador were created. HablaCentro was formed as this growing network of news and information hubs with a legal entity in the United States. Co-founder Kara Andrade is now an Ashoka fellow strenghtening this network of community news and information websites by working locally with the teams that run them and providing training and technical support.

Hablacentro is partnering with a local nonprofit called Construyendo Espacios Integrales para el Bienestar Ambiental (Ceiba), Constructing Integrated Spaces for Environmental Well-being, which was founded to respond to destruction caused by landslides as a result of Hurricane Ida in November 2009. The organization was founded by Beth Tellman, on a Fulbright in El Salvador at the time, along with five Salvadorans, two of whom were from the affected region. While initially providing humanitarian aid to over 30,000 people in 30 communities, Ceiba focused the scope of its work to the social reconstruction of the most devastated communities in the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos, based on community diagnostics and Beth’s research on the keys to community resilience.

Ceiba’s vision is to be a foundation that promotes sustainable community organization to manage the natural resources and social development of the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos. Ceiba’s mission is to give community members the tools to organize themselves in order to generate: environmental consciousness, alternatives sources of income, food sovereignty, risk management, mental health, and gender equality. Ceiba is non-religious and non-political, and its board of directors includes an assembly of more than 20 local community leaders, volunteers, and students. Thus far, they have collaborated with the United Nations, the USA Military Civil Affairs Unit, and New York University, among others. Ceiba began its process to become a legal Salvadoran NGO in January 2011, expecting official status as a Foundation in early 2012.

Amount of budget requested and total cost of project or program :$13,905

the great flood of 2011

2011-10-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

its been an incredible, exhausting, insanely wet 10 days. tropical depression 12 hovered over the salvadoran coast for the past 10 days or so, dumping down more raining than hurricane mitch. in some places, more than a meter and a half. there has been an incredibly low death count by my analysis, to which the Salvadoran government and the system of Civil Protecion (El Salv's FEMA) deserve huge kudos for precautionary and lifesaving evacuations. while only 34 lives were lost, more than 55,000 were evacuated, and more than a million people effected. the economic costs are yet to be covered- but will include the loss of houses, stores, businesses, and the entire bean and corn harvest of 2011 for many families.

In Santiago Texacuangos alone, there were 586 people sheltered in 6 locations; 3 in the town center and 3 communaly run shelters in la Cuchilla, El Sauce, and Shaltipa, respectively. CEIBA offered support to nearly all of these shelters, in addition to 2 shelters in Santo Tomas, a nearby region. We aided in food, water, toothbrushes, toothpaste, clothing, maxipads, diapers, soap, floss, and coordinated with various organizations such as Anmutsipical, SSPAS, CIPJES, Generacion Ochentas, Caritas, and others. Probabaly our largest contribution was the immaterial; the puppet shows, the movie showings, painting classes, and the use of hundreds of crayons to start a process of psychosocial intervention with at least 350 children (and maybe more). We gave motivational speeches in the community run shelter of El Sauce, taught community members how to fill out shelter statstics forms, and much much more. So far, we have raised $2,000!!!!!! and have yet to spend all of it. The rains have stopped for today, so what we didn't spend on relief, we will surely need to spend on reconstruction.....

Here are some pictures with some good stories from the week (though there are so many more to be told)

1. candlelit spaghetti dinner. this was the most beautiful moment for me in all of the tragedy- eating spaghetti with my fingers in the shelter in El Sauce with the children. We have no utensils, but we did have hot (and really bland!) spaghetti. Since the electricity had been out ALL day, CEIBA pitched in with the community leaders to buy 20 candles for the shelter, so that we could eat by candle light. After noticing the teary eyes of the exhausting community leaders who has been running the shelter for 5 days straight, CEIBA decided to give a pep talk of sorts, encouraging the community to keep supporting their leaders and pitch in to run what we have dubbed "The 5 star shelter" when compared with nearly every shelter we has seen. This shelter was clean, dry, participatory, organized into commissions and felt so much happier than EVERYWHERE else. The adults camped out at the edges of the building, so the kids could run around in the middle.

2. destroyed home, el sauce.
This is the reason the El Sauce shelter filled so quick (over 80 people in a small small room). In the early hours of the morning (Sunday October 17th), the wall fell in on this humble home. Thank goodness the leader of the youth group, Tito, happens to live across the street, and jumped into action to pull the 6 person family out of the rubble. Its hard to tell in this picture, that there used to be a home here. The future of where this family will live now that the rains have stopped...is unknown.

3. Kevin and the Indy 500
In one of the ugliest moments of the disaster, when the first shelter opened in Friday Oct. 13th, with the first few families from Joya Grande (which would later grow to nearly 200 families from Joya), this family was standing around, looking terrified, just waiting for what to do next. I pulled some chairs out of the school director's office, and frantically began to search through the bags of dry clothes to get the soaking children a little warmer. These 2 characters, Erik, and Kevin, choose the Indy 500 shirt, and their eyes opened
in delight as I explained the wonders of cars racings hundreds of miles an hour around a huge track.....
4. drawing water is rain.
the same friday evening, we traveled to a far away rural shelter of Las Casitas in Santo Tomas (which soon got moved closer into town, thank goodness). I literally watched a landslide fall 3 second IN FRONT of my car on the way home. We did some initial diagnostics with these kids...who only drew rain. one 5 year old drew his destroyed grandmother's home with ghosts all around it, signifying his fear.

5. finger paint. crayons are pretty exciting (most kids in your average salvadoran home probabaly do not own any) but finger paint is even MORE exciting. Karina's innocent and excited and ENOURMOUS brown eyes couldn't contain their excitement for the finger paint. she drew this.

6. vulnerability in shaltipa
this community didn't completely lose any houses- but almost. this landslide ripped down the hillside through an urban area, forcing nearly 30 families into community run shelters in churches and schools. The back wall on the house on the right could cave in any second. Though the rains have stopped for now, the saturation in the soil is preventing many familys from returning home just yet- any little old thundershower could send a landslide toppling all the homes in this picture over like dominoes.

7. How old am I?
These tiny tiny boys with very rotten teeth appear to be 3 or for years old... think again! They are 7 and 8! These little munchkins, malnourished for sure, continuously giggled and tugged on my rain jacket, because they were wet and cold. I tried to fit them both in, and fought back the tears thinking about their obvious poverty- the kind of poverty you always seem to confront in disaster shelters. And I wondered as they lined up for lunch- were they not better fed in this shelter than in their day to day life? And is this cold, wet, school worse than their actual home? But you could never tell....Carlos David (munchkin on the right) continued to giggle and nuzzle further into my raincoat, asking me if I was already leaving....and when I would be coming back...

8. Una Vez y No Mas (once and not more)
This is the name of the improvisational puppet show that our partner organization, Anmutsipical has engineer together. Inside are Salvadorans Juancho (Anmu) and Tito (that heroic kid from El Sauce) who have invented a show about why they have come to the shelter, and how they are going to act there. The show is interactive, as the puppets talk to the audience, asking them how they feel, or the audience shouting advice to the puppets. Creative education (like puppets) is really important to our methodology, and totally magical for kids.

9. dedicated youth volunteers. the people who bring life and light into disaster shelters.....

Juancho, working with the children in El Sauce

Daniela, interviewing families about their experience in the shelter

Maggie, faithfully guarding the crayons while the local catholic church hands out clothes.

This is why we do what we do. Thank you and your donations for helping us create smiles amidst the chaos.

lo que significa perder las alas/what is means to lose your wings.

2011-10-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

What it means to lose your wings

AT HALF FLIGHT.

It’s raining, it’s been raining for nearly 10 days, entire communities flooded, children dead, politicians telling lies, news in the newspaper and television… international loans

And outside people recollecting supplies, people digging up and mourning their dead…

El Salvador is the most vulnerable country in the world, the second most deforested country in Latin America after Haiti, deforestation, social inequality, lack of health education, malnutrition, social and juvenile violence… poverty…

It’s nearly noon, I am driving over a dark and sad sky like the laughter of a child who at a distance greets me… the community “El Sauce” one of the communities in which we have been working in for two years. With it’s “adesco” and its youth it is in a state of emergency like the rest of the country due to the constant rains and their mortal consequences…

I arrive at the shelter, the people greet me, they appreciate my help and support, they give thanks because we are the first to arrive with some bags of water, they don’t have food not even drinking water. Up until now there are about 40 or 50 people living in the shelter, the rain will not cease.

At a distance a young woman yells at me “Jonathon, a house has already fallen down.” I walk to verify the location and talk to the people, the site is terribly saddening, the house completely filled with mud and rocks, a bed destroyed, a kitchen totally useless, clothes, etc…

From the side door I hear crying that makes me tremble, it’s the owner of the house, a woman of perhaps 40 years who is holding down with her hand her two children, who without knowing what is going on laugh amongst themselves…

I hug her I feel her sadness in my bones, I see the disillusionment of the people in her gaze, I want to cry but something inside of me is keeping me from doing so…

“It was everything I had,” she tells me. “My life, my hard effort, my work, and now what’s going to happen?” She was evacuated minutes before her house was destroyed, she doesn’t have a house tonight. She will sleep like many others in the community shelter, wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow when the rain marches on…

Her emotional state is well known, she is crying, the people murmur around her, “Poor thing she lost her house and all of her belongings.” She looks at her children and smiles like playing a silly game of throwing a stone at them and hiding her hand. She kisses their foreheads and tells them, “God has not died. Everything will be okay.”

The children filled with energy run around without even paying attention…

And so, I ask myself, should I ask you? What would you do if you were a bird and the rain cut off your wings?

Sometimes when one believes to have lost something that strange sensation in the body takes control of our eyes. Now imagine if all the hard work in your life were to disappear in one minute, your house filled with mud, your bed covered with roots and rocks, your children left with only the clothes they have on, the rain threatening you from the outside… death singing its terrible songs at the door of your home…

Sometimes losing everything is a different way of starting over to fix our errors, or to show the rain and death that God has not died and that always or almost always we can fly without wings…

Jonathan Velásquez

A MEDIO VUELO.

Llueve, lleva casi 10 días lloviendo, comunidades enteras inundadas, niños muertos, políticos
diciendo mentiras, noticias en los periódicos y la televisión….préstamos internacionales

Y afuera gente recolectando víveres, gente desenterrando y llorando sus muertos….

El Salvador es el país más vulnerable del mundo, el segundo más deforestado en América
latina después de Haití, deforestación, desigualdad social, falta de educación salud,
desnutrición, violencia social y juvenil….pobreza….

Son casi medio día, manejo sobre un cielo oscuro y triste así como la risa de un niño que a
lo lejos me saluda…La comunidad “El Sauce” una de las comunidades en las cuales hemos
trabajado por dos años. Con su adesco y sus jóvenes esta en emergencia así como todo el país
debido a las constantes lluvias y sus mortales consecuencias…

Llego al albergue , la gente me saluda , agradece mi presencia y apoyo , da gracias porque
somos los primeros en llegar con unas cuantas bolsas de agua, no tiene comida ni agua potable
hasta ahora hay quizá 40 o 50 personas albergadas , la lluvia no cesa.

A lo lejos una joven me grita: Jonathan, ya se cayó una casa, camino a verificar el lugar y
hablar con la gente, el panoramas es terriblemente triste, la casa totalmente llena de lodo y
piedras, una cama destruida, una cocina totalmente inservible, ropa, etc.…

De la puerta de al lado un llanto estremece mi piel, es la dueña de la casa, una señora de 40
años quizá que sujeta con su mano sus dos hijos que sin saber que pasa ríen entre ellos…

La abrazo siento su tristeza en mis hueso, veo la desilusión de todo un pueblo en su mirada,
quiero llorar pero algo en mi lo impide….

“era todo lo que tenia me dice, mi vida, todo mi esfuerzo, todo mi trabajo y ahora que va a
pasar” ella fue evacuada minutos antes de que su casa fuera destruida, no tiene casa para
esta noche dormirá como tantos otros en el albergue de la comunidad, pensando que pasara
mañana cuando la lluvia se marche…

Es notorio el estado de ánimo de ella, está llorando, la gente murmura entre ella, pobrecita
perdió la casa y todas sus cosas, ella mira a sus hijos y sonríe como quien tira la piedra y
esconde la mano, les besa la frente y les dice: Dios no se ha muerto, todo va estar bien…

Los niños corren energéticos sin prestar atención….

Entonces, me pregunto, te pregunto? que harías si fueras pájaro y la lluvia te cortara las alas?

A veces uno cree haber perdido algo y esa sensación rara en el cuerpo se apodera de nuestros
ojos, ahora imagina si todo el esfuerzo de tu vida desaparece en un minuto, tu casa llena
de lodo, tu cama con raíces y piedras, tus hijos con la única ropa que llevan puesta, la lluvia
amenazando afuera….la muerte cantando sus canciones terribles en la puerta de tu casa…

A veces perderlo todo es otra forma de iniciar de nuevo de reparar nuestros errores, o de
demostrarle a la lluvia y a la muerte que Dios no ha muerto y que siempre o casi siempre
podemos volar sin alas…..

Jonathan Velásquez

Support Children by Donating Today

2011-10-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

The following message is from Beth Tellman, who currently is working with the population of refugees who have fled to the temporary shelter established in the Camilo Campos school in Santiago Texacuangos. When we last spoke she and several volunteers were coloring pictures with the children of the families in the shelter. Thanks to much work in recent years to overhaul the region's disaster-response system, the situation in Santiago Texacuangos is stable thus far. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the regions of the country that have been hardest-hit by this triple tropical storm week. Read below to see how you can empower CEIBA to offer assistance to the most delicate regions in this hour of severe need. The need is immediate, so please consider acting now.

Hello,

I know that you all and your various institutions are out supporting this country in these difficult moments.

We know that sometimes, although material needs like mattresses and food are covered, psychological support is left untended to, especially when it comes to children who survive disaster.

Our two collectives, Anmutsipical and CEIBA, are professionally trained in this area and we offer support in the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos. Here the shelter already houses 35 people who have fled their homes. This afternoon, we will go to Santo Tomas to see the situation there. Thus far, here in the southern part of San Salvador, all seems to be benefitting from a well-orchestrated disaster management effort from local governments, the Civilian Protection Ministry and other institutions, which have covered the majority of immediate material necessities.

Therefore, we would like to offer support in other regions of the country that have more immediate needs: places like the coast or the department of Ahuachapan, where the crisis has hit with more force and local authorities haven’t been able to respond adequately. What we lack to be able to reach that region is transport. If you would support us by donating funds for gasoline, we will be able to support the children of these delicate regions with our knowledge, materials and experience as they ride out yet another disaster.

Please see the formal financial proposal below.

Thank you,

CEIBA y Anmutsipical

Hurricanes Irwin and Jova
Psycho-Social Attention Project Proposal

Who We Are

We are two youth collectives, Anmu-tsipical and CEIBA, which work in social community development with an emphasis in socio-environmental themes. We emphasize community organization, especially in the municipalities of Santiago Texacuangos and Santo Tomas.

What We Do

Our two collectives have united to carry out several projects over time, such as one that offered psycho-social support for 300 children who survived Hurricane Ida and who reside in the communities of Joya Grande, San Martin, and Santo Tomas. This project lasted 6 months. We also belong to and work through the following Salvadoran national youth networks: Juxvida, Youth in Favor of Life (an environmental youth network), and CIPJES (the Inter-Sector Coordination in Favor of Youth in El Salvador.) These networks unite to support each other when we are in need of volunteers, to carry out large events, and in times of crisis. Finally, our two collectives together have together trained two Children’s Emergency Committees in Santiago Texacuangos.

The objective of carrying out this type of attention is to support children in expressing their emotions after having lived through trauma. We help them to understand what is happening and how it is related to their feelings, so they can understand it and feel themselves empowered to be part of the solution to the problem. Our methodology consists in using different interactive techniques, like painting and drawing, puppets and games, and movement therapies like yoga, which help the children to fully comprehend the crisis they’re living.

The Resources We Offer

We have a team of 3 to 6 trained psychologists along with some materials like paper, crayons, puppets, movies and games.

What We Need

In order to provide immediate attention we need either vehicles to provide transport, or gasoline to fill up our SUV and to provide food for the psychologists during the work days. This attention is necessary immediately and lasting throughout the effects of the storms.

Contact Us:

CEIBA:

Telephone: 011-503-7403-2702- Beth or 011-503-7182-4827 Jonathan

Email: ceibaelsalvador@gmail.com

Facebook: Ceiba El Salvador

Website: www.friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com and español www.ceibaelsalvador.org

Anmutsipical Collective:

Telephoen: 011-503-7904-5272 Juancho

Email: anmutsipical@yahoo.com.mx

heavy rains-donate if you can.

2011-10-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

friends
dont have much time to write will post pictures next week.
intense rains in elsalvador since tuesday night are continuing into the weekend. the most affected part of the country are on the coast but santiago texacuangos is in danger.

we have yet to open shelters, but there are landslides that have partially destroyed or entered some houses.

the largest landslide so far is in el sauce, and has filled part of a house with mud. by the time i arrived, the youth group was there, barefoot, with mud up to their knees, digging the family out. jonathan, henry, and tito were working tirelessly.

joya grande is fine so far, but the road has been obstructed so we are only communicating by phone.

ceiba is coordianting with proteccion civil, since we are part of the comission municipal.

since we are trained in trauma therapy for kids, we are going to movilize to other parts of the country with more needs to implement tramua therapy in shelters (still deciding where, possibly la herradura in la paz or berlin in usulutan or in auhuchapan....we are coordinating with cipjes, unes, and the red cross to decide WHERE are people most underserved). we met at cafe la T last night with juancho from anmustpicial, erik and jenni to plan our campaign.

we are getting all of your donations out of our storage. the clothes, the batteries, the wigs, the puppets, and the crayons. THANK YOU SO MUCH. how useful they are these tough days.

we do need some monetary support-

$100 to buy plastic to prevent more landslides
$150 for gas to get to far away shelters this weekend to implement trauma therapy
$50 for communications (we have been using new early warning technology frontline SMS to communicate with local gov and the community leaders via text message. each text is .6 cents so its cheap...but we already used up $10 yesterday so if this continues we need support for the communications system.

i think about $300-500 bucks could get us thru the next few days and help A LOT.

the local gov office had no car (neither did the police, and the health clinic has no amblulence!) so i was driving a team from local gov and proteccion civil around to verify landslides, needs, write down names and stats. good think my car is in tip top condition ! just got it back from the shop....its a real tool worth investing in. the local gov gave me gas $$ to drive out to the most affected locations.
i have seen the most heartwrenching poverty these days.

kids in my youth group who literally live between pieces of plastic.

the eldery has affected me the most. i have seen many old women with blue lips, chattering teeth, and when i ask if they have a sweater to put on, just shaking heads.

we are going to be delivering all the sweaters from our storage to the elderly. and plan on brewing HUGE vats of coffee and choclate as well...just to try and warm some bodies and spirits these terrifying days.

will write more reflections and stories and pics when this is over. but for now please pray for Salvadorans, and if you can make a small donation we promise to make excellent use of it.

with dedicated volunteers, we are doing our best to help where and when we can in these wet wet times!

we are not in crisis in santiago tex YET but we are on the brink. hopefully with good communication and some prevention we can make a difference

Filling a big hole with tires- preventing more than landslides

2011-09-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

September 10th/11th, thanks to the generous donations of the Ryan Alaniz and the Futbol Project, Fred Sanchez, Sally Chamness, and Megan Doss, the youth group from the community of El Sauce went to Joya Grande for the weekend to fill a big hole with tires. This project we started in August with St. Thomas Aquinas Delegation, and only got about halfway done, so the youth were convinced that we had to finish it. They made a budget and wrote a letter- click here to read.

tito, with his accounting notebook in hand

The El Sauce kids had to do the planning, including going to Joya Grande to coordinate the project, figure out where to eat and sleep all weekend, and plan activities with the youth group in Joya Grande. They split up roles for the project-tito, the defacto leader of the group, handled accounting and money. Jorge was in charge of making sure we all had a place to sleep. Mirna was in charge of foto documentation etc. It was the first activity that they planned and executed as a group, important for thier leadership and team building.

henri, 8 , children's emerency comittee la marmonera

And its El Salvador. Not all goes right, always. The bobcat we solicited nearly 3 weeks prior came 3 hours late, setting us back. Our water contact did not deliver the water, so I had to drive around the community looking for jugs of water to fill to keep us all hydrated. We honestly expected a bigger turnout of adults in the community-nearly all the work was done by children from our emergency committees and the youth from joya grande and el sauce. But we nearly finished, drenched it sweat at 3pm, ready to jump into beautiful Lake Ilopango. We might have continued had we not ran out of tires!

In an evaluation of the event, the kids reflected on how good it felt to help out another family, and try to accomplish a project they started. Many kids told us it was the "best weekend ever.." Because we didn't just work! The El Sauce kids decided to spend the night in the Casa Comunal of Joya Grande, and build relationships with the youth of another community. Each youth group presented the history, mission, and vision of their group, and the challenges they have had making change in their own community. El Sauce was pretty impressed with the Joya Grande youth's many projects- plans to put up a Red Cross post in Joya Grande, extensive surveys of the community, and a Halloween party to raise funds for the group. Jonathan from CEIBA then gave a presentation on obligatory military service in El Salvador (the governments newest "violence prevention" plan). We discussed the structure of WHO makes decisions FOR youth in El Salvador- and the fact that youth are not actively involved in writing such proposals and projects. Everyone was unanimously against obligatory service, and concluded that the real problems of gang violence are rooted in unemployment and lack of access to education. To follow up on these issues, CEIBA is involved with CIPJES , a national network of youth organizations that encourage political and democratic participation. We sent two of the El Sauce Kids, Jorge and Linda, to the CIPJES formation schools to learn about many issues affecting Salvadoran youth- among these- integral strategies for violence prevention.

and then of course, we danced! Joya kids brought their HUGE booming speakers, and we got down in the Casa Comunal. but alas, not for long. at about 10pm, we were told that the local MS/13 clic from nearby community Shangallo had rolled it, and we had to keep it down so they wouldn't notice and come mess around. Hard times to be a youth in El Salvador these days....
We reverted to playing cards and indoor soccer, altho the shouts coming from each mini goal was just as loud as the booming reggaeton...

untying the human knot on the island

first boat ride ever for many

I passed out, exhausted at 10pm on the girls side of the room...trying to place police and prevent any frisky business. I was abruptly awaken by shouts of the boys running around at about 530am, as they rushed off to climb the nearby coconut trees to prepare our coconut juice drink for the soccer tournament. Nearly 100 coconuts, a few boys, and a rope! We has breakfast with the Joya Grande kids (their treat!) and took off for the island. The boat ride was pretty exciting, since most of the El Sauce kids had never been in a boat, and most couldnt swim. We did group integration activities, and shared our dreams for the next 10 years- some of which traditional development world might frown upon.... "work hard in the carpintery shop to support my family" and "become a liscenced mechanic and own my own maintence facility" and "go to the USA to be with my sister." Their dreams, from their realities.

Thanks to Ryan Alaniz's Futbol Project, we then distributed 4 sets of jersyes, socks and shorts! (one for each women's and men's team in each community). Sweating in our new gear,

enjoying our coconut juice, sweet victory, and NEW JERSEYS!

we closed with a soccer game, which the El Sauce kids won, 9-1, even though they were younger and smaller than the Joya kids. They played as a team, they didnt swear at each other, and they really passed the ball. Some of the gansters showed up to play for the Joya team, and it felt really good to beat the kids who thought they were cooler and badder...

At our weekly meeting in El Sauce, Tito informed me that the Joya Grande kids would be coming to visit El Sauce, and kick their butts in soccer. Their idea, their logistics, their youth group. That is project sustainability- give youth groups skills to plan and fundraise, and the responsability to manage an event...and they start to plan and execute their own projects. It may seem small or silly, but to live in a world of poverty and violence and take the initiative to plan intercomunal youth activities...is a bold step in the right direction for violence prevention. What kids need here is to be given a PLACE, a VOICE and to feel VALUED.

When a good friend Colette interviewed the El Sauce kids on violence prevention ideas, one kid replied, "well, I think what CEIBA is doing you know, coming here and opening up a space for us to feel good and hang out." Pretty simple concept- but somehow so complicated for the government to take seriously. Art, soccer, and education....are probabaly much cheaper projects to run than obligatory military service. In fact, in one weekend we spent $400 to fill in a sinkhole to save someone's house, foment intercommunal youth participation, discuss obligatory military service, talk about our dreams, and play soccer. Clearly, we prevent more than Josue's house falling over. This kind of good clean fun and positive development of our ideas and dreams, as well as critical analysis of government policies, is cheap and effective violence prevention. The real win of the weekend was not the service project- it was the space that was created for youth to participate, help out, and ENJOY BEING YOUNG, something that doesnt happen very often here.

So this weekend, I get to give El Sauce kids $40 of what they raised to make the BIGGEST bucket of Tang ever been seen, and 100 chicken sandwhiches for a post game celebration....no matter who wins.

Help El Sauce youth fill the sinkhole in Joya Grande!

2011-08-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

Friends- CEIBA wants to help one of our youth groups finish a service project we started with our St. Thomas Aquinas Delegation (Aug 6-15) to fill in a sinkhole described in an previous post on Josue's house together with the youth of the community, the youth from el sauce, another community, the kids in our emergency comite from el borborllon, and the gringos from indianapolis, we filled in 1/3 of the sinkhole with tires. We have 2/3 to go, and the salvadoran youth want to get this done and save Josue's house for real! Here is the unedited letter, pretty much directly translated-pictures of the progress we have made on the carcava so far below the letter. they need $600 to finish the job...

Santiago Texacuangos 15 August 2011

St. Thomas Aquinas Church
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

We humbly wish to write you wishing many blessings and success in your work and school.

Via this letter, we want to communicate with you and simultaneously give thanks to the youth who in solidarity collaborated with us on various community projects that benefited both El Sauce and the community of Joya Grande.

Via this letter we would also be very grateful if this delegation of youth with a little of their resources could help us with some economic support. Said support would serve as much help because it would cover costs of transportation and food so that we can help our brothers and sisters of Joya Grande to help finish filling the sinkhole that threatens many families from the previously mentioned community.

We want to thank you beforehand for your response to the request we write to you.

Sincerely, JUBDIS (Jovenes Unidos Buscando Desarrollo Integral El Sauce/ Youth United Seeking Integrated Development of El Sauce)

Fernando Jose Villelas Serrano
Mirna Roxana Urias Lopez
Jocelyn Yajaira Vasquez Perez
Jairo Francisco Diaz Hernandez
Lester Esau Perez Sariano
Jesus Enrique Lopez Lopez
Carlos Alberto Sanchez
Ricardo Francisco Urias Lopez
Henry Alexander Vasquez perez
Erlinda Beatriz Valladares
Carlos Alejandro Sorto
Milton Gustavo Cruz
Kevin Antonio Prolen
Jorge Eduardo Fuentes Moncada

Item    Number    Cost
Lunch for volunteers    140    350
Dinner for youth    25    37.50
Transportation to joya    -    40
Water    5    25
Gas    -    35
Breakfast    25    75
subtotal    -    557.50
Other possible costs    10% of total    55.75
TOTAL    -    613.25
Santiago Texacuangos 15 de Agosto 2011
Iglesia Santo Tomas de Aquino
Indianapolis Indiana USA

Atentamente nos dirigimos a ustedes deceandole muchas benidciones y exitos en las labores que desempenan.

Por medio de la presente les hacemos comunicar y asi mismo a gradecerles al grupo de jovenes que solidariamente nos colaboraron con diferentes trabajo a beneficios de la comunidad de El Sauce y el canton Joya Grande.

Por medio de la presente les agradeseremos mucho a este delegacion si por medio de un poco de sus recursos nos pueden ayudar con aporte economico dicho aporte nos servira de mucho ayuda para asi poder cubrir gastos de transporte y alimentacion y asi poder ayudar a nuestros hermanos de joya grande para poder terminar una carcava que amenaza a varios familiars de la zona anteriormente mencionada.

Agradeciendole antemano su ponta respuesta a la solicitud nos suscribimos de ustedes.

Atentamente:
JUBDIS (Jovenes Unidos Buscando Desarrollo Integral El Sauce)

CEIBA in July: take two.

2011-07-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

July? I’ll take two! This month, CEIBA is getting a double dose of everything: two delegations, two summer interns, two newly funded projects, and two new dents in the CEIBA-mobile. Well, I didn’t say they were all good, but three out of four ain’t bad! Here’s a blog from a new intern, Federico, who is visiting from New York. He's a friend of Beth's from Santa Clara and currently a graduate student in NYU's International Education program, this month he's channeling his energy on the Children's Emergency Committee.

I arrived on July 6th, right on time for the second half of CEIBA’s first July delegation with the Sladek family from Dallas. On July 8th, the team launched the second Children’s Emergency Committee in a part of Joya Grande known as La Mamonera. The launch was a fun, engaging way to introduce parents, partners, and other community members to CEIBA volunteers and their method for promoting disaster risk reduction in the community. Members of the first Children’s Emergency Committee led activities for the whole group, so everyone had fun while learning a whole lot!

As I adjusted to the new environment, I realized El Salvador is nothing like what I had imagined. From the guitar-playing, hammock-napping and fried plantaine and beans with cream-eating culture to the s

mall town family politics, El Salvador is unique and beautiful, and definitely scary at times. I've really enjoyed getting to know some of the folks in Joya Grande, a rural community about an hour outside San Salvador. They don't have many things, most not even a shower or flushing toilet, but they are rich in spirit and community and innovation. Everyone in Joya Grande washes dishes outside in a fish-pond sort-of-thing for example; the fish help prevent mosquito infestations by eating their eggs. The family I stayed with for a couple days is awesome! They showed me how to roast cacao beans to make chocolate and how to make pupusas from scratch (practically a day's mission, because it requires a trip to the nearest maize grinder), and how to fish with a spear. Not easy. They live about a 15 minute hike from the lake where cows roam about in the day and gangs control the night.

It's sad that children and youth, or anyone for that matter, can't go out after dark. The chance of getting robbed, raped and killed at night is high enough that if any CEIBA volunteers are in the community past 5 pm, we need to stay the night. One can imagine what challenges and limitations that threat poses for a college student whose nearest college is in San Salvador, a two hour, triple transfer bus ride. It requires those who can actually afford the $5 monthly tuition and $.20 bus fare to get up at 4 am! And the road to Joya Grande is a single "lane" sandwiched between a deadly ravine and brush, so I thought the drive was a fun off-road experience where I got to cross rivers and dodge boulders until my friend Beth pointed out the rape tree, where gangs are known to ambush cars at night, and the popular spot to dispose of bodies.

On the bright side, CEIBA was ecstatic to announce to the youth in Joya Grande their success is winning two grants for violence prevention projects in their community! To be funded by the Organization of American States, one project will focus on redefining spray painting as a positive form of artistic expression, and the second will help develop entrepreneurial skills for youth who will make and sell pinatas of characters from Salvadoran mythology. The youth group in Joya Grande is still in its founding stages, and this is just the boost they needed. It was clear the organizers are passionate about their movement when one leader, Janette, described their first fund-raising effort, a soccer tournament on the beach. We are all thrilled to get these next projects up and running as soon as possible. For now, they are focused on preparing a festival and homestays for CEIBA’s next delegation. Based on my experience and their receptiveness to the idea of housing perfect strangers from abroad speaks to the welcoming nature of many Salvadorans. CEIBA’s second intern Cindy put it well when she described the group as “beyond impressive!”

I witnessed the true beauty of Salvadoran culture last week when I backed into a ditch. It was only about 8 pm, but I felt anxious because the car I was driving is Beth's, and I was with Grecia and her mom Iveth, on our way back from a "ciber" (actually a room in someone's house with two computers and printer set up with internet), where we set up their first email account. So when I felt the back tires spin out dirt, I knew I'd need help. Iveth called her husband, and I called Norma (also a CEIBA volunteer), and we had a crew lifting the car and digging out the tire within minutes. Most of the people had no idea who I was, but they were ready to help in a heartbeat. It was that moment between not knowing how I'd get out of the ditch and seeing the local men when I realized the potential of having and building a resilient community. The people of Joya Grande know this. They share stories from Hurricane Ida that are hard to swallow. I could go on about the lives lost and their farmland destroyed, but what's more important is what they learned and how they communicate when storms get serious.

It rains just about every night this time of year, but when it doesn't stop, the lake in Joya Grande floods, and people who live by the beach evacuate. On the flip side, when the ground gets saturated, landslides threaten homes. The previous blog post is a perfect example, where you can see a recently-formed cliff’s edges are covered with a plastic tarp to prevent further erosion, but it's clear that water beats plastic by the changed land formation from one day to the next. The day after our mini crisis, we surveyed the cliff which the community is planning to fill with 500 tires. CEIBA will be hosting a youth delegation as of this Friday, so the goal is to bring the visiting gringos together with youth from El Sauce, a nearby village, to support the people in Joya Grande and build ties that will strengthen their resiliency in a time of need.

Can Josue save his House?

2011-06-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday and Thursday evening (June 22 and 23) Heavy Rains pounded the sandy soil of the nieghborhood of el Borborllon, the most vulnerable part of the Joya Grande, the most vulnerable community in the vulnerable municipality of Santiago Texacuangos. Of the vulnerable country, El Salvador. One of the 10 most vulnerable countries in the world....

CEIBA received a call early Friday morning from Ivette, who is the leader of Community Commission for Civil Protection in her sector, El Borborllon, that her neighbor Juana's house was on the point of a collapse. A HUGE sink hole (in El Salvador, we call them carcavas), had formed right on Juana's Patio. We arrived in the afternoon to check out the carcava, nearly 7 meters tall and 5 meters wide. Looked like this:

Ivette and her neighbors gathered around the top of the whole, looking down. This used to be the path up to Juana's house, and now, it is a huge sinkhole 3 feet from her front door. Ivette explained that this happened in the rains just this week, and that she hadn't slept in 3 nights, standing watch for her neighbors, watching the hole grow and grow, waiting til the right moment to evacuate her community as a last resort. The children (grecia-8, maybi-12, and nataniel-6), gathered around looked worried. But no face was as sullen as Josue's. Josue is 6 years old, and lives with his grandma Juana and his Grandpa, whose house is now 3 feet from the hole. Josue's parents are nowhere to be found. The US? other parts of El Salvador? are they alive? Its a silent part of the story that Josue has yet to tell. Here is me and Josue, looking down in the abyss where his house might fall.

To fix a "carcava", you need to fill it. With cement, sticks, and stones. You need heavy machinary. You need materials. It would probabaly cost thousands of dollars. What to do?

I remembered that we had left a roll of black tarp here in Joya Grande last year. Jonathan, a CEIBA volunteer, convinced me that we had to give communities responsibility to take care of the tarp, and was sure they would save it til next year (I wasn't so convinced). In the end, he was right. As stood at Don Cleto's door, leader of sector Zacatera (another member of the Communal Commission for Civil Protection, which CEIBA trained and formed last year), I was astounded as he ran into his home, and dragged out a dusty roll of black tarp. YES! He kept it safely, waiting for the right emergency. That emergency would be today. As I showed Cleto (or Mr. (Meeester) Clay, as I call him) the pictures of the carcava, he was instantly upset, "Why didn't Ivette CALL me sooner?!?"
   It was 5:30 p.m. I knew we had 30 minutes of light left. I thought to myself....lets wait til tommorrow morning? Mr. Clay looked at me puzzled. No Beth, we have to take care of this NOW. If it rains tonite, the water could wash away the remaining 3 feet between the edge of the hole and the foundation of Josue's house. Mr. Clay ran into his house, changed in 7 seconds, and ran back out.
     "Let's Go. Call Ivette, I need at least 4 men." Mr. Clay also called Oscar, sector leader of la playa, who came running to meet us. We passed a truck of policemen on the way. Norma, a CEIBA volunteer for the day, called out to them, "Hey, we need help in El Borborllon. Its an emergency. Will you help us lay the tarp before nightfall?"
     And the police response, "Sure, be there in a bit."
     and Norma: "No. Now. We need you to follow us right this second. And see than man running? (referring to Oscar, a 50+ year old man fervishly running up from the lakeshore), get him in the back of your pick-up!" Norma rarely takes no for an answer. Wait, she NEVER takes no for an answer!
     We drove the car up the riverbed as far as we could, and walked another 500 meters to the carcava. As we approached Ivette, she was already waiting with her husband and 2 other men to help. and of course, at least 15 neighbors came to watch. As we stretched out the plastic, we realized it was ALMOST enough to cover the hole. As if we had planned to save just that amount of tarp for a situation just this size...

One major glitch. We have no rope! Mr. Clay exclaimed that we need rope to stake down the tarp and stretch it exactly so that rain water glides right over the hole, instead of continuing to eat at the side of the hole. Rope? Ivette? Who as rope? As all the adults shook their heads, Josue remembered: I HAVE ROPE! Josue, 6 year old, was a participant in our pilot project of children's disaster prevention in the Borborllon. CEIBA gave each child an "emergency kit backpack" of harnesses, first aid supplies, whistles, flashlights and....4 meters of rope!!! The kids all went running like a bat outta hell towards their homes to find their ropes in their backpacks. Children's Emergency Committee El Borborllon in action!

Josue with his blue rope, measuring about 2.5 Josues long

It is important to note here that Josue was not considered...the brightest of the group. He often came late to workshops, and sometime his parents did not let him come at all as punishment for not behaving in school. Josue is one of those hyperactive kids, who tends to just run and run and run around, and has a hard time doing sit-down activities required in school. Josue became a special friend of Fredy, one of CEIBA's trainers for the emergency committee. Fredy would expend Josue's energy by making him the "star helper." Since Josue would evidently finish all sit-down activities, (like coloring your own house and marking earthqauke exits) before the rest, so he would help Fredy clean up. Josue has an obviously low self esteem. Maybe he is harshly punished at home, or maybe he feels unloved since his parents left him with his grandparents...never to be seen again...

   And so Maybi returned, sadly reporting that her mother had been using her rope to collect firewood to cook for her family, and lost her rope. But Grecia (8) had hers, Nataniel (6) had his, and Josue, with a HUGE grin, handed me his for measurement. "yep. its a bout 2.5 Josues long! just right!" Grecia burst into giggles, as we began to unravel the 3 blue ropes to tie down the stakes.
   Meanwhile, I phone our "municipal delegate of Civil Protection," whom the community had been phoning all morning. I flusteredly explained to him that this was a real emergency, and why didn't he come?!?! This house could fall over at any second. Mr. "municipal delegate" explained to me that:
a. it was not his job to check out carcavas, that was for another government department and that
b. I should tell the family to leave their home. ?!?!
TO WHERE??? sigh. such is generally the response we get from local government here in Santiago Texacuangos.
       Norma tried another strategy: the governor. He answered, but could barely hear Norma due to the poor phone signal in this remote mountainous area. He promised to stay "pendiente" , or keep an eye out, on the emergency, and that he would call the head of Police to do rounds all night to watch future formation of the carcava and possible damage to Josue's house.

Norma, with Grecia, Josue and Maybi. Amish in the background.

By this time, nearly 30 people had come to watch the show. There were even some North American Amish Mennonites (bonnet and all) who walked up and asked me what in tarnation we were doing. and who was I? I had heard lots about them, and how they built sheet metal houses after Hurricane Ida in exchange for people going to their church. After that, they dedicated themselves to evangelization, and spiritual reconstruction. I had seen them in their air conditioned enormous suburban, driving around the community, and had previously approached them so we could coordinate projects together, and got no response (we only do spiritual work....) ok. right. Anyways, they were inspired by the situation, and CEIBA's ability to pull the neighbors together to save Josue's house. How much more tarp do you need?
"25 yards!" I exclaimed.
and how much does that cost?
"about 20 bucks!" full well knowing the price of plastic tarp after having bought at least 600 yards of it over the past year.
"and who's the treasurer here???"

Norma and I immediately stuck out our hands, exchanging an embarrassed giggle. "We are all the treasuers sir, this is a youth collective," I tried to explain. Mr Amish man looked at me puzzled, and handed me the 20 bucks. As soon as a left, I asked the Salvadorans "Who can go to town tommorrow to buy the rest of the tarp?" Of course, these gringos would give me money, but probabaly not directly to a Salvadoran. But I will! I know and trust these people. This is the Community's Emergency Committee! and they safe guarded the tarp from the last year! I handed the money to Oscar, who promised to get on the bus first thing in the morning to buy tarp. I later found out that he milled around at least 4 hardware stores, going all the way to the center of San Salvador to get the "best price." The locals really know how to stretch a dollar.

As the final stakes were put down, Norma said to Josue. "Josue! You saved your house! Lets give a round of applause to our heroes, the children's emergency committee of El Borborllon!" As all the neighbors and police erupted in applause, Josue grinned just about the largest grin I have ever seen. He was the hero of the day, and this was probabaly the most important moment of his life. A Big Deal. and big deal for CEIBA. Our project of Children's Disaster Prevention has met an insane amount of skeptisim and resistance. Community leaders would prefer we just build another house. Our fellow Municipal members of Regional Disaster Governance take it as a "soft" project. But take this suprising stat: The MOST VULNERABLE population in water disaster are children ages 5-14 (Peek 2008). Worldwide, this is the population that needs to be attented to. In Joya Grande alone, 4 children died during Hurricane Ida. In this adult-centered society, it is easy to say that we should focus all resources training adults. But in some cases, kids can actually help themselves and others. and sometimes, in the case of Josue, kids can save their own home. So here's to our heroes of the night, Grecia, Nataniel, Maybi, and Josue! QUE VIVA EL COMITE DE EMERGENCIA INFANTIL EL BORBORLLON!

On the walk back, Norma called Fredy to tell him how Josue, his Star Helper, had saved his home.


Fredy Viera, one of CEIBA's Volunteer Trainers leading children	in a Disaster Drill.

Josue learning how to make a split on Giovany's arm

As she told the story, Fredy got strangely silent. Did he lose cell service? Fredy? "I'm just a little choked up," Fredy was brought to tears by the story, because he knows how much Josue struggles with self confidence, and how infrequenly he smiles. and the thought of Josue grinning and giggling as the hero of the day simply brought Fredy to tears.

Thanks to the generosity of the Sladek Family, Fred Sanchez, and CEIBA donors from our Indianapolis tour, we will be launching our second Children's Emergency Committee in sector La Marmonera, where 2 children where buried alive during landslides of Hurricane Ida, November 2009. We hope to teach these children new skills like first-aid, evacuation routes, and of course, why its important to have a rope around. I think we will even bring Josue the day we give emergency backpacks to these 25 new children, so he can explain the importance of saving every item in the back pack for real emergencies, and of course, tell the story of how he saved his house.

Sources: Peek, Lori. 2008. Children and Disasters: Understanding Vulnerability, Developing Capacities, and Promoting Resilience- An Introduction. Children, Youth and Environments 18(1), p2-29.

2011-04-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Check out this Website
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/out_of_the_box/finalists/communityinnovatorColectivoCEIBA.aspx

In October 2010, CEIBA applied for a "Community Innovator" Award form the University of Kansas. While we didn't win first place (or the cash) we were a finalist! KU made us this beautiful webpage featuring our work. Check it out!

p.s. we finally have a facebook. CEIBA El Salvador. Friend us!

Meet Our Farmers!

2011-04-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Through one of Santa Maria's community leaders, Mercedes, we have developed relationships with several small-scale farmers who have agreed to participate in our solidarity project for sustainable agriculture. Below are their pictures and brief descriptions:

Esperanza, 57

Esperanza is married and has four children. She is originally from the department Chalatenango but moved to Santa Maria in 1983 during the civil war. She says that the most beautiful part of having organic agriculture in her home is that they don't have to buy food and that it is truly a product of the local people. In her home she grows peppers, tomatoes, mint, cilantro, and chipilin.

Daniel, 71

Daniel has thirteen children, four of whom live in the United States. He is originally from Ilobasco and has worked in agriculture since he was young. On his land he grows corn beans, and sugar cane. He first learned about organic agriculture through a series of workshops, but since then has continued to learn more from his neighbors in Santa Maria. He really enjoys producing and eating foods that are not contaminated by chemicals. He creates his own organic compost with the wastes from his cows and left-over roughage from his crops.

Photo of the "pila" where Daniel harvests water to irrigate his crops.

Water is the biggest factor holding back Santa Maria from producing on a consistent basis year-round. We are currently working with a student studying agronomy at the National University to design an irrigation system for the community.

Lazaro, 49

Lazaro is married and has three children. He works as a farmer and his only income is from selling his produce whenever he can. He grows corn, guisquil, cucumbers, green beans, and cabbage. He says that one of the major advantages to growing organic is that the crops of free of chemicals which prevents contamination of local water sources. In addition to his agricultural practices, Lazaro also tries to protect the environment by using the least amount of electricity possible.

Rosita, 40

Rosita the a single mother of eight children. She is originally from Morazan and moved to Santa Maria in 1988. She works in her house taking care of her children. She learned about gardening from Mercedes but struggles to produce consistently for a lack of water. She enjoys to grow her own food because it costs less and is healthier than buying from the market.

Lupita, 28

Lupita has a three-year-old son and stays home to take care of him. She is originally from Nueva Concepcion in Chalatenango and moved to Santa Maria in 2007. In her house she grows tomatoes, peppers, and guisquil. The biggest difficulties she faces in the garden are the plagues, especially with her tomatoes. To take care of the environment Lupita always brings a reusable bag with her when she goes shopping. She doesn't believe in creating more trash that can be dumped into the rivers.

Josue, 88

Josue is married and has four children. He is originally from San Antonio Los Ranchos in Chalatenango and moved to Santa Maria in 1987. All of the food he currently grows is eaten by his family. He grows beans, cabbage, peppers, onions, and corn. He learned how to grow food when he was young and has continued to work as a farmer his whole life. However, now that he is older his biggest challenge is not having enough energy to do the hard work necessary to have a successful crop.

Jorge, 63

Jorge is married and have three children, one of whom has lived in the United States for 15 years. He loves to grow food even though it is really hard work. Jorge and his family were very affected by Hurricane Ida in 2009 and had to evacuate their house. His biggest challenge with his produce is a lack of water, but it is worth the struggle to produce a better and healthier product even though it may be a little smaller than produce grown with chemicals.

Mercedes

"I want a healthy environment. I believe that organic agriculture is a way to take care of the world. For the poor, it provides them with food and it protects their land and water from the contamination. And the people know the importance of taking care of their land because they see it as a great blessing."

accompanying communities looks like this...

2011-03-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

CEIBA continues to accompany communities, albiet with a teeny budget. While waiting for our NGO status to come through, we cannot abandon communities!!! We have been accompany them in small ways...and each of these photos tells a story of our continuing support.
#1 & 2 (fotos left and below)
Show Bomberos en Accion de Espana, Firefighters in Action from Spain, training 40 adults of Joya Grande in advanced search and rescue, how to run a water potibilization plant, and advanced first aid. CEIBA helped the community write objectives for the project, and improved existing risk maps with help from the firefighters. CEIBA is also training 4 of its volunteers with the firefighter, to define our role in Joya Grande's new and improved emergency plan. Drill for the plan will take place in April.

#3. The picture on the left shows Beth signing an agreement to be legally part of Santiago Texacuango's Municipal Civil Protection Committee (its like El Salvador's version of FEMA). CEIBA is the NGO reprsentative for this comission, and will have oversight during disaster situations. We also help coordinate regional activies in disaster prevention, and as a part of the comission will education representatives from 30 schools in the region on the Law of Civil Proteccion and Rights of the Child.

#4. The picture to the right shows Jonathan Velasquez, CEIBA volunteer and lawyer, helping the fisherman of Joya Grande obtain legal liscences to fish. Last month, police began to crack down on fishing laws, and have been decommissioning fishing boats from those without licesnces. This means fisherman and their families whom depend on fish for thier economic support and nutrional needs, have been unable to fish! Jonathan helped 36 fisherman obtain liscenes.

#5. The picture to the left shows Mercedes in her AMAZING model organic garden using terracing to prevent soil erosion. Mercedes's organic agricultural techniques prevented landslides from damaging her house in November 2009. CEIBA is now coordinating a relationship between Mercedes's community, Santa Maria, the Casa de la Solidaridad (Santa Clara University's exchange program at the University of Central America), and the National University of El Salvador (UES). Mercedes is teaching organic agriculture to 15 families in her community, while an agronomy student from the UES is design irrigation systems and plant cycles to meet the food demand from students at the Casa Program. Santa Maria can directly sell organic produce and casa students can eat local, organic produce. CEIBA is coordinating the project and raisng $2,500 to install the irrigation system this summer. The irrigation system ensures a constant, fixed production that is independant of constantly shifting climatic conditions. The system will support food sovereighnty for families as well as climate change adaptation because it encourage production of heirloom seeds adapted to Santa Maria's climate.

#6 To the right Beth is sitting with CEIBA volunteer Norma and Joya Grande youth leader Joceline, 16, sharing a cold glass of Coca Cola. Norma and Beth are helping Joceline brainstorm for the "Armando Paz"/ "Arming Peace" Project competition funded by the OAS. Joceline and her team of 4 youth are writing a project focused on violence prevention to revive CEIBA's painting school and host a "peace" soccer tournament.

# 7. CEIBA is now part of a youth environmental network called JUXVIDA (Juventudes por la Vida or Youth for Life) funded by the IUCN (International Union of Conservation Scientists). JUXVIDA is organizing an Earth Day celebration, and CEIBA lobbied for the event to take place in Santiago Texacuangos. JUXVIDA will celebrate Earth Day with the children of Santiago Texacuangos April 18th 2011. CEIBA is excited to be a part of JUXVIDA and support country-wide environmental initiatives in El Salvador. In the foto to the left, Norma is tabling for JUXVIDA at a youth festival at the UCA (University of Central America) to try and get more youth volunteers for activities like Earth Day.

CEIBA's display for CEIBAR! Our once a month bar-fundraiser in the Office. March's CEIBAR theme was the Spring Equinox. Volunteers Norma and Juancho reenacted an indigenous ceremony of the Equinox, which is a time to start a new balance to your life and wash yourself of negative energy. All profits support CEIBA's projects. (Paintings done by children in Joya Grande. $5!)

Here CEIBA volunteers Jonathan, Marvin, and Betsy dancing to some classic Salvadoran beats. Volunteering also means HAVING FUN when you volunteer with CEIBA! :)

Panamanien Poet with CEIBA in communities giving workshops Feb. 1-4!

2011-02-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

UNDP's 2010 Human Development Report Includes NO Disaster Risk Reduction?!?!

2011-01-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

As CEIBA is currently redifing itself as a disater relief and reconstruction NGO to a disaster prevention and sustainable development NGO, we have been exploring other models in development. The release of the UNDP's 2010 Human Development Report, named "From Poverty and Consumerism to the Well-being of the people: A New Model of Development," I was pretty excited. FINALLY! Sustainable Development and Environmentalism can take center stage for development in El Salvador. Are people finally waking up?!?!

I walked into the room along with Tedde Simon, Director of the Grassroots Program for the SHARE Foundation. She has a pretty neat blog as well.

Everything was GREEN! Yes...I thought to myself. This is going to be all about environmental problems and disasters and climate change! That would be really important for our communities in Santiago Texacuangos and the thousands of other vulernable communities in El Salvador. You see, the UNDP report is what most major NGOs and Foundations base their investments in development on. This report will dictate major projects from USAID to Catholic Relief Services, because governments investing in El Salvador hold up this UNDP report as the Gold Standard of all reports that to analyze the social situation in El Salvador.

The room has well over 500 people present in El Salvador's ritzyest of hotels, the Sheraton. Hundreds of people in heels and ties awaited the arrival of President Mauricio Funes, the first Salvadoran President to ever be present at the UNDP Human Development Report presentation, and he officially endorsed the report. I was even more excited to hear the new model for development in El Salvador.

The presentation started out with general stats and figures I could agree with. For example:
- more than 50% of medical costs for Salvadorans are spent on pills. El Salvador has the highest priced pharmecueticals in Central America. Legislators need to urgently push through laws to reduce pharmecuetical costs and the corrupt market lock big companies have to artificially inflate prices
-El Salvador's education system is one of the worlds worst, rated 121 out of 136 countries in the world. This is surprising given that El Salvador is a middle income country. yet many african nations out-beat El Salvador's education system
-there are 112 women for every 100 men in El Salvador. This is in thanks to migration to the USA, and high rate of homicide for young salvadoran men (linked to gang violence).
- El Salvador's GDP was -2.5% in 2009, and rates of growth over the past 30 years only TOTALs 1.1%, and as such El Salvador trails 29 years behind Costa Rica and 45 years behind Chile.
-5% of Salvadoran income are spent on cellphone bills (it costs 10 cents a minute to call the US but between 14-25 cents a minute to make calls in country)

But there was a lot that I did not agree with.
For example:
-66% of Salvadorans are "satisfied with life" I wonder if that survey included the nearly 2 million Salvadoran in the United States, who cannot survive in their own country. I bet they were not satisfied with life in El Salvador, or perhaps they would have stayed....Besides, what does that word even mean to a Salvadoran? In a country where 60% are now Evangelical Christians, we have to ask ourselves what the rise of religions that (I argue) detract Salvadorans from reality to focus on the after life, combined with rises in gang membership, and immigration to the USA...really UNDP?

-El Salvador needs to focus on "Fordism", or articulating its economy and be more like Norway and Singapore. This reccomendation clearly must come form the fact that the UNDP report was funded by USAID this year, and so free market suggesstions abound. The report is peppers with quotes from...North Americans and europeans like Albert Einstien, Adam Smith, and JFK. for EL SALVADOR?!?! Singapore is the Asian Center of Finance! Are they suggesting that San Salvador be Central America's Finance Capital when Costa Rica and Panama both have more stable economies and financial policies? As for Norway, their prosperity was built on social democracy, and very high taxes. El Salvador doesn't even tax large corporations, in an attempt to attract more factories and free trade. The Norway model requires dramatic restructuring of the tax and (non existent) welfare systems, which I would totall support. However, the report goes on to suggest a completely diffrent model of development. What the "Fordism" really refers to is the idea that Henry Ford produces cars at a price that was available to his factory works. They were paid just enough to keep themselves and Ford in business by buying the cars they were making. This is known in economics as an articulated economy. Super idea, but unfortunately free trade agreements like CAFTA have destroyed this from becoming a possibility. Salvadorans should eat salvadoran corns and beans right? THEY CANT. Corn is imported to cheaply from the US, and beans too cheaply from Nicaragua and Ethiopia that Salvadoran farmers can't compete in their own country. There is no articulated economy when the producers must compete with subisdies and technified and over fertiziled products from Big Ag in the US and elsewhere. Globalization destroyed articualted economies. The Ford Era and Fordism iteself prospers in a USA full of import restictions and subsidies, that always made it cheap and easy to Buy American. But its often too expensive to Buy Salvadoran for the Salvadoran people.

El Salvador is "insecure" What a vague way of putting it. El Salvador has a serious gang problem, where there are 3 times as many gang members as policement. El Salvador has a lack of prevention and rehab programs, and a broken prison system that is corrupt and run by the gang leaders themselves, who hang out at the beach on the weekends while the army roams the streets inhibiting even the most positive youth organizations from forming. Perhaps a broken education system has something to do with "insecurity." We need to starting owning up to social problems, and telling it like it is. Burning buses full of people alive (Sept 2010) is not merely "insecurity," its a massacre.

Salvadorans need to Save not Spend to Save the Economy-
The meat of the report is this: Salvadorans spend too much and consume more than they produce (104% consumption, third highest in the world). This is obviously because of remittances, which make up 17% of GDP. Salvadorans don't make enough money to save and invest! Families buy food and send thier kids to college because of aunts and uncles working minimum wage jobs in the states. The hand to mouth existences of nearly every Salvadoran I have ever met living paycheck to paycheck and beyond (most Salvadoran I know owe money to at least 4 people at a time). This is a cash poor country. The UNDP proposes job creation and industry, but in WHAT sectors? How can there be entreprenuesrship if their is basic lack of access to capital and credit (El Salvador is the hardest place to get credit in Central America). At this point, I realized the theme color for the report was GREEN not because of the environment, but because of $$$$$$$$$.

My expectations were shot. Visions of the UNDP supporting renewable energy, reforestation, ecotourism, local agriculture, food soveriegnty, natural medicines etc. etc. were quickly deflated. More production, not less. More use of El Salvador's few resouces, not less. Suck up the water and trees as quickly as possible to jump start industry.

As I was handed the published copy of the report at the end of the presentation (a 500 page clunker of a book), and quickly flipped to the section about Disasters. After all, El Salvador has a record year for loss of life, crops, and houses. ONE PARAGRAPH. One mention of Hurricane Ida and Agatha, no mentions of other storms, and NOTHING about climate change. El Salvador is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, and lost over $1b in natural disasters this year! Why is dealing with this not a priority for human development? Is losing houses, lives, and crops not important? How "sensational" must disaters get and how much environmental destruction must happen for institutions and governments to make Disaster Risk Reduction a priority for vulnerable countries? The UN itself said that over 94% of El Salvador's GDP was high vulnerable to disasters in the April 2010 UNDAC report detailing and analyzing damages from Ida.

What does this mean for our communities? if the new model of development in El Salvador focuses on Salvadoran Savings and has nothing to do with climate change adaptation and disaster prevention, the communities will continue to be marginalized by mainstream models of development.

But there are organizations that will not write their projects based on this UNDP report; check out The Share Foundation, UNES (Salvadoran Ecological Unit), Anmutspicial, FUNDESYRAM, CRIPDES, and CEIBA will be one of them.

CEIBA model of development will be COMPLETELY CENTERED UPON CLIMATE CHANGE. And the only lesson we will take from the UNDP development report, is to hold it up as the wrong model of development to build the world we vision with the communities. A world of healthy food for all; of trees for the birds, water recharge, and flooding prevention; of industry based on a healthy relationship with the environment and reduction of resource use; of community empowerment that dictates a decentralized development that include the participation of youth and women etc. etc. etc.

kids disaster prevention in joya grande

2010-11-30T00:16:00.000-08:00

We budgeted this project at about $5,000. We have executed it with $400. How? Recycled and donated EVERYTHING. 6 volunteers who develop the methodology, pay their own bus fare, and use their own phone minutes to figure out logisitics. And of course, we take turns buying snacks for the kids...donating sugar from our house. AND bringing water from our filters...because there is hardly ever water in Joya Grande, El Borborllon this type of year.
So with a lot of love and creativity, we are doing the project on $400 dollars.

Above is Rodrigo learning some basic first aid- how to clean and wrap a wound or a burn. We used markers to let kids "mark" different kinds of cuts, burns, scrapes, and broken bones. To the right, Jonathan is explaining our model of "landslide and flood" explaining to the kids how and why joya grande has flooding problems, using cutout bottles to demonstrate the overflowing river. We explained that deforestation is a major cause, and Don Pablo who lives by the lake is at risk just like Connie who lives but the mountain. However, ever time Jonathan poured water into our model to demonstrate lanslides, Connie

covered her ears and crouched down low. Connie, here on the left, 8 years old in a yellow dress and a big orange scrunchie, has torn black mary janes whose buckles never seen to stay shut. It broke my heart to see Connie squeeze her eyes tight, because the memory of a landslide has terrible images and sounds for her. Connie lives in the Borborllon, the most forgotton corner of the forgotton community of Joya Grande. She lives between the mountain and the river, so she cannot escape to any shelter once it really pours. She is in danger of landslies and flooding, and would have no evacuation route.

Connie is one of the smartest girls in the glass. She follows directions, plays hard, LOVES icebreakers, and is extremeley affectionate. But she lives in a very dangerous place. and she doesnt like it when it rains. When we asked connie to draw landslides and flood (picture left) she only used the color black. For Connie, the rain is black. Landslides are black. mud is black. water is black. When I asked her what all the black meant, she told me that this is what floods are like. Of course. For an 8 year old, when the landslides happened in as 12am. and everything was black as night. black.

I got to build the natural water filter with her. Together we learned about water purification techniques. How many drops of bleach per liter? 2 DROPS! They all shout. How many hours do we put water in the sun 6 HOURS! They all shout. And we built a filter- cotton, carbon, sand and gravel. and the children were amazed as the dirty water the poured in came out drip by drop crystal clear! We also taught mobilization for injured people. and of course Connie LOVED to be carried around with the other kids making ambulance noises.

Below is connie and evelin, walking back home after a workshop. This time, in a green dress. same orange scrunchie. Skipping over the stick and stones and stumbs strewn over the passageway from the most recent disaster. But in this moment, Connie doesn't feel "at-risk"- the tree stumps are a challenge to jump over, not a threat that could kill someone as soon as the river rises. Connie lives at-risk, there is no way around in. But she is also just another 8-year old girl, skipping around in her summer dress. And i am trying not to analyze too hard why she paints the rain black. and why she covers her ears and closes her eyes. and i am trying to just skip with her, enjoying this moment of glee in Joya Grande. I hope we can raise enough money to repeat this project in other zones of Joya Grande. There are about 300 more connies to train in first aid! and water purification! and skip over sticks and stones and enjoy being youth with!

It's been a year....but still... joya grande VIVE!!!!

2010-11-11T08:02:00.000-08:00

Joya Grande vive! VIVE shouted the 100-some particpants of our long walk to Joya Grande thus past Sunday, November 7th, 2010. Despite the fact that the bean harvest is now 90% lost this year due to heavy rains in hurricanes Matthew and Nicole(september 2010), we say LONG LIVE JOYA GRANDE! Despite the fact that the government declared it uninhabitable this past July, and decided NOT to rebuild infrastructure, schools, houses, or electricity in the most vulnerable parts of Joya Grande, LONG LIVE JOYA GRANDE. As long as more than 1,300 people inhabit this poor, vulnerable, community, CEIBA will be there...and try to get other institutions to be there too....
The walk was in conjunction with The Cultural Center of Santiago Texacuangos and a group of local painters "Los Texacuangos" who planned the route, which they hope to develop in the future as possible ecotourism. We invited every NGO we knew or had heard of that had supported the reconstruction of Santiago Texacuangos in the emergency and beyond. We invited communities, schools, political parties, and the police. However, as we gathered in the morning, we quickly realized the NGOs were not coming. The media was not coming. This will be a walk of the pueblo, of the people who live in the municipality in other communities who want to commemorate the anniversary of the disaster and support residents of Joya Grande who LIVE. However, two very interesting institutions chose to accompany us on the walk: 30 people from the FMLN party, along with the ARENA Mayor and his 10 henchmen. First Picture shows one of the FMLN youth, and the second shows the mayor's right hand man and another ARENA supporter.

I was terrified. Were we about to have a showdown? This day was meant to remember the victims, to be united...NOT for political propaganda!!!! The Director of the Casa de la Cultura, Gustavo, quickly calmed my nerves.

"Beth this is GOOD. This means the event is important. OUR event is important. The PEOPLE OF JOYA GRANDE are important. If both political parties feel pressured to have a prescence, it means they know they will lose face if they don't come. We have made Disaster Risk Reduction a relevant issue. We have made Joya Grande a relevant issue. That's what this means!"

Let me explain a bit for those who don't know this dark side of El Salvador's history- the FMLN and ARENA fought against each other in a civil war for 12 years. They killed and tortured one anothers families, and ARENA, with the financial help of the US government to the tune of one million dollars a day, massacred thousands of innocent peasants, in order to squash the FMLN led revolution. To say that the FMLN and ARENA strongly dislike each other is an understatement. The are STILL in a battle for power. The fact that they came together on this walk is UNPRECEDENTED for Santiago Texacuangos. A group of people called CEIBA and some artists with a vision actually brought people together! We created energy around issues relevant to the population and a space were all are welcome. This is not to say the FMLN youth and the Mayor hold hands; they didn't really even talk to each other (though I could tell by the disgruntled looks on their faces, they surely talked ABOUT each other ;)). But they both came, and they walked the same walk. and its a step in the right direction towards peace building in El Salvador, something that has yet to be achieved since the supposed "peace accords" back in 1992.

Once in Joya Grande, the children led the process of the ignuaration of the mural JOYA GRANDE VIVE. The children chose two delegates to explain what they painted and why, and then lined up to lay flowers in front of the mural, a tribute to the 4 children who died during Hurricane Ida exactly one year prior. The children are the most vulnerable population in Joya Grande during disaters, and that is why CEIBA is trying to raise $1,600 to begin a program of children's disater prevention (and thanks to The Counsell Family, Grace Nixon, and Janine Sheppard, we are now $400 closer than we were last week. Thank you!) Children represent the future of this community, and must be loved, nurtured, and protected. And they must be given a space to express themselves. To paint! The mural was funded 50% CEIBA and 50% local artists, who have been selling their works of art and donating 30% of every work sold to the "Joya Grande Fund". With this fund, and CEIBA donations, we bought the paint, and brought together students in the art therapy class to design the mural. and we chose this wall.

Here's our "before" shot. This wall, half destroyed by Ida, has sat in the center of the cross street in town. All who enter and leave Joya Grande pass through here. We knew it was HERE we had to leave our mark. Should we write a memorium to our martyers of mother nature? do we reclaim the plans to build a 5-star hotel? Do we cry for help? What shall we paint?

The youth decided the message must be positive. We LOVE Joya Grande. We are proud of it. WOW. after a year of 2 lost bean harvest, being told your community is "unlivable" and being told NO NO NO by every government institution and NGO....The youth are resilient. Joya Grande VIVE.

Everybody left their mark. From 3 years old to 80 years old, we painted the mural together. The community came and watched. Cheered us on. Gave us water, free lunch, and words of encouragement. And now, everyone who comes to Joya Grande knows that it survived. It is alive! Maybe not well, but very, very alive. There are a little group of people called CEIBA rooting for Joya Grande in a very big way.

Have we reconstructed society? is the social fabric strong and renewed? Did we make a difference at all? One year after living on an insanely small budget, managing an NGO out of my bedroom, continuing to raise money month after month...Everyone at CEIBA has made enormous sacrifices. It has cost us family time, sometimes our health, and definately our social life. Our weekends are spent in the community. Many evenings spent in meetings- so that fisherman can fish during the day, and build his society at night. We could use a million metrics and measurement to analyze our progress and our impact.
But quite simply, I must ask myself- Has CEIBA Constructed Integrated Spaces for Environmental Well-Being?? If we have acheived the integration of two political parties who used to literally kill each other walking the same 4-hour route TOGETHER for the environmental well-being of a community called Joya Grande...Than the answer has to be yes. The work is far from over. We still need to build more "social bridges" between the divided, and build water tanks, and teach children how to save themselves....But we are so ready to dive in. We have a year of experience under our belts, and communities that are FAR more organized than they were when the landslides forced them belly-up last year. We have walked for a year. and we will keep walking until the poor are well-protected, well-fed, living in dignified houses, in a world free of violence and intimidation. We will walk until every home alongsides the river has been moved to safer land, until the youth can afford to go to college and have the energy to stay there, we will walk. Climate Change in here, there will be bigger badder storms. But if we have acheieved anything, it is bigger badder community organization....and we hope with all our might the communities will win. Until then...we walk...

Effects of Tropical Storm Matthew

2010-09-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Rain Rain Go Away!

Rivers are overflowing, and the country is in a state of yellow and orange alert. Tropical Storm Matthew went off to Belize, yet created a lot of atmospheric disturbance in Central America. Most worrisome is the low pressure system created off the coast of Honduras, which has a 40% chance of developing into another Tropical Storm according to the National Hurricane Center. El Salvador's meteorlogical service, Snet, keeps track of overflowing rivers, and there are warnings for nearly every river basin in the country including San Miguel, Jiboa, and Lempa.

The national stats as of this morning report one person killed and 934 sheltered, 5 houses damaged, and 47 landslides.

CEIBA was out in Santiago Texacuangos this morning, after receiving calls from communities all over the area whose houses had flooded, or whom has lost a wall. Mercedes, community organizer for CEIBA, and I met with the mayor this morning to discuss the emergency and how we can collaborate if the situation gets worse. Most concerning is the community of Los Cruces, 17 families stacked on a hillside with sheet metal. The photo (taken in during Tropical Storm Agatha in May 2010) is of the house in question. Under the blue tarp (which CEIBA gave to communities to slow erosion back in March 2010), a large concave hole has formed under the house.

The house is now SLANTED, ready to fall on top of the 2 houses below, each of which hold families of 12 people, nearly all women and children. If the rain holds out and the hole gets larger, this house will undoubtedly collapse, the force of which could cause landslides on the entire hillside. What will these families do?

Mercedes and I coordinated with the emergency committee of a nearby community, El Sauce, where we built a hurricane shelter last month with the help of the US Army (picture of construction). The house is complete with 80 mattresses and a kitchen to facilitate its use as a shelter. The people of El Sauce agreed to open their shelter to those in need, and feed them the best they could under their own situation of poverty.

As we urge the mayor and the authorities of Civil Protection (El Salvador's Fema) to evacuate the people of Los Cruces and supply the shelter with food, they turn to me and say, "Why can't CEIBA do it? Don't you have tons of money?"

Sigh. We don't have tons of money. And besides, it is not our responsability! It is legally the responsability of the Salvadoran government to take care of its people in disasters. Especially in such a "light" disaster, one would think the food warehouses OXFAM has built for the Salvadoran government would be utilized!

CEIBA is here to connect the dots, to support communities, and encourage citizen participation. We are not here to replace the government's function! Even if CEIBA has enough money, to encourage this type of dependancy would erode the Salvadoran Democracy, and its a mistake that unfortunately, too many NGOs make.

and the Civil Protection tells me we should just wait out the situation. Wait!?!?! One house is falling over! Do we want until the house falls to evacuate? Do people have to die for the government to react?

So Mercedes and I go to Los Cruces, give up on the mayor's office for now and rely on community to community solidarity. 9 times out of 10 in El Salvador, and probabaly 10 out of 10 in Santiago Texacuangos, it is the poor who will save themselves. Thank you, the poor of El Sauce, for responding to your brothers and sisters in Los Cruces.

If anyone is interested in donating, CEIBA could use about $100 to buy food to cook for sheltered families from Los Cruces for the next few days.

When the rain lets up though, these families will return to their vulnerable houses. and the family living in the slanted house? The best we can do is try to pressure Ministry of Housing to move them up on the priority list. However, this entire community needs to be relocated. Every NGO and institution I have brought here (including the US Embassy) has denied to help these people because it is not worth investing in.

So Los Cruces, without electricty and running water, with collapsing houses, with nursing mothers and teenage girls working in sweatshops, remains on the waiting list. Like hundreds of other vulnerable communities in this teeny tiny vulnerable nation.

successful fundraising stateside! and reflection from Notre Dame Student

2010-09-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Notre Dame and El Sauce, working in solidarity to fill sand bags to protect the community's water tanks, in danger of being carried away since the river changed course in Hurricane Ida Nov. 09

Thank You Indianapolis! You raised over 5k to support CEIBA and VMM (the Volunteer Missionary Movement , who supports Beth's position financially and spiritually for the next 2 years).

The money raised directly for CEIBA will support completion of projects until Novemeber, our registration as an official NGO (coming Jan/Feb 2011!!), and the formation of our newest endeavor, Disaster Prevention for Children ages 6-12 as a follow up to trauma therapy. We still need to raise another $2,000 to pull this off! We are in conversations with UNICEF for funding, and have already raised half the money ($2,000) from CIPJES El Salvador. Since the project costs $4,000, we need YOU to match what the Salvadorans have already raised!

Ming at Santa Maria's Organic Farm

I also wanted to post a few pictures and send along relfections from the Notre Dame students, who stayed in Joya Grande and Santa Maria for 10 days this August. Here is an excerpt from Ming Archbold, ND '13

During my homestay in a rural community called Joya Grande, I asked Andrea, a girl from my family, what she plans to do in the future. Blanketing her true emotions with the most positive smile she could muster for the foreigners, she replied, “Yo no tengo una futura” .
Andrea is eighteen years old and has a five year old son. And when I realized that I wouldn’t be meeting the father, I couldn’t help but let those silent words sink deep into my mind. Hope. Is there any left in this community? How can they think of a bright future when their minds are engrained with a past full of destruction? Whether it was the Civil War, a natural disaster, or even the machismo culture, the histories of these people is tainted with both physical and mental damage. And so, for Andrea and many others of Joya Grande and Santiago Texacuangos communities, her words are not that far from reality. A university education is attainable for some, but the majority will end up working jobs that only fulfill the basic necessities. They do not have enough money to move out of the community. They are stuck. And living in an area that is considered uninhabitable by the Salvadoran government, the people of Joya Grande are sitting ducks in a land full of natural disasters.
Hurricane Ida occurred in November 2009. But for the people of Santiago Texacuangos, the destruction left in its wake is a constant reminder of the past. Ask any local, and they can show you the ruins of houses that were destroyed by landslides and flooding. Then they’ll put a concerned look on their face and tell you, “Dos personas se murieron aquí”2. But if it’s one trait that has kept these communities running, it’s solidarity. Through the unity of the people, a hope has emerged. Colectivo Ceiba is a non-governmental organization that emerged through the collaboration of local community leaders, such as Mercedes Monges, and Fulbright Scholar Beth Tellman. My ten days volunteering for Colectivo Ceiba with students from Notre Dame and Santa Clara University has been a life-changing experience.

Ming Painting a mural with the Art Therapy Class

Beth, the coordinator for Colectivo Ceiba, jokingly told us that after coming to El Salvador, we will be “ruined for life” because we will always want to return. Now I see that she really meant “blessed for life” because it is truly a blessing to be able to live with and serve these Salvadoran people.
Nevertheless, even if other plans get the better of us and we don’t return, those wonderful people are always in our minds and hearts, and the bonds we made with them are always with us. And it is those connections, those human interactions, which really impact me. To get a glimpse of their lives, their situations, their mentality, makes me realize even more that we, Americans, are not the only ones living on this earth. It has made me loathe my world of mundane concerns. We worry about getting wet in the rain, while they worry about dying in the rain. It should not be an option, but a moral responsibility, to help.
This trip has also reassured me of my definition of success. Success should never be measured by how much we can help ourselves, but by how much we can help others. I remember asking both of my homestay families if they would want to live in the United States. And both families replied as if it were the most obvious answer. Of course they wanted to. Whether or not this is a result of Americanization is questionable. But if I could serve people to make them love and have hope in their country and be happy with the lives they are living, then I will truly be successful.

Ming with his host brothers in Joya Grande, Brandon and Marvin

CEIBA in INDY!!

2010-08-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Come hear about CEIBA's work and Beth's research and climate change and liberation theology and lots of other cool stuff!!!

Aug. 25 330pm Marian College
Aug. 26 630pm Marian College* see below
Aug. 27 8am-330pm Brebeuf Jesuit Highschool
Aug. 27 630pm Youth Group at Santa Maria Church
Aug. 28th 1pm Pollom Family Home 7260 Dover Ct, indpls, IN 46250 LIVE MUSIC AND SNACKS RSVP 317.842.4845
Aug. 29th 8am and 10am Masses at St. Thomas Aquinas
Aug. 29th Supper in the Sun for El Salavdor at the Sapp's home
Sept. 7nd 11:50-1:20 Park Tudor Highschool Woodroom

I will be in indianapolis until september 8th, so feel free to email me and i would love to speak your your church, school, friends etc!
Beth

****
Marian University
Peace and Justice Studies
Post-War Justice in El Salvador
U.S. Imperialism & Liberation Theology

Beth Tellman
from the
Voluntary Mission Movement

Thursday, August 26
6:30 pm
Peter Maurin House for Peace & Justice
2536 Tyrone Dr.

Beth Tellman is an Indianapolis native who studied Sustainable Globalization and Environmental Studies at Santa Clara University. She has extensive experience practicing a theology of social justice. She has interned with Catholic Relief Services in El Salvador, undertaken research on Salvadorian organic coffee farms, earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study in El Salvador, and founded a Salvadoran NGO called Colectivo Ceiba in order to provide disaster relief for Salvadorians. She currently works with the Volunteer Missionary Movement (VMM), an international community of lay Christians who are catalysts for peace, social justice, and human empowerment of the poor and marginalized. Members of VMM work together in a divided world to inspire "the transformation of all things in Christ."

Please join us & welcome Beth to Marian University!

IN SEARCH OF SHELTER AND PROTECTION: ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

2010-08-02T06:17:00.000-07:00

Written in reflection of UNU-EHS 2010 Summer Academy on Social Vulnerability in Munich July 25-31 on Protecting Environmental Migrants: Creating New Policy and Institutional Frameworks ( see www.unuehs.edu for details)

This blog is nearly always dedicated to stories of Santiago Texacuangos, often placed in the broader context of El Salvador but almost never placed in a truly regional or even global context.

The communities of Santiago are one of many in El Salvador, which is one of many countries in the world severely affected by climate change and migration. El Salvador, which struggles to provide basic education and healthcare and whose economy depends (17%) on remittances from an estimated 2.7 million legal and not-so-legal migrants in the USA is scraping by. The cash boost sent from the US is greater than Foreign Direct Investment and International Aid combined. Remittances are disaster insurance, educational scholarships, farm credit when none is available to support rural livelihoods and stem ever increasing urbanization to a city whose current social services are stressed by overpopulation.

Disaster patterns in El Salvador are ever increasing, and will continue to do so in the coming years due to unpredictability of El Nino/La Nina cycles. This year, for example, unexpected downpours in August, the month that is normally a mid-summer drought, will threaten to destroy corn crops, which will further indebt farmers who already lost bean crops in Hurricane Ida last November. Increase in sea level rises could wipe out the entire Bajo Lempa region in the next 100 years, and corn may become inviable in the next 50 years depending on temperature increases.

How many Salvadoran will need to migrate within or outside the country due to these changes? How will the Salvadoran government come up with money for adaptation? And should they? (NGOs such as UNES feels that since climate change was caused mainly by the US and Europe, they owe an ecological debt to countries in the global south such as El Salvador). Disaster microinsurance, better river basin management, and new urban planning to handle those internally displaced from Bajo Lempa are among the adaptation options. But undoubtedly some, as many Salvadorans already have done will look for work abroad to feed their families. How many? And how?

Environmental migration is already a adaptation strategies millions are using to survive- estimates range from 20-200 million globally. Recent studies from Princeton University suggest 1.4 million to 6.7 millio as the amount of Mexicans who may flee to the United States from drought induced by climate change. How many will die along the way? US borders are getting tighter, and climate change is accelerating.

This is not just a US-Mexico issue. Some countries, like the Maldives and Tuvalu, are sinking. Begging the questions as to where such possibly “stateless” peoples will go. Bangladesh may have over 10 million people displaced from sea level rise in an already overpopulated and poor nation. Increased desertification from the Sahara and the Sahel in Africa and other predicted droughts will increase water scarcity by a third. Where will people move in search of water? The statistics are staggering (see In Seach of Shelter reports of the Each-For project to read more).

Environmental migrations have no cross border protection, and the internal protection is minimal most places. A framework for Guidelines of Internally Displaced Persons exists to protect environmental migrants, but this soft law document did not protect inhabitants of Joya Grande, whose right to information and transparent resettlement is being violated. Even worse, environmental migrants who cross borders are protected by NO law- refugee law does not include this category. Though the United States offers a stay of deportation known as temporary protection status to victims from sudden onset disasters like Earthquakes and hurricanes (thousands of Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and Haitians cannot be deported for this reason) so that nationals are not forced back to a country in which they cannot survive. TPS is a huge step, but it does not cover those suffering from drought, and may not cover those suffering from sea level rise. Most importantly, TPS does NOT mean that Salvadorans suffering from hurricane Ida can enter the USA- TPS only applies to Salvadorans who illegal resided in the US at the time of the 2001 earthquake.

So what to do with millions of environmental migrants who have no legal protection? I was recently in Munich July 24-31 with the UN University and 30 other students and experts on the issue to discuss what could be done and should be proposed in the next climate change negotiations (this November in Mexico). We came up with some new ideas- like a Temporary Relocation Status, expansion of circular migrations programs (check out TCLM between Spain and Colombia), and regional border agreements like Ca-4 with CAFTA (free movement between Guate, El Salv, Honduras, and Nica with no visa required), ECOWAS (West African Nations), the Mekong Delta countries, ALBA etc. Cross border migrants need protection- and the US and Europe should share the migration burden as part of their ecological debt. Look for the full report here in the coming months.

As for the poorest of the poor, whose lack of cash constraints them from moving internationally (especially after disasters! It costs $7,000 to migrate illegally to the USA!) need internal protection, and soft law like the IDP guidelines should be hardlaw and implementation burdens funded by developing countries.

The climate is changing and people will move. These people need protection. The cost of doing nothing may be many human lives if people fail to survive in their own countries and/or continues to cross dangerous borders (reports in 51 bodies found in a new mass grave in northern mexico).

Reformulating migration policies is just one of many steps the globally community must take to get ready for climate change. Migration will hopefully only be ONE OF MANY possible adaptations to climate change. Community Organization and Reforestation Projects in Santa Maria de la Esperanza, for example, show strong community capacity and will keep the community viable by mitigating risk and responding to change with solutions. CEIBA is a part of this process in El Salvador, bring the voice of the people to government meetings and consultations to form a climate change adaptation plans. These steps are necessary, but migration will be necessary too- and as US citizens in solidarity with El Salvador we must raise the issue of environmental migration in the upcoming immigration reforms talks. CLIMATE CHANGE must be part of the narrative in developing future-oriented immigration policy.

Joya Grande Declared Uninhabitable

2010-07-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

Listen to this radio journalism piece by CEIBA's official volunteer journalist Saul Monge....
its in spanish... http://hablaelsalvador.com/decretan-a-joya-grande-como-zona-inhabitables/
I won't do any direct translation here, but wanted to share significant weekend events.

#1. Joya Grande is Uninhabitable. Duh?
Saturday lots of important government officials (mayor, governor, etc.) came to tell everyone in Joya Grande that they lived at risk. DUH! Pretty sure they already knew that one. But pretty controversial, actually. The community DOESNT TRUST the government study, because a few years back the government tried to kick everyone out of Joya Grande to build a 5-star hotel called PuertoPango. I will not name names or get into detail for the safety of CEIBA, but lets just say there are pretty big interests at play. The meeting lasted about 5 hours, and was rather frustrating for everyone involved, as community members were treated like babies by their local government, who clearly did not recognize the hard work they had done! We even pasted our risk/shelter/ evacuation maps for each neighborhood on the wall! Joya Grande is ORGANIZED! It really is. Community members, like Don Jesus, got pretty raucous ( I mean, so would you if you were told that your community was habitable for a 5-star hotel but not for YOU). He asked the governor to basically cut the *%*& and answer 2 questions A. Is Joya Grande Uninhabitable? and B. If you are gonna kick us out, are you gonna give us a house and land?
Mercedes has met with leaders in every 'hood in town and there is a unanimous decision. No one is leaving until the government builds us new houses somewhere else that we like. ** Problem** the land CEIBA speculates will be the relocation station for Joya Grande will be Shangallo, famous for its high HIV rate and serious gang problem. Natural disaster for the daily disaster of violence? now is THAT a fair trade?
I love first pic (its CEIBA's Mercedes, Beth and Jonathan alongide Community Civil Protection Rep. Sergio, looking darn frustrated) not because of our expression but because of where we stand. With the people, trying to work through it together and strategize and be realistic- I hope that is what CEIBA will always be about. No other NGO will dare invest in Joya Grande. Not even the government, who has declared that its a wasted investment in a doomed community. Well, CEIBA will invest, as long as there are over 1,000 human beings living in Joya Grande.

It reminds me of that parable, where God wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorah, and some prophet (Abraham?!) keeps convining God that Sodom should be spared for 50 people, then 10, etc. Until God realizes that love for just one human being is enough to believe in a place and keep working on it. I think the lesson is that human beings are worth investing in, no matter who they are or where they live.

As long as there are 10 in Joya Grande, CEIBA will be there.

#2 Government of Santo Tomas threatens to kick 26 families out of the shelter and onto the street.
We recieve frantic calls Saturday night that families sheltered from Ida, Agatha, AND now Alex are going to have to live in the gutter. and started to move...callng certain contacts to alert this particular government that a certain human rights organization would be there at the kick-out taking notes.
Well wouldn't ya know that the government decided not to show? Decided not to kick anyone out? Only ONE member of the local government game, and frantically called her other committee members to figure out what happened. Guess she didn't get the memo: human rights violation called off due to possible activism uprising and reprecussions. Heh. heh.
Anyways, fellow NGO Anmutspical filled 2 buses full of woman and children to march to the governors office.....and for now, they get to stay in the shelter. When will they get houses? ahhh the eternal question of every family damned by not-so-natural disasters in El Salvador...

Painful History Repeating Itself...

2010-07-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

below is a reflection from Mercedes Monge, Community Organizer for Colectivo CEIBA. grammar and spelling were not edited at all to preserve the nature of the reflection- Mercedes is not just a social worker, she is a campesina struggling to be a bridge between the poor and the government, the poor and the sometimes out of touch NGOS....english translation coming soon...

Historias que se repiten cada DIA dolorosas, muerte , angustias , tristezas y de secciones alegrías e, esperanzas , retos lagrimas desesperanza ,desolaciones destrucción ,aprovechamientos ,polinización, triunfos , satisfacción ,amor ,es lo que vivo cada amanecer ,

Cada segundo de mi vida es un reto para mi cada ves que despierto en la madrugada cuando las noches las e podido con ciliar, cuando callen lluvias en el tejado una lagrima corre por mis ojos al recordar las familia que visito cada día, la carita de un anciano
Angustiada y agobiada un niño asustado de miedo una madre sin comida para sus hijos un hombre que lucha por apartar la tierra de su casa, lucha contra la adversidad y el tiempo.
Yo sin fuerzas sin nada les doy esperanza que les vamos ayudar y que no están solos ni solas , no cuento con nada solo mi corazón y mi voluntad ,me invagino que con la esperanza que yo tengo are posible una esperanza para la gente , me invagino Amigos a y amigas y pongo la esperanza en ellos ,que creo que por la amistad pueden ayudarnos ,les comento esto entre lagrimas y dolor lo vivo todo los días esta angustia de ver ami pueblo con una pobreza extrema , y la madre tierra grita herida por su destrucción los árboles caídos ,
hace diez años les hablaba del medio ambiente de nuestra cacita donde vivimos que es nuestra planeta tierra y me decían la gente de derecha que era política lo que hablaba si era política pero no partidaria sino del cuido ambiental, y los de izquierda me decían que eso no era importante en esta historia actual que es mas importante cambiar un gobierno nadie creía en mi ni les preocupaba el calentamiento global no me importo y seguí luchando buscando formas de llegar a la gente de alguna manera como loca capacitando en medio ambiente , con agricultura orgánica para poderle explicar sobre el medio ambiente a la gente , trabaje en una organización de mujeres para tener otro espacio les propuse los mismos temas tuve que mezclarlos con los que ya trabajaba la organización de mujeres como genero y economía comencé hablar de mujer y medio ambiente como la mujer es afectada con el calentamiento global Haci pase tres años bus cado formas como convencer a la gente del cuido ambiental,
Ingrese al movimiento de ambientalistas en acción de la UNES,
Trate de prepárame mas sobre el tema ambiental, comencé a formar colectivos de mujeres y hombres formando comités de medio ambiente,
Cuando la tormenta IDA todo mundo asustado
Desorientados por la destrucción de la tierra la mucha lluvia, muertes perdida de cultivos,
Comenzamos otra historia, la vida cambio para todo el salvador y las comunidades mas vulnerables son las que mas están sufriendo los desastres ya que no tienen con dicciones digna para vivir viven en lugares de alto riesgo, incremento de la pobreza en las familias, perdida de trabajo, tierras no actas para cultivar por que están erosionadas, calles des fruidas familias desorientadas,
Después de la tormenta viene la ayuda internacional todo mundo se pone en emergencias, nos conocimos con mi amiga Bet comenzamos como locas ayudando en lo que podamos por que la necesidad es grande,
Yo trate de coordinar con gente que ya conocía para llevar ayuda a las comunidades , y me quedo atendiendo a la comunidad don de resido tratamos de ser un trabajo honesto y trasparente ayudado de una forma colectiva yo con un cansancio que me agobiaba , pero el dios de la vida me daba la fortaleza para continuar , pero no me falto mas que gente aprovechada de la circunstancia comenzó acusarme de que lo que hacia era para aprovecharme de la ayudas yo no tenia tiempo ni para des cansar ni de tomar nada para mi , comenzaron a pedirme los contactos de mis amigos para que no fuera yo la que coordinara las ayudas ,

Reponiéndome ante tantas angustias y cansancio sentí que no estaba sola que muchos amigos y amigas de estados unidos estaban conmigo que ellos eran mi fortaleza yo ya no estaba sola, comenzamos a tocar puertas por todos lados llegamos aun momento que no sabemos como pero nos invitaron a Bet para participar en una reunión con muchas organizaciones y con el programa mundial de
Alimentos PMA esto fue un alivio para nosotras, no nos
invaginábamos que íbamos atener de facultades con el sacerdote de la zona , el primer tropiezo ,pero seguimos insistiendo y lo gramos que nos atendieran a tres comunidades mas afectadas como joya grande y shaltipa ,los puentes y los planes , el primer mes fue de gratis el segundo mes fue trabajo por alimentos esto nos ayudo a que las comunidades aprendieran atrabajar en colectivo haciendo obras de mitigación y limpieza en las comunidades esto fue un excito para las tres comunidades mejoro la comunidad y muchas personas que no se conocían se hicieron amigas y amigos , Alves nos permitió mantenernos organizadas ,
Continuando la historia de trabajo y lucha, tenemos de nuevo la tormenta á Hatha esto empeoró la situación de las comunidades,

El trabajo organizativo que hemos construido Acido muy difícil pero nunca perdí la fe y ni la esperanza de lograrlo ahora me siento orgullosa de Haver logrado en tan poco tiempo tener una estructura casi completa en las tres comunidades.
Los pasos que e retomado para un buen trabajo
reunión con juntas directivas de las comunidades
Identificación de lideres y ligerezas
elaboración de mapas de riesgos
censos por sectores
formación de comités
reuniones sectoriales
Identificación de daños
Acompañamiento constantes con los lideres
Monitoreo del tiempo
Localización de zonas de albergues
Lograr confianza con los lideres
Reconocimiento del trabajo por alcaldía y diputados,
Estos son las grandes satisfacciones de mi propia vida y del colectivo que sin ellos no fuera posible este trabajo, de manera personal agradezco a Bet por darme la
Oportunidad de realizar un sueño que lo tenia de años de trabajar la organización de las comunidades con libertad sin que nadie me ate en mi creatividad en el sistema organizativo me en canta hacer que la gente sea protagonista de su propia historia esto me a fortalecido por que para mi no hay nada mas grande que estar con los mas pobres de los pobres como decía monseñor romero la gente siempre de sea pertenecer a algo , y el colectivo Ceiba a logrado lo que ni la alcaldía a logrado en muchos años de gobernar el colectivo lo logro en 6 meses es un orgullo grande que nos anima a seguir adelante gracias a todas las personas que nos han apoyado y confiaron en nosotras .
Nuestro planeta necesita de personas como nosotras Y ustedes que amamos el planeta y decíamos convivir con el.
MERCEDES MONGE.

Maybe we can’t build houses with dignity for these people in need…

2010-07-06T14:01:00.001-07:00

Maybe we can’t build houses with dignity for these people in need…
Maybe we cannot execute risk reduction engineering or construct bridges or new schools en these communities affected by the rains, but we can share our desire to truly make things better, with the people, listening to their ideas and nneds, their experiences and their life histories which are truly impactful…

It rains, I am sick, El Salvador finds itself in an orange alert, the community where we work are highly vulnerable, Mercedes calls me on the phone “We need coats and flashlights for the emergency committees in the community…” I cant drive, I call Tito, a friend who works at the health clinic in my city, his schedule is 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, but without thinking twice he leaves work and accompanies me to the community El Sauce, its raining hard, the road is slick with fog and heavy traffic, there are landslides of soil and some car crashes in the road, the sky is an intense blue and I don’t know why it occurs to me that it looks like enormous angel wings and will protect us on our way.

Arriving to the community, the Army of the United States is there, observing and analyizing future aid in the reconstruction of the community, a delegate from the municipality is there (although he has NEVER been here), the river is rising, the water tanks looks threatened, Don Ramon a community leader accompanies the tour, we must cross a provisional bridge made by the community due to the old bridge being destroyed in Ida, its made of wires and bamboo…

The army marches and the municipal delegate too, but we first make clear that the the mayor’s office has never had any kind of plan or interest in helping the communities, Mercedes has organized an entire logistical organization by sectors. She found a safe house where families can find refuge, already there are 10 families when I arrive, we make the decision to evacuate the people that live alongside the river. We arrive at Don Ramon’s house, a sheet metal house where 6 people live, 1 woman and 5 children, la house is in the middle of a river and an earthen wall looms 50 meters high above…its heavy with rain..

She should leave to save her life and the life of her children, we tell the woman but she, terrified, responds, “I can’t I need to watch my things!” I ask myself then, what is more important, life or our countable things? “To what end would it serve me to leave when I always must return” At the end, she tells us she might stop by the shelter later. In the shelter, the committee is taking census of children, boys and girls, elderly, women, and men there sheltered. They try to manage aid with other institutions. A landslide with trees is obstructing the street and destroyed the roof of one house. A child was battered by the incident…

I should go back to San Salvador to buy flashlight and coats for the emergency committee who does not have the necessary equipment. I am worried because throughout the night the risk increases, and the community should be prepared, and again the same scence of traffic, landslides, accidents, fog, and more rain. We buy the equipment necessary for the committee, return to the community and MORE families have joined the shelter. They retain the value of their lives and lives of their children. The mayor sends some food and mattresses for the shelter, people are closer to their homes and feel safer in this community shelter than in the municipal one. And someone is already trying to remove the mud from the road and cut the enormous tree that fell on the house.
Its cold. My clothes are wet to the max. I feel sick, but inside something tells me that I am doing the right thing. I don’t know why someone nears me and tells me “thanks you Jonathan, you have been our guardian angels…” Never have I seen this man in the community but in his eyes an internal light shines his gratitude… I look around and 2 children are playing with toy cars and laugh worry-free of the situation, the adults wait in the shelter..like something is saying “the rain will pass and we are alive…”

I should return…I don’t want to but I should, something in mi tell sme that the communities will be ok because they are organized, Mercedes is always ready and communicates with me any situation in which help is needed…

As I return I look at the rain and smile, and say to myself, our efforts are worth the energy although we cannot construct houses and bridges for the communities, we can change their lives and demonstrate to them that they are the most important in our projects, that the people do not feel alone at the hour of disaster, that they know that there are people like us that risk our lives without thinking twice to help them… I think it is true that we do not have the capacity to execute projects of necessary infrastructure but we CAN organize the people and give them knowledge and collaboration. It rains, and I return home, I know that the communities will be ok because they are organized and because I believe that the blue sky are the wings of a guardian angel that protects us because he knows that God is on our side…

Jonathan Velasquez, Accountant/Lawyer, Colectivo CEIBA

Reflections on Hurricane Alex

2010-07-03T11:03:00.001-07:00

only in spanish below. ill translate to english soon.

Quizá no podamos construir casas dignas a esta gente tan necesitada, quizá no podamos ejecutar obras de mitigación ni construir puentes o escuelas nuevas en estas comunidades verdaderamente afectadas por las lluvias, pero si podemos compartir nuestras ganas de mejorar las cosas de una forma verdadera, con la gente, escuchando sus ideas y necesidades, sus experiencias y sus historias de vida verdaderamente impactantes….

Llueve, estoy enfermo, El Salvador, se encuentra en alerta naranja, las comunidades donde trabajamos son altamente vulnerables,Mercedez me habla por teléfono, necesitamos capas y lámparas para el comité de emergencia de la comunidad, no puedo conducir, hablo a tito un amigo que trabaja en la unidad de salud de mi ciudad, su horario es de ocho de la mañana a cuatro de la tarde, sin importarle deja su trabajo y me acompaña a la comunidad el Sauce, llueve fuerte, la carretera esta liza, y con neblina el trafico es pesado, hay deslizamientos de tierra y algunos accidentes de tránsito, el cielo es de un color azul intenso y no se por qué se me ocurre que parece como las enormes alas de un ángel que nos protege en nuestro camino.

Al llegar a la comunidad la Army de los Estados Unidos está ahí, observando y analizando una futura ayuda en la reconstrucción de la comunidad, un delegado de la alcaldía municipal está ahí, ( aun que nunca han estado), el rio esta crecido los tanques de agua potable se ven amenazados, don ramón un líder comunitario nos acompaña en el recorrido, hay que cruzar un puente provisional hecho por la comunidad debido a que el antiguo se destruyo con Aida , está construido con alambre y bambú… la army se marcha y el delegado de alcaldía también no sin antes dejar claro que la alcaldía no tiene ningún tipo de plan ni interés en ayudar a las comunidades, mercedes tiene organizada toda una estructura logística, por sectores , se cuanta con una casa segura donde las familias se refugian, ya hay cerca de 10 familias cuando llego, tomamos la decisión de evacuar a la gente que vive a la orilla del rio, nos presentamos al lugar con don ramón, una casa de lamina en la que viven 6 personas, 1 mujer y cinco niños, la casa se encuentra en medio del rio y un paredón de tierra de unos 50 metros de alto, el cual está debilitado por la lluvia… debe salir de la casa para salvar su vida y la de sus hijos, le decimos a la señora que asustada nos responde no puedo debo cuidar mis cosas, me pregunto entonces que es más importante la vida a unas cuantas pertenencias, de que me sirve irme responde si debo regresar siempre, al final nos dice que llegara más tarde al albergue. En el albergue el comité de emergencia está haciendo un censo cuántos niños y niñas, ancianos mujeres y hombres hay albergados para tratar de gestionar ayuda con otras instituciones, un deslizamiento de tierra con arboles a obstruido la calle y destruido el techo de una casa, también un niño salió golpeado por el incidente…

Debo regresar a San salvador a comprar lámparas y capas para el comité no tienen el equipo necesario, me preocupo por que por la noche el riesgo es mayor, y la comunidad debe estar preparada, de nuevo el mismo escenario tráfico, deslizamientos, accidentes, neblina y mas lluvia, compramos el equipo necesario para el comité regresamos a la comunidad y hay mas familias albergadas, han recapacitado sobre el valor de su vida y de sus hijos e hijas, la alcaldía mando un poco de alimentos y colchonetas para el albergue, la gente esta más segura y cerca de su casa, alguno están tratando de quitar el deslave de la calle cortando el enorme árbol que cayó sobre la casa…..
Hace frio, mi ropa esta mojada al máximo, siento mal de salud, pero por dentro algo me dice que hago lo correcto, no sé por qué alguien se acerca y me dice gracias Jonathan ustedes han sido como nuestros ángeles de la guarda…jamás había visto a este hombre en la comunidad pero en sus ojos una luz interna mostraba su agradecimiento… veo a mi alrededor dos niños juegan con sus carros y se ríen despreocupados de la situación, los adultos esperan en el albergue como quien dice ya pasara la lluvia y estamos vivos….
Debo regresar….no quiero, pero debo, algo en mi me dice que las comunidades estarán bien porque están organizados, Mercedes esta siempre pendiente de ellos y comunica conmigo cualquier situación en la que necesita ayuda…

Mientras regreso veo la lluvia y sonrió, y me digo a mi mismo, vale la pena nuestro esfuerzo aun que no podamos construir casas y puentes para las comunidades, podemos cambiar sus vidas y demostrarles que ellos son lo más importante en nuestros proyectos, que la gente no se sienta sola a la hora de un desastre que sepa que hay gente como nosotros que arriesgamos nuestras vidas sin pensarlo para ayudarles… creo que es cierto no tenemos la capacidad de realizar proyectos de infraestructura tan necesario en la comunidad pero si podemos organizar a la gente darle el conocimiento y colaboración. Llueve y regreso a casa, yo se que las comunidades estarán bien porque están organizadas y porque aun creo que el cielo azul son las alas de un ángel de la guarda que nos protege porque sabe que Dios está de nuestro lado…

Jonathan Velasquez.

Hurricane Alex

2010-06-29T06:07:00.001-07:00

I am currently in the US, and its hard to get good news about Tropical Storm Alex, which is expected to turn hurricane today.

Civil Proteccion of El Salvado has issued an orange alert for the country, and red alert for Ilopango. Thus, Santiago Texacuangos and all communities we work in are in a state of emergency.

According to very breif communications with Mercedes, CEIBA has evacuated families in El Sauce and Los Cruces. Joya Grande is again without water, and in need of evacuation. Hopefully the rain stops soon.

There are no landslides so far, and the biggest current concern is lack of clean water. There have been 2 deaths in El Salvador in the San Miguel area. Lots of rivers leaving their banks.

Will update as soon as I know more!

What is means to live in a "high risk" community- the stats.

2010-06-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

The name of this post should perhaps be edited "what it means to live in a high risk country."

The UN decided to send it its specialized disaster team, UNDAC, to evaluate the situation in El Salvador. This is what they found.
88.7% of the physical territory is at risk
95.4% of the people are at risk
96.4% of the GDP is at risk to a natural disaster.
El Salvador has earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, droughts, floods, and dengue. Unfortunatley, San Salvador, the capital, was built underneath the largest volcano en central america. Urbanization due to CAFTA, Natural Disaster, GMO corn, and other reasons that make survival in the country side next to impossible is making this problem even more complicated. UNDP reports indicate that 58% of the poor is now URBAN! (See urban povery maps of social exclusion, FLASCO-UNDP 2010).

These stats means that its pretty darn difficult to escape disaster in El Salvador. NGOs have been building houses for people pos-Ida in OTHER vulnerable places. Take people out of landslide danger, and put them near the San Vicente Volcano. Solution? Waste of Money? Best choice given the options?

This scenario got twisted in a funky way for joya grande. I did some statistical analysis myself (if you want the whole report, email me. its pretty long) and made these graphs to make a point.

I know they are pixalated funny but bear with me. Graph 1 shows two communities and WHY they moved to Santiago Texacuangos. Note that less than 3% of people were actually born there. Second, if you notice war migration patterns (the red line), it starts in the late 70s and tapers off in the early 90s. Perfect timing. Peace accords signed in 1992.
Final piece of data. years of landslides in Santiago Texacuangos.
1929
1998
2001
2005
2007, 2008, 2009 (source, Desinventar-8, an amazing disaster database). It is SO OBVIOUS that war migration has made El Salvador so vulnerable. Large concentrations of people living where they should not be living. The land in Santiago Texacuangos is suitable for coffee, NOT FOR MILPAS. but war refugees will eat and feed their families. as they should. but its not like they WANT to live there. about 50% of the 113 families we surveyed said they want to get the HECK OUT OF SANTIAGO. but they can't. just yet.

In a conversation with the Ministerio de Vivienda, we discovered that the mayor never turned in housing relocation requests to the national government. so guess how much Santiago get os the $1.5 million in housing projects? $0! pretty unlikely for those war refugees to migrate there huh?
I am working on fixing this- Wednesday we are doing a housing census with local community leaders. to make a priority list and i will hand deliver it to my new government friends with fingers crossed.

I have little hope. considering the government has spent a total of only 5% of the $150 dollars that was supposed to be spent on Ida 6 months after the storm. is a direct and sad testament to the disfunctionality of this governement. Apparantly, according to my Ministry of Housing friend, there are 27 steps to take to purchase something in the Salvadoran Government. SHEESH. sometimes i wonder if i would be contributing more to the country doing buracracy audit reports than disater relief. sigh. another GREAT reason to NEVER give money direct to governments in disasters if you actually want to help disaster victims.

Anyways, people should not live in Joya Grande. But they are. and most of the country is "at risk" anyways. and the next storm is not gonna wait until the government MAYBE relocates 350 families in joya grande (which even if it did, would leave 29 other high risk communities still at risk).
Colectivo CEIBA is trying to get USAID $$ to make a project in integrated disaster risk management, with a gender and youth focus. What the heck does that mean?? Early warning systems, moniters in rivers, bridage to watch rivers and others to prepare shelter. and everyone get a rain jacket and a radio. Thats our new plan. If people are not leaving, we are committed to teaching them how to survive where life has decided they will be living.

Pray for Guatemala (which Agatha hit much worse), for El Salvador, cuz its a pretty risky place, and for Joya Grande, that they get houses or we get them disaster alert systems via USAID.

I hope you are well. Thanks for your AMAZING support during this time. Once again, it gives us the courage to keep dreaming bigger. and of course, getting vital supplies to people at vital times. Joya Grande STILL has no water, so we are paying other communities to bring it to them. One HUGE achievement was Joya Grande contacting the radio and denoucning their local government for not bringing them water! Empowerment is being planted and started to sprout all over the place. You should really come visit, its quite neat to see. Until next time...keep reading!

Peace
Beth

What it means to live in a "high risk community"-the pics

2010-06-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

Photo 1a nd 1 b: Blue and Black Tarps bought with donations. Put in Los Cruces (shown in blue) El Sauce (black tarp). These tarps (so far) have mitigated risk for inhabitants of Los Cruces. After agatha, other parts of the hillslide eroded, but not where the tarps were! El Sauce (black tarp) has houses such as this, alongslide the river. We hope to slow erosion caused by the river. Ideally, we hope to be able to relocate these houses over the next year and build them new ones...
Photo 2: Don Ramon explaining that shifts in the river due to Ida means the river is eroding the land surrounding community water tanks they worked to build for 5 years and still manage. Photo 3 : tanks and erosion

Photo 4 (above right): The new bridge made by the community out of bamboo and a propped up tree. This allows kids to go to school (cuz they can cross the river) and farmer to tend their crops on the other side of the river. Unfortunately, the old bridge (destroyed in Ida) was big enough to get a car and ambulence across. Isolated community now bring patients on horseback.
Photo 5 (below) families from Joya Grande hanging out in the shelter from Tropical Storm Agatha (May 29-31).

Water, Medicine, and Fumigation in Joya Grande

2010-06-01T21:19:00.001-07:00

First I want to give a big shout out to 5 majors doners of the weekend: Robyn Caponi, Brebeuf Jesuit Immersion Trip kids pulling together, and two NGO, one is Voices on the Border
and the other being SACDEL. Voices (rep. being Rosie Ramsey) bought the gas containers, and we filled up with gas from $$ from CRS that Directo Rick Jones authorized me to spend. This enables the last few families to leave Joya Grande and evacuate to safe shelters, and was used in Health Clinic fumigation machines today to get rid of the mosquito problem and try and prevent dengue epidemics.

Joya Grande has NO WATER and NO ACCESS via bus, so we have been trying to stock their supplies and coordinate with other organizations like SACDEL to cover other needs. SACDEL agreed to buy local food from Coop CONFRAS for 26 families for the next 15 days, which will be a big support for those families. the 26 families we chose from people who has lost their house in the last storm (Ida) and have been recently been relocated .5km away to a safer place in somewhat diginified nice looking pieces of sheet metal.

The water problem in Joya Grande was solved by Mercedes. Her community, Santa Maria, 25 minutes away, still had their water system. So instead of spending TONS of money buying boxed and bagged potable water, we paid motorists and made a schedule to fill and refill large barrels of water every few hours and have the community come get what they need. It fills a bare minimum, but so essential. This money was from Brebeuf kids donations, and is providing water to 350 families (over 1300 people).

Finally, we are set to buy essential medicines for Joya Grande tmrw to keep them stocked until there is access again. hydration for the 15 pregnant woman in the community, powdered milk, fungus medicine (lots of wierd skin fungus always happened after water related disasters), parasite medicine (again, lack of water means dirty river drinking!).

Something really exciting was that this time, international NGOs contacted US!!! I feel like we are gaining recognition as being the NGO reference for the region of Santiago Texacuangos, which is good. I think we did a good job being the LINK between victims and big NGOs and institutions, WHICH was personally stressful for me as my phone rang off the hook all day and i spent like $100 in saldo. ....but means we have come a long way.

Agatha is over. No houses fell over in Santiago, but the storm claimed 150 lives in Central America.

Other parts of El Salvador were more affected- lots of farmers in bajo lempa lost all there animals and crops, and that is one of the poorest areas of the country.

Finally, another climate change comment. 2 tropical storms in 6 months that cuase a state of emergency in El Salvador is NOT NORMAL. More rain fell in Agatha than it did in Ida, Stan or Mitch (albiet over 6 days instead of 4 hours). If El Salvador has national emergencies for Tropical Storms, I DO NOT even want to think what a hurricane looks like in this horribly deforested volcanic overpopulated country just clinging on for identity.

O trees, where did you go? GROW BACK!

The rains stopped, things are calming, Joya Grande is OK.

2010-05-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

I dont have much energy/time to write grand things...especially cuz i have a paper due to the UN really soon (today) but i asked for an extension due to the national state of emergency.

the president has declared a national state of emergency. 9 dead, 9,000 evacuated. It has stopped raining, yet we are still on red alert. a teeny little earthquake or a little rainstorm could cause massive landslides due the saturation of the earth.

the donation we recieved (plus $500 support from CRS, of which i did not even spend all of!) was just what we needed to equip the team, help evacuate joya grande yesterday, and even leave a little bit of gas just in case it rained.

There are 108 women and children in a shelter in Santiago, and the government and churches have it well stocked. It is amazing and completely different from november. i am pleasantly shocked to see how much people learned!!!

Joya Grande is supposedly under mandatory evacuation by the National Police, said so by president FUNES himself in a speech this afternoon.

The funny thing is, WE evacuated part of Joya Grande, and the government left over 200 families there. o, the REALITY and the GOVERNMENT are so very different in so many places in this world.

its wierd to hear reports on the ground with data and stats and know they are not real at all.

whats important, is that the damage to injury and human life has been few, people are more prepared, we were more prepared.

We hope to apply for a USAID grant directed toward Ida-Agatha reconstruction, especially having ALL disaster needs covered before it rains again. Like, having enough gas in the community to evacuate every single person god forbid something happens.
Lago de Ilopango, afterall, is an ACTIVE VOLCANO.

I promise to send a newsletter in the coming weeks and keep you all posted.

I think the scary part has past. getting people back to their houses and restarting trauma therapy will be difficult in the coming weeks and months.

but this is the reality of climate change. of the global south. of where poor internal migrants fleeing from civil wars live.

thanks so much for your support and prayers. it was very effective! please check out all the pics on http://picasaweb.google.com/paz.justicia.vida/Joyarescate#

love and gratitude
beth

Tropical Storm Agatha- Emergency in Santiago and the rest of the country

2010-05-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Friends and lovers-

Since November 2009, we have been in a state of emergency and recuperation. Life has definately not turned to normal. Lost family farms and businesses mean kids have dropped out of college. Loans with interest rates over 30% to rebuild roofs, and many families who live in houses with no walls. Pocketed sheet metal shacks were hastily built only 3 weeks ago to take people out of shelters.

We were building early warning systems. We were writing projects to build safe shelters. We wanted to build some houses. We were ready to apply for projects from USAID.

Tropical Storm Agatha decided that it didnt want to wait for us to write projects. and like all not-so-natural disasters, the poor get rocked.

Rivers are flowing over banks all over the country. We are in a state of orange altert, just one away from red, the highest level of emergency. and guatemala is much worse believe me.

I dont have time to cover the whole natioanl situation, but I can tell you the news is vastly underreporting damages. they say 411 people are in shelters, but we have 108 in Santiago Texacuangos alone (all woman and children from Joya Grande). From contacts with community leaders and Mercedes and Vladimir who have been on that ground working with alcaldia and proteccion civil we know.

There are several landslides already, in Shaltipa and El Sauce, where families are staying in schools and at neighbors houses. Santa Maria has several families staying in the church, and Joya Grande has OVER 300 FAMILIES THAT NEED EVACUATION. no one has electricity or water.

Mercedes was there for 5 hours yesterday making the emergency plan, and we sent yesterday and today LONG TERM RADIOS, short term radios, rain jackets, rescue ropes, $ for phone calls and drivers and logistics. Obviously, that money was taken out of the budget means for stuff like agriculture and trauma therapy. But an emergency is an emergency.

So, yet again, and too soon, we need donations. Food, water, emergency rescue equipment, gas for my car, crayons for kids in shelters, diapers, an insanely long list.

I dont have time to reflect much right now, but I can say with confidence that OUR PRESENCE IN SANTIAGO HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE. We evacuated lots of families with plans and supplies we bought with your donations, and we have logistics set up in the whole area with contacts everywhere.

I have a volunteer base for 80 people (10 of which are coming tommorrow) to split up and get to communities and fill out evaluations of needs and damages, and others to start psychological processes with children and women in shelters.

We have been working since Wednesday getting prepared. We didnt think it would be this bad tho. and its supposed to get worse tonite.

Ive got to get back to our center of operations (my kitchen table with my, my boyfriend, and 2 salvadoran friends) to prepare for our big shopping list and resuce/evacuation tommorrow.

I think most our our communities will be ok in terms of human lives, but i am worried about joya grande. no way to get a car or bus in, no more gas left in the boats, and 300 families in serious landslide danger. there is not a darned thing I can do tonite. but tommorrow, we will show up if it means we have to walk.

email me immediately or call 011.503.7440.1492 if you have any contacts with helicopters....in all seriousness.

thanks for staying tuned. and in solidarity always. please pray for people in joya grande tonite. and all over el salvador and guate. its gonna be a long couple a days, and supposed to continue thru tuesday....

and start recycling. this is not normal. this is called global climate change and its our fault.

THanks!
Beth
p.s. we need $355 for operations tmrw. here is the list sorry its in spanish
Uní. descripción Precio c/u total
10 lámparas $ 7.50 $ 75.00
10 capas $8.00 $80.00
comida ALM-DESA $ 20.00
Saldo $ 60.00
gasolina Transporte $20.00
Gastos administrativos $60.00
Otros. $ 40.00
TOTAL $355.00

por que la sonrisa de un nino no tiene precio

2010-05-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

De nuevo El Salvador se encuentra en estado de emergencia , la tormenta agtha azota sin piedad a las eternas familias marginadas, pobrez, vulnerables, que viven en lugares de alto riesgo, inavitables, peligross como ellos llaman, personas que no tienen otro lugar a donde ir mas que su humilde casa de laminas y bajaraque, cartones y basura, ninos que lloran sus juguetes cuando el rio se los lleva para siempre, madres llorando desde lo profundo de su alma la impotencia de poder hacer nada de perder todo el esfuerzo de una vida , de quedar bajo la lluvia preguntado a Dios que hizo malo.....

De nuevo nuestra gente , nosotros confiando en la solidaridad de usted los que hacen posible este proyecto, los que hacen posible que nuestros ninos sonrian y alegren con su risa el mundo, usted que con todo el amor y la humildad colaboran para aliviar el tormento de esta gente.

Mas de 100 familias han sido evacuadas a esta hora en las comunidades donde desarrollamos nuestro trabajo, gente que solo cuenta con nuestro apoyo y el de usted, ya son casi dos dias que no deja de llover, y nuestra gente necesita agua, comida, cobijas, medicina, lamparas , radios, capas y apoyo, nosotros estamos poniendo nuestra parte trabajando duro dia y noche para ayudar a esta gente nuestros hermanos.... pon tambien la tuya y dona lo que puedas, deja de comprar una cerveza, cigarros un par de zapatos caros y recuerda que alguien te lo agradecera toda la vida ... por que las sonrisas no pueden comprarse y el dinero no lo es todo en la vida

cuando un hermano nos necesita

2010-05-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

llego la lluvia de nuevo y con ella la sonrisa de la muerte y la miseria , el dolor , la desesperanza y la tristeza, llueve y nuestros ninos lloran de miedo y temor, las madres corren de un lado para otro con sus cosas en la espalda y el miedo cen su rostro cansado.....

llueve y alguien en cualquier parte bebe una taza de cafe y disfruta la tormenta , abajo el rio crece y destruye con su paso el esfuerzo de la gente, lleva casas, animales muertos, rios de sangre y de tristeza que en silencio mata y asesina nuestros suenos, pero aqui estamos con la cara en alto y las manos hacia el cielo, con la fe puesta en nuestro creador y nuestra gente....

llueve y mi pueblo como puede se levanta del lodo y la miseria para edificar un nuevo mundo para luchar por la vida que siempre siempre empieza

Jonathan Velasquez

Mud dislodged last night in Joya Grande: we need $$ for radios

2010-05-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

Hola a everyone.

Just wanted to post quickly that El Salvador is in Yellow Alert according to Civil Proteccion. Schools in vulnerable areas are officially closed. The beach is the most vulnerable at this point, and tide has increased and forces evacuation os those areas.
click here for the report in spanish
Joya Grande was specifically mentioned as an area highly vulnerable and suggested evacuation. Unfortunately, there is no shelter and no where to evacuate these 350 families at this time.

Our team here, Colectivo CEIBA is meeting tommorrow to make contigency plans and look for ways to support Joya Grande.
Im pretty worried, considering hurricane ida was only alerta VERDE and this is AMARILLO!

There is an emergency meetings tommorrow in Joya at 2pm with Mercedes and her emergency committee there. Some mud dislodged from the mountains last night and entered people's houses in Sector Marmonera. I have been on the phone all evening speaking with worried community members, Mercedes, other leaders, CEIBA volunteers, etc. to be prepared for anything.

They have asked for 6 Radios and other equipment for emergency plans and prevention.

Please contact me as soon as possible if you know of anyone willing to donate $$ or has contacts in El Salvador that would donate radios and other emergency equipment.

Thanks. I'll keep posted so check back.

Ever-Present Past: Moving Forward in Post-Disaster El Salvador

2010-05-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

Jenna Knapp got top 5 Senior Seminar Paper at Notre Dame wooohoo!! this is an excellent analysis of what happened and is happened in the reconstruction process. email me or jenna if you want a copy (its like 24pgs but totally worth it). jknapp1@nd.edu. Here is an interesting snippet below I read. We leave with 14 salvadoran for honduras tommorrow to exchange with communities who rebuilt after Mitch. woohooo SOUTH TO SOUTH EXCHANGE!

Ever-Present Past: Moving Forward in Post-Disaster El Salvador
Jenna Knapp
Senior Seminar Paper
Spring 2010

For three hours we traversed downward over gutted mountainous terrain carrying only what would fit on our backs. We passed entire communities sitting uneasily on church floors, their homes reduced to rubble. They showed us where they’d dug her baby out from beneath layers of mountainside when dawn chased away the night. They pointed to the slope he was fumbling up to reach his mother before he, too, was buried. They needed the water we carried yet they sent us further down the mountainside to Joya Grande, where lines of people waited for the meager rations we’d managed to provide. Their pilas had run dry and they were no longer sweating—there was nothing to sweat. Several chaotic hours later they dispersed, some with beans, rice, oil, and water, and others empty-handed. Yet for once, the shocked deliverers of aid dared not merely patch up a broken system, and before forging ahead they first looked deeply behind…

Fundación CEIBA (Crear Espacios Integrales Para el Bienestar Ambiental-Creating Integrated Spaces for Environmental Wellbeing)

Having explored the layers of structural violence that exacerbate the effects of disasters in El Salvador as well as the shortcomings of previous aid efforts to address these root causes, let us turn to a young organization that seeks to reverse these harmful trends. Fundación CEIBA grew out of the chaos of the opening vignette following Hurricane Ida on November 8th 2009. It consists of a team of Salvadorans and one north American who are committed to creating spaces for the restorying of Santiago Texacuangos based on the narrative of community organization, participatory democracy, collective trauma therapy, and popular education rather than on that of repression and relocation. Fundación CEIBA partners with community members, fellow NGOs, state actors, and an international solidarity network to create lasting community settlements safe from the pending effects of climate change, deforestation, and large-scale development projects. It is currently engaged in a number of projects aimed at the creation of a narrative that is not marked by marginalization and disjointed relief. For instance, CEIBA founders are organizing a Central American conference for NGO leaders to come together to collaborate on ideas surrounding how to make structural changes in post-disaster settings. Additionally, CEIBA is working to form a paralegal clinic in Santiago Texacuangos in an effort to alleviate the injustices surrounding land ownership that have plagued the region for centuries. CEIBA is also leading various art therapy workshops so as to address deep-seeded trauma in the community on a collective level that often reaches back far beyond the hurricane. Only by addressing the collective chosen trauma of the community will they be capable of organizing and moving forward with the hopes of a better future.
Fundación CEIBA does not seek to merely address “post-disaster reconstruction,” which would imply that what is needed is to simply re-construct what existed pre-disaster. Rather, Fundación CEIBA is committed to creating self-sustaining spaces for community organization and environmental protection through proactive processes that are capable of regenerating themselves over time. Ideally, these efforts will create spiral of peace and development instead of a spiral of violence and destruction (Lederach 1997: 75). CEIBA recognizes the way in which disasters expose the suffering beneath structural violence that is otherwise silenced and begs for a dramatic restructuring of society into a place with a higher level of resilience to cope with and prevent destruction from natural hazards. While it may appear to be micro-oriented in application, the impetus that drives CEIBA’s approach is not one that awaits the policy and decision from the highest level, nor does it assume that its particular action provides a comprehensive response to system-wide problems. Rather its efforts paint a different canvas of social change, which depends on the practices of accessibility, reconnecting people in actual relationships, and local responsibility (Lederach 2005: 144).

When Climate Changes Your Life

2010-05-08T22:56:00.001-07:00

featured in Santa Clara University EnviroNews Spring 2010
When Climate Changes Your Life
By Beth Tellman

It is not supposed to rain in November. But on November 7 and 8 2009 it rained in El Salvador as much as it rained during Hurricane Mitch in 1998. If you are a poor Salvadoran, rains that falls 14 inches deep in under 4 hours will change your life. Indeed, 194 died in landslides, and 15,900 instantly became homeless, and one Fulbright project took a turn for the…interesting. When climate changes your life, you stop studying alternative trade coffee and start asking how long a child with diarrhea can live without clean water. Fortunately I never found out, thanks to Santa Clara Alums like Sam Baker, Brian Belcher, Austin Woody, Emory Lynch, Megan Raimondi, Katy Erker, Betsy Purner, Bianca McNeil, Jen Latimer, Allie Dunne, Pat Flajole, Ashton Easterday (and others) who were in country during Tropical Storm Ida and physically hiked life saving water into communities and helped raise $10,000 in two weeks thanks to our website, www.friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com. Over 200 donors and 70 volunteers later, we raised enough money to begin to reconstruct lives. I´m starting an NGO with 7 other Salvadorans called The CEIBA Collective (Construyendo Espacios Integrales para el Bienestar Ambiental/ Constructing Integral Spaces for Environmental Well-being. After attending 30 communities and 20,000 people with food and water emergencies and connecting those in dire need to the big guys (Red Cross, UN WFP, who came WEEKS after the disaster), we continued work in 3 communities to reconstruct crops with organic agriculture, rebuild emotional lives through art and trauma therapy, and organize communities to prevent disaster and fight corruption. Email me, I´ll send you the newsletters for more info (friendsofsantamaria@gmail.com), or come on our delegation Aug. 5-15 to learn about disaster reconstruction (email Casa Alum/ Future Fulbrighter Jenna Knapp jknapp1@nd.edu for details)
As for my Fulbright? I´m trying to turn emotional observation into academic inquiry. Why do poor people die when it rains? Why was “too much aid” distributed in the disaster epicenter and none distributed to the margins? What is integrated disaster relief? The academic jargon for what I’m quantitatively doing is a vulnerability and capacity assessment, which I´ll present at UN Summer Academy on Social Vulnerability, Environmental Migration, and Climate Change in Germany this July. I hope it serves as a base for future CEIBA Collective projects, and I’ll be in El Salvador for the next two years fundraising for disaster prevention instead of disaster relief via community resilience and adaption to CURRENT climate conditions. I was always a better activist than an academic anyways ;).

TARPS FOR ALL

2010-05-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

I am too exhausted to blog anything worth reading.

People are so grateful. and its not even about the tarps.
its about accompaniment.

its like, people know that somebody has their back. that we do.

when CRS makes empty promises. when PROCOMES's office gets robbed of EVERYTHING including their computers leaving them unavailble to donate anything and with the scary image of armed men walking into their office (makes me glad we have no office...)

finally got enough money to buy the darn tarps. and then realized its not about the tarps.

anyways, it is supposed to rain hard in the next few days and i really think we are preventing disasters.

above pics are don eduardo recieving food and water back in november... and other community member from los cruces...
promise to write something funner to read.

Los Cruces Need $600 to buy black tarp before the next rain or 17 houses might fall over.

2010-04-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Community of Los Cruces, 17 families living on a hillside in Santiago Texacuangos, have always been vulnerable. When 2 houses fell over on families in November 2009, causing the death of 4 people, the community decided it had had enough of being vulnerable. Don Eduardo, a local community leader, requested aid from the local government office multiple times, with no response. He asked Friends of Santiago Texacuangos, back in November 2009 for food and water. In December, he asked Mercedes Monge to come and help organize the community. On March 6th, thanks to free labor from Dayton University via a CRISPAZ delegation, we made progress reducing risk for a few houses in the community. However, no amount of labor or community organizing has been able to change the fact that the exposed tierra blanca (seen in photos above) is a disaster waiting to happen. When Ida destory the little vegetation cover yet, 17 families remained completely vulnerable to a landslide with a any little tremor or the next big rain. El Salvador has lots of earthquakes, and the rainy season has begun. It is really only a matter of time before these houses fall over.
Don Eduardo and Los Cruces have tried to work with the local and national government to find other land to live on, since the families live in abject poverty (no one has land to farm, and the only source of income is $ that men bring form nearby sweatshops) and cannot afford to buy a new plot of land to re locate their sheet-metal homes.

Clearly, no one should live in Los Cruces. or in sheet metal housing on an eroded hillside. but 17 families do.
These families need lots of things, but of DIRE URGENCY they need 2 large rolls of black tarp to cover exposed earth to keep it from continual erosion until we can relocate families or find major reconstruction equipment. We need $600 to buy this, or an NGO that will donate it. Please email me immediately if you have connections to NGOs in El Salvador (ive already tried ProComes, Fundesryam, alcaldia of santiago, and USAID) or access to $600.

email me at friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com

Paz
Beth

Going to Honduras!

2010-04-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

Tragedia y Oportunidad:

Pos-Desastre Desarrollo Comunitario
en el Largo Plazo

Descripción
Cuando: El 21, 22 y 23 de Mayo, 2010
Donde: En La Divina Providencia, Honduras
Que lleva acá: Si mismo, sus ideas, preguntas, dudas, y estrategias

Esta conferencia va a juntar los ONGs y gente damnificada de Huracan Mitch y Ida para compartir experiencias y estrategias de crear una comunidad de buena salud social en el largo plazo.

El tema de esta conferencia es el desarrollo comunitario en el largo plazo después de un desastre. Primero, queremos ofrecer organizaciones no-gubermentales (ONGs) y líderes de comunidades Salvadoreños cuales están trabajando en una área pos-desastre, la oportunidad aprender de ONGs y líderes comunitarios, cuales han trabajado en el mismo proceso. Segundo, queremos ofrecer las ONGs y los líderes de comunidades Hondureñas una oportunidad reflexionar en los últimos once años y su trabajo. Tercero, Beth y yo queremos aprender de ustedes para compartir estas lecciones y experiencias con otros académicos, ONGs, y la gente de Haití. Pues, esta conferencia nos da la oportunidad de recordar, compartir, aprender, y animar los compañeros de otros partes de Central América.

for more info click here

3:21 minutes on Indiana Station WFYI

2010-04-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely, we gain publicity. From Robyn Caponi reading a cry for help (an email i wrote to my mom that she forwarded to hundreds of people) at the Brebeuf Jesuit President's Dinner, To Chris Hallburg's NPR piece on relief work in Santa Cruz de la Vega, to Jenna Knapp and Jen Latimer Speech and Workshops at the Ignation Family Teach-In/ SOA Protest...we have made Indiana Public TV Station WFYI series "Across Indiana." Click here for the youtube version of the clip (my dad filmed it with his video cam and uploaded it...we hope to get a quality copy soon.

Thanks to my brother Michael for taking footage in Joya Grande this March and my mother for convincing the producers that this story was worth it. Jim Simmons, for capturing stories of fellow hoosiers in El Salvador (poet delegation to Quino Caso Foundation in Quezaltepeque).

Keep coming to El Salvador! Keep donating! lets keep this train ROLLING. trauma therapy with youth is going well but i REALLY want to raise money to do trauma therapy for the eldery. does anyone have contacts with NGOs or Foundations who do funding for that kinda thing? The AARP?

Indy People: see us on WFYI 6:30pm Saturday and 7:30pm Monday!

2010-04-06T22:36:00.001-07:00

Across Indiana will feature disaster relief in El Salvador, the formation of Friends of Santiago Texacuangos, and Brebeuf's most recent visit to the community of Joya Grande.

this is what brebeuf wrote on their website. i do not like the one woman crusade description because i feel that it negates the hard work of the salvadorans i work with. i am actually a 7 person team and the salvadorans work just as hard as me. anyways. watch it!

WFYI's "Across Indiana" Highlights Beth Tellman '05

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

On April 5, WFYI's "Across Indiana" featured Beth Tellman's '05 efforts in flood-stricken El Salvador. The program will air again this Saturday, April 10, 6:30 pm on WFYI in Indianapolis. Be sure to tune in to watch her amazing story!

(Beth’s story was produced for "Across Indiana” by another Brebeuf alumnus -- Jim Simmons ’70.)

From "Across Indiana's" website:
"Those of you who have watched our Indiana Poets' travels in El Salvador know Brebeuf's Beth Tellman as our host and translator. But two weeks after the poets left, Hurricane Ida slammed into that Central American country, causing mudslides that killed 200 and left thousands homeless. Beth has now become a near one-woman crusade to get food, water and shelter to the mountain villages--places where Red Cross and other government help has not only not come, but will never come because they are too remote."

Strength in Unity

2010-03-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

Joya Grande recibe delegación de Estados Unidos.

Habitantes de Joya Grande y delegación de Estados Unidos.

El pasado lunes 22 de marzo, la comunidad de Joya Grande del municipio de Santiago Texacuangos del departamento de San Salvador, dio la bienvenida a una delegación de Estados Unidos.

La delegación que esta conformada por 16 jóvenes, viene con el propósito de conocer el sistema de vida de las y los habitantes de la comunidad de Joya Grande. Asimismo, tiene como objetivo intercambiar experiencia y conocimientos. Además, buscan conocer un poco mas de la cultura salvadoreña.

María mercedes Monge, integrante de la ONG ……………………. “Ceiba” dio las palabras de bienvenida “este día es muy espacial, nos sentimos muy

Contentos de tenerles aquí, siéntanse en casa, y compartamos juntos este momento que nos brinda el dios de la vida”

Por su parte, Patricio Márquez, presidente de la junta directiva de joya grande, manifestó que su comunidad se siente orgullosa de recibirles “es primera experiencia que compartimos, nos sentimos optimistas y esperamos que todo nos salga bien, pese a nuestra limitaciones económicas” digo, Márquez.

Finalmente, Mercedes Monge, dio los agradecimientos a los jóvenes por aceptar este reto. Además agradeció el esfuerzo que los jóvenes realizaron tras el paso del huracán ida por territorio salvadoreño, ya que según ella, estos muchachos realizan una operación hormiga , aportaron dinero y esfuerzo para ayudar con víveres a las decenas de familias que resultaron afectadas por las torrenciales lluvias del pasado 7 y 8 de noviembre.

Thanks, Brebeuf Jesuit, for coming to visit Joya Grande and live with families. first reflections on fruits of this experience.....

By Megan Ludwig March 26 2010
Friday, March 26th
I'm going to miss this place. It's impossible to leave your home and not miss it at least a little bit. Joya Grande has become just that- a home. In only a few short days I felt welcomed enough to call the community my home, and that is something extremely special for me. It's like El Salvador is my roots, and something will always be pulling me back there. I think that the reason I loved my experience at Joya Grande so much is the emphasis on the family and the community. Everyone there lived for others first, never themselves. That's part of the reason I felt so welcomed and loved there, and the reason why it has become a home.

During our group reflection we spoke about how some of the people of Joya Grande saw us as beacons of hope when we first stepped off the bus. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once- heartbreaking that a community needed help so much that they relied on a few Gringos to assist them, and heartwarming to be honored in a way that also made us want to grab all the responsibility and put it on our own shoulders. I wanted to take the burden off of the people and carry it for them, but it was also frightening because the fear of not living up to that responsibility loomed in the back of my mind. That idea is going to keep haunting me until I find a way to make their impression of me worthwhile; I will continue working to help them in any way possible, because who would dare let their family down?

El Salvador Immersion Trip Exploring Post-Disaster Reconstruction

2010-03-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

El Salvador Immersion Trip Exploring Post-Disaster Reconstruction:

August 5-15, 2010

Calling all passionate people! Whether you’re an engineer, architect, accountant, peacebuilder, or artist, chances are this trip will provide an avenue for you to expand your understanding of the complexity and necessity of your field post-disaster and your place in this world. Please read on!

On November 7^th 2009 heavy rains in the wake of Hurricane Ida left 190 Salvadorans buried beneath mudslides and 15,000 people homeless. Seven of the country’s fourteen municipalities experienced destruction from the flooding and mudslides. The international community heard about this flooding for no more than a day in international media, and El Salvador quickly declared the state of emergency over.

Yet four months later the destruction is far from over for many families across El Salvador. A group of committed community leaders in the region of Santiago Texacuangos is working to create a model for sustainable reconstruction and community revitalization in the wake of this disaster.

The upcoming trip will explore the plethora of issues surrounding this disaster and this particularly innovative reconstruction efforts including (but not limited to):

Causes of the flooding (deforestation, large scale development projects, historical marginalization…)
The politics of aid in the aftermath of “natural” disasters
The necessity of innovative engineering post-disaster to reconstruct water-sources, evaluate slope stability, and create a disaster prevention plan
The value of community organization to demand the rights of a dignified lifestyle

While these are essential areas to highlight, we have quite a bit of flexibility as far as what issues we cover and how we spend our time in country. We are open to incorporating your diverse passions and interests into the trip in every way possible. We hope to bring an interdisciplinary group of about 10 delegates (18 and older) to enter into the Salvadoran reality and learn from those who have spent their lives on the margins of society.

While trip plans are flexible based on group interest, some possibilities include:

-Participating in a disaster prevention workshop led by Salvadoran NGO Equipo Maiz

-Visiting the Divine Providence chapel and hospital where Archbishop Romero lived and was assassinated in order to understand the history of current marginalization in El Salvador

-Working alongside of community members to plant live barriers/build retention walls to prevent future flooding (contingent on the weather)

-Cultural exchange forum with community members, arts therapy activities (ie mural painting, etc.)….

We really have room for creativity here and can craft our time to meet your passions.

Delegates will stay with homestay families for a portion of the trip

Spanish language skills are preferred but not required.

In-country transportation and food costs will be covered, but delegates will have to pay for the flight and vaccinations. (Flight will be between $630 and $700)

Interested in attending?

Contact me at jknapp1@nd.edu (317.748.7175) with questions or for an application.

tudent Awarded Grant for El Salvador Peace Project

April 9, 2010

Contact:

Renée LaReau, lareau.3@nd.edu, (574) 631-5098

Notre Dame senior Jenna Knapp, an anthropology and peace studies major, has won a $10,000 grant for a project she designed to improve disaster prevention efforts in an agrarian region of El Salvador.

The project will be funded by the Davis Projects for Peace, which sponsors grassroots projects designed by college students to promote peace. Knapp will lead a delegation of Notre Dame engineering and peace studies students to the region of Santiago Texacuangos, whose agricultural crops were destroyed by Hurricane Ida in November 2009.

Student delegates will participate in community-led disaster prevention workshops and reconstruction efforts that include creating terraced soil and planting native izote plants between crops, which helps prevent mudslides in the wake of natural disasters.

Research shows that communities without dependable livelihoods are more susceptible to violent conflict.

“When people think of peace, they immediately think of active conflicts,” said Knapp, who will graduate from Notre Dame in May. “But structural violence, such as economic imbalance and unequal access to resources, plants the seeds for conflict years before it erupts."

Santiago Texacuangos is susceptible to such violence, Knapp said, because its residents were displaced to the area as refugees during El Salvador’s civil war, which took place from 1980 to 1992. The region’s landscape, which had been largely deforested to make way for development projects, was not well-equipped to sustain agriculture on a long-term basis.

Knapp hopes the students’ 10 days in El Salvador will increase their understanding of the roots of violent conflict.

“This experience can help them work for peace in whatever field they end up,” she said.

After graduating, Knapp will spend a year in El Salvador researching gang violence prevention and rehabilitation. Her research is supported by a Fulbright Fellowship.

a people without organization is a people drowned in poverty

2010-03-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

Email me for a copy! new newsletter!

Dear Friends of Santiago Texacuangos:

It has been a wild ride. With a shift from emergency relief to long term reconstruction planning,

we have been busier than ever! Giving away food and water was perhaps more physically taxing, since it

required weeks if sleepless nights and days of never-ending hikes, but we have new challenges.

We quickly learned that no other NGO was going to intervene, and the few we found that would

charged so much $$ per person that we would really make no impact. We do not want to help just 10

farmers, but accompanying the entire municipality of Santiago Texacuangos was unrealistic. We CAN

make an impact in 3 communities, supporting nearly 2,000 people.

After watching other NGOs fail to respond to community needs, or whose response was

charitable but stripped agency of the Salvadoran people, we knew we had to create something new and

revolutionary. We also knew we did not have the cash to rebuild infrastructure, like roads, houses, or

schools. We do, however, have the inspiration to EDUCATE and EMPOWER communities to do it

themselves.

Our team continues to inspire each other; we need to keep the fire burning. People lining up for

food and water is much simpler than trying to teach illiterate adults what their human rights in

disasters are! The fact that some adults could not read or write did not surprise, but the fact that the

MAJORITY ARE ILLITERATE does. We must implement popular education tools, learn by doing,

become facilitators of community knowledge, and draw pictures and play games. Our groups grow

every week. I am torn between the fact that we might run our of art supplies because of the problem of

TOO MUCH PARTICIPATION! What a fantastic dilemma! Thank goodness we have people like Dany

who turns trash into education material. We buy cheap paint in bulk and store it in coke bottles. Our

blackboard and chalk are sometimes newspaper and a red permanent marker. Our office is Mercedes’

porch. An NGO with our scope of work should have a budget of $200,000, and we pull it off with

$20,000. How the (*%&^ do we do this? With the inspiration of the martyrs, a great love for project

humanity, and a heck of a lot of generous friends we call for favors ).

We need more money, but I don’t have the heart to ask for it. Please donate to Haiti and Chile to

people and organizations on the ground (email me for suggestions, I have friends both places). These

disasters affect us too; World Food Program is cutting off aid due to stretched resources; USAID cannot

do anything in Joya Grande cuz its budget must go to Haiti.

HUGE thanks to the Seton Institute for a $6,500 donation that gave us the boost we needed to

hire professionals. It has revolutionized our work. Thanks to Connie Tellman for donating her Yoga

Class profits to hire the painter. We would have cut the Art Therapy program without your

encouragement, inspiration, and donation. At the risk of embarrassing my parents, thanks for the car

upgrade. Having a ’99 Isuzu Rodeo rather than a ’93 Ford Pick-Up NOT ONLY means that we have

4x4 to still get to Joya Grande when it starts raining in May, but it means that I no longer get stranded

on the side of the road once a week. Thanks to all of you for your support financial and spiritual, and

personal. I believe in El Salvador because you believe in El Salvador.

Paz

Beth Tellman

Coordinator, Friends of Santiago Texacuangos (soon to be Collective CEIBA)

yoga and crayons= integrated disaster relief?

2010-03-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

)

Who would EVER think about donating yoga or crayons after a disaster?

Well, we would of course! We are a collective and a movement, and there is always a space and talent for everyone. So of course, when my mom came to visit, she had to give a yoga class in santa maria! above is my beautifully young looking and in shape mother (above right) and above left is a classic pictures of mercedes, giggling and nearly toppling over with glee. Mental health is EXTREMELY important after a disaster, and even one yoga session that can give women tools to relax and relieve stress goes really, really far.

Trauma therapy is seriously needed. In Joya Grande, we began our workshops February 25, after working hard to organize a large community meetings Feb 22. Joya Grande is the community most affected by the disaster in our area, and we organized there first. We are working with 28 farmers to rebuild crops, 20 women and men to work on community organization, 20 children in a youth formation/mental health project, and 20 children in a painting/therapy school. Above pictures show Don Pedro announcing our visit, as well as children signing up for painting classes.

There are over 1,000 people in joya grande, but we prioritized the most affected families for our programs. We let the community board of directors decide who would benefit most; and this was verified as I gave a tour of Joya Grande to Nancy and David (two volunteer missionary movement volunteers who decided to retire in el salvador...REALLY rad people). Mary Cruz (13) and her brother Anderson (8) gave us a tour. We passed the shelters, the temporary housing, the broken houses, and I recognized the children in most. I could name them. I could talk about what they drew as thier favorite secret place.

I want to hilite Mary Cruz. The freckly girl above is shown with her family. and with the place her house used to be. Her father is a fisherman and a farmer, and they lost their entire house, forced to squeeze their family of 4 into one room they rented from her older sister. Last weekend, the mennonites built them a temporary shelter made out of tin. Totally better than no house right? well...

Anderson (8yrs) gave us his version. The house is too small. My stuff doesnt fit. I dont have any toys. we have to sleep on the floor cuz its so small. we even rented two rooms, paying 36 dollars a month to put our clothes in. i dont like my new house. i miss my old house. it was big and i could play there. when it rained i got so scared. i could move my legs. my brother went to my neighbors house and we found 3 dead bodies. My brother saw my neighbor-friend who is 4 in the mud-river and my brother saved him. That is when my legs stopped working. I thought he was going to die. My legs still hurt sometimes when I think about it.....
*my translation from Norma, a childhood psychologist, who listened to Anderson's story, crying crouched on the ground as he whispered into her ear...

The pictures above show Mary Cruz with her family, with her picture of her favorite place (lago de ilopango), what she wants to learn in the workshop (she hopes to learn animation like theatre and to draw and many more animation like stuff), and the picture where her house used to be.

Mary Cruz LOVED the art-animation therapy class. She is TOTALLY bringing her 18 year old sister next week. She also told me that her little brother, Anderson, really needs help. He is sad a lot now.....

Finally, thanks to Norma, there is something for Anderson too.
Norma is shown above with a camara. She is one of those amazing salvadoran women with a revolutionary spirit so strong you can't believe she's real. Norma is a psychologist, and decided that instead of applying for money for psychologist to do trauma therapy, why don't salvadoran youth do trauma therapy? She wrote a project through CIPJES (coordination group for salvadoran youth organizations) and got the funding to train 20 youth across in the country in trauma therapy, and then send them out to shelters across the country giving psychological attention to children ages 6-12. We sent a member of our group, Jonathan Velasquez (22) who is fresh outta law school and aspiring poet, to Norma's training.

Norma tried to go to the mayor office in Santiago Texacuangos to ask for information about Joya Grande. She was turned away. Thus, our collective (amigos de santiago texacuangos) has become the coordinating group for children's trauma therapy in joya grande.

Thanks to your funding, we are arranging the transportation for the young therapist to Joya Grande every saturday for the next few months. I am so proud to work with Salvadorans like Norma, and support her amazing ideas and work.

Crayons. Most of the work of children's therapy is done with crayons. Anderson will draw his story- he wont ever have to speak. Art is a way of liberating pain without sending the child back into shock. Its fascinating.

Last week Jonathan and I skyped Jenna Knapp's peacebuilding class at Notre Dame about Trauma Therapy and Integrated Disaster Relief. I was amazed at the depth of the questions from the students. I am amazed at Jenna for organizing them. But most of all, I was struck by the final questions from the professor. Do you take time for reflection?

I blog of course, I do yoga. But what REALLY makes me pause and reflect are people. Mary Cruz and her freckles stop me in my tracks- when we ask her to draw the place that she liked the most- where she felt good and safe and warm, she drew the lake. The lake is her home. She doesn't want to move to gang-filled shangallo (where the mayor's office proposed her family to move). She loves her home.

Thanks so much for supporting our version of "integrated" disaster relief. Crayons. Reconstruction then, mean we no longer feed bodies. We feed creativity. We cannot teach broken spirits to fly again, but we can give them the space and time in which to practice, and perhaps a few tips along the way....

Physical Therapy and Risk Maps

2010-02-17T14:08:00.000-08:00

My posts come less frequently and the pause is longer-which is right in line with the new phase of reconstruction. Although not as quick-moving as the disaster, there is still TONS going on and lots to do. My interesting news from the past weeks was the discovery of risk maps and municipal disaster prevention plans done my swiss NGO COSUDES and the National University. Red areas on the map to your left mean DONT LIVE HERE. Of course, lots of people live there. and some of them died. There are maps like this done for EVERY part of the nov. 7th disaster area. The maps and plans were presented to mayors in each area in 2003. Of course, none of the prevention details were put into place. maps ignored and not shared with any local citizens. When i showed this information to people in Santiago, they were apalled and shocked. How could this life saving information be hidden from them?

I hope to disseminate this information and work with the national university to update the maps and plans. This is especially important since the local government wants to move EVERYONE out of Joya Grande to a very dangerous neighborhood. Interestingly enough, japanese investors want to build a tourist center on the lake. Is the government trying to keep its citizens safe? is there a backdoor business deal going on? its hard to say, but whats for sure is that the people don't want to leave if they don't have to. risk maps can be very, very powerful...

As we move into our official reconstruction programming (agriculture, art therapy (poetry and painting), community organizing, and mental health),we plan to work for 9 months. We think the money will run out by then, but also we may be a REAL legal NGO if we can find the funds and get the grants. Time will tell.

Until then, we will accompany about 100 people in 3 communities in our 4 programs. Hopefully, by the end of 9 months communities can write thier own disaster prevention proposals to the red cross, for example. in 9 months, we hope to move from recovery to prevention.

Finally, I want to highlight Alexis, who came and did physical therapy for a week in Santa Maria. When she emailed me in January and asked if she could help i resound en E-shouted YESSSS!
We all have something to offer these communities. In november and december it was our arms and legs, but now it is our special skills. unfortunately, we could not work with alexis in unorganized communities like joya grande which got us thinking...

1. organized communities get more aid and are better to work with.
2. NGO that need results like to work with them.
3. unorganized communities are unfairly disadvantaged. who will help them organize?
4. WE WILL!!!

Daughters of Charity came to build houses in Santa Maria (the organized community) as a pilot project. The explained to us that while joya grande needs houses more urgently, santa maria was easier to work in because the community would collaborate. Awesome for Santa Maria. But the rest? Guess we gotta get to organizing!
Thanks to alexis for volunteering!

Next Disaster Tour- USAID in Joya Grande Jan. 26th

2010-02-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

Disaster Tour, Episode 2. We again find ourselves in the chaos of Joya Grande. This time, instead of college kids, its USAID. But first, HOW USAID came to us in the first place....

Nearly one week after the disaster, mid november, my father, bill tellman, wrote indiana senator evan bayh to see if the U.S embassy could get me food and water. January 18, nearly 2 months later, I recieve this correspondance from USAID, El Salvador. Democracy may be slow, but my father´s request did trickle down from the legislature to the US embassy here in El Salvador. It took 2 months, but to my astonishment, actually worked. Moral of the story- your senators listen to you, albiet slowly. Bayh for president. now back to the show:

Beth,

Please see below reply from the USAID in El Salvador in response to Senator Bayh’s inquiry on you and your father’s behalf. I trust the information is helpful to you. If you have any further questions, let us know.

Karen E. Railing
Director of Constituent Services
U.S. Senator Evan Bayh
10 West Market Street, Suite 1650
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204

Dear Senator Bayh,
Thank you for your e-mail correspondence concerning the request by Dr. William Tillman and his daughter Elizabeth Tillman, a Fullbright Scholar working in El Salvador, to assist Salvadorans in the community of Santa Maria of Santiago Texacuangos.

The disaster that struck El Salvador on November 9 was disastrous for the families who were startled during the night when severe flash floods brought mud, boulders and trees crashing into their homes and communities. The flooding not only destroyed houses and schools, it also washed out bridges and roads, cutting key economic arteries.

The U.S. government, largely through USAID and DOD South Command (SouthCom) responded immediately flying in emergency food, water and supplies for temporary shelters from OFDA warehouses in Miami. Our response was so immediate that the United States has been recognized by the Salvadoran Government as being the first foreign government to reach isolated communities after the flooding.

Attached is a spreadsheet we prepared at the request of the Secretary of State showing 1) what we are currently doing with the financial resources in place, 2) what we, in consultation with the Salvadoran Government, determined to be highest priority needs if additional funds from OFDA, DOD and the Appropriators could be made available, and 3) other priorities that could be addressed if even more funding were made available.

State cable 09 SANSALVADOR 1117, dated December 23, 2009, formally requested additional financial resources to assist the thousands of families affected and to help El Salvador rebuild key economic infrastructure.

After the tragic events in Haiti this past week, it is reasonable to assume that our request for additional disaster assistance funds will not be addressed. While the magnitude is not nearly as great as the earthquake in Haiti, that is of little comfort to the families who are still homeless and without a means of sustaining themselves. SouthCom continues to implement small humanitarian assistance activities with funds they have and USAID has reprogrammed an additional $1.3 million dollars of ongoing activities to assist the families in greatest need.

We will contact Ms. Elizabeth Tillman to explore ways of collaborating with her, but please understand that the needs are great and our resources are few.

Sincerely,

Larry H. Brady
Director
USAID/El Salvador

Back to the scene. Tuesday, January 26th, I get a phone call at 10am.
Beth Tellman, This is Michelle from USAID...can you meet us in Joya Grande in 30 minutes?
I´ve just rolled out of bed, watered the tomato plants and put the coffee on...and Joya Grande is AT LEAST a 45 minute drive if you follow the rules...
Of course, Michelle, I would be happy to! I´ve got a 93 ford ranger. See you at the shelter ASAP.
Whew! gotta hop in the shower and get out there. when an NGO or organization contacts you in disaster relief world, you always say yes. it it generally a last minute request, and totally out of your way and schedule, but you HAVE to make it work. its a race to see who can catch the open hand. organized communities run fastest. communities with an NGO to advocate for them run faster still. Epicenters of disasters that attract media attention dont even have to ask- help comes to them, solicited or not.
So, when USAID calls you out of the blue, you make it work. We dont have media, we dont have an NGO, and we dont even have very organized communities (tho this is changing, hopefully quickly). Santiago Texacuangos just keeps getting bumped down the aid list. Sometimes for good reason. Obviously, that fact that the World Food Program cut off aid to our communities makes sense if the food goes to Haiti. Clearly, the right decision.
Or is it?
What if we took food from the RICH and gave it to Haiti, instead of from the OTHER DISASTER VICTIMS?? Why do we have to cut another slice of the pie from the poor. Its the small sliver! We all need to make sacrifices to get Haiti back on its knees (and then its feet), but should the hungry feed the hungry?
The point is, USAID came. They saw the tarp houses (2 of them), they heard familes talk about corruption and being victmized. The mayor office here uses the homeless to get international aid to build homes for the mayor´s friends who already have homes. This sparked an interesting discussion amongst the three USAID reps (see, this is why we should do development thru trustworthy NGOs like Save the Children. - No, you have to work with the local government. this is a democracy and we gotta try and make it work).
I see both sides. Too much NGO power takes away democratic agency. Working with a corrupt local government is a waste of resources. What to do?

USAID was pretty shocked at the complete lack of local government support. Apparantly, other local govs, like Ilopango, are doing a much better job. not stellar, but better.

as we walked past destroyed homes and the shelter with Jesus, a member of the Junta Directive and my contact in Joya Grande, everyone (including Jesus) kept asking how USAID would help. will they build us homes? a road? crops?

No, No, and Probabaly not. USAID got denied its request for extra El Salv funding in light of Haiti. And the fund they do have will go to San Vicente, or La Paz, like all the rest of the international aid and reconstruction.

Michelle writes me the day after the tour:

Thanks a lot for dropping everything and meeting us in Joya Grande and for the insightful discussion on what is really happening on the ground. Your commitment and initiative is really impressive and the community is so lucky to have you as their advocate.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this but USAID did provide a number of relief supplies in many impacted locations and USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance recently awarded Save the Children a grant to work for six months doing recovery activities in various communities although their target area is in La Paz, Cuscatlan and other departnments, not in Santiago Texacuango, so your efforts are very important there.

Well. Here I am. my dying truck (in the last 2 weeks, i have bought a new battery, alternator, gas pump AND still have to change the clutch), my rag tag team (quickly turning professional, as we expect to interview an organic agronomist to hire to run our food security program part time cuz that is what money allows for), and my 30 communities, 3 of which we can afford to work in due to budget limitations. ahh the days when I thought $20,000 was a lot of money...

But here we are. with recycled materials, almost all volunteer labor, and visitors from boston college to USAID. We are a movement, and we ain´t stopping anytime soon...

This is MY house (tent #7)

2010-01-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

He took my hand, and we ran down the dirt path separating rows of tents. The green tents (which looked like the kind of thing my family camps in on the bank of some indiana river for one night, except these tents are smaller) are actually called "shelter boxes." Donated by the Rotary Club, these green shelter boxes have been the home for 67 families from Verapaz since...November 2009. Verapaz would be what I call "ground zero" of hurricane IDA. Definately the hardest hit, basically a chunk of the San Vicente volcano buried the town and its roads and bridges and some of its people.

For Aid purposes, a refugee camp is super efficient. Families all in need of....everything...are in one place. And they do eat three times a day. And doctors and psychologists come. Basic needs are definately covered, but still, who wants to live in a tent city? And WHEN will someone help build something better.

History tells us that it could be next week, or it could be never. On the way to Verapaz, I drive my San Martin, which has a little neighborhood where the most common construction material is cardboard and plastic. Trashbag homes became the temporary solution in 2001. Its 2010, and the temporary homes became permanent, as they often do here.

Manuel, 6 years old, doesnt understand, and frankly, does not care about that political back story. Manuel lives in Tent #7. That is his home, and he is darn proud of it. Manuel became my friend during a trauma therapy session, and grabbed my shirt as I walked towards the car to go back to my San Salvador life. "You can't leave yet."

And he drags me to his home, down the dusty path past dozens of other families, to tent #7. There is a blue woman sitting outside, who refuses to meet my eyes. Manuel's mother. "My grandfather sleeps here!" Manuel's dirty finger waves towards one corner of the tent, next to pots and pans.

The car starts. I run back, leaving Manuel at his home, tent #7, and he grabs me again "I want you to stay..."

Verapaz shelter was choatic and disorganized. the kids were unusually violent. in our van, a psychologist was trying to placate a screaming woman. What happened to her? Descompensando. What? Descompensando, you know, she lost it, she is out of her mind and body and place, shes crying and screaming, she is emotionally sick.

Verapaz has food and water. Verapaz does not have peace, organization, or much happiness. How the hell do you reconstruct THAT?

Haiti- Think Before you Donate, but Do Donate

2010-01-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

Today there was a 6.0 earthquake in Guatemala. It fell as a 3.0 here in San Salvador when it woke me up this morning. After gathering my wits and realizing it was just a little tremble, relatively, I again thought about Haiti.

I cannot impress upon the chaos and insanity of the landslides in El Salvador that killed only 200. And it seriously felt like the apocaplyse. and is still pretty chaotic for thousands of families, but i will leave that to another blog post.

Haiti is poorer than El Salvador. The only country more deforested than El Salvador in this hemisphere. This earthquake, with a death toll of 200,000, is one of the worst unnatural disasters the world has ever seen. Again, there is no natural disaster. A 7.0 earthquake does not have to kill 200,000 people. The technology to build earthquake proof buildings has existed since the Mexico City quake in 1986. The technology is there, the money has never been for Haiti.

We must ask ourselves: If an earthquake like this happened..in say...Philly. Would 200,000 die? would the government fall apart? WHY did this happen to HAITI?!?!

My experience in El Salvador tells ms that small NGOs could use donations well- small NGOs usually can get to folks fastest. larger NGOs come in later. My NGO of choice is Visitation Hospital. if you live in the indianapolis area, send checks to:

Joe Zelenka

251 W. 49th Street

Indianapolis, IN 46208

jze@att.net

make checks payable to St. Thomas Aquinas/Haiti Fund or Visitation Hospital (it's in Haiti)

He and a group totaling 10 are planning to go there in February. He has a relationship with a church there and also is on the board and involved with Visitation Hospital. I have been to his fundraisers. These people know Haiti well, and are sending aid to hospital in remote areas with thier trusted contacts.

If you want to donate online, I suggest Partners in Health:

anyone who has read Paul Farmer's Mountains Beyond Mountains knows that this NGO (founded by him) has a long history in Haiti, is culturally sensitive, is into social justice etc.

Haiti has another 6.0 aftershock as of the morning of Jan. 20- the situation is probabaly a million times more dire than the news can possibly transmit.

I think we should critical reflect upon US's involvement in Haiti relief given its political history. I have mixed feelings about this obama-clinton-bush fund. First, the US controlling the airstrip and most of the aid as well as occupying the country I do not deem appropriate. Thus is NOT the job of the US, it is the job of the UN.

France and several other countries and NGOS (like doctors without borders) have expressed their discontent:

Should US troops get priority landing before food and water supplies? Doctors without Borders had thier plane turned away 5 times, forcing doctors undertake emergency amputations with saws. While true that the airport has no tower, is tiny, and Haiti is a chaotic mess, it does seem bizarre that US troops are making it in on time and French doctors are not. More investigation is required before serious accusations leveled, but I think this fact does invite questioning.

Is the US more efficient than the UN? Maybe. Does that mean the US should be controlling the relief effort? Maybe. Would the US have a lot to gain economically by direct all reconstruction efforts to American companies? Absolutely.

Its a recession. and there are serious economic reasons for the US to control Haitian relief. We must critical read news of the US's humanitarian effort with that rather large grain of salt in mind.

I received a donation of $700 from Xavier University (in Cincy) Coffee Emporium. A fellow Brebeuf alum and El Salvador lover, Emma Cordes, organized her coffee shop to donate 25% of its funds to Santiago Texcuangos. Right before the Haitian Earthquake. I know Haiti must be exponentially worse, especially since the disaster here still continues for so many families. Like the 43 families in Joya Grande, kicked out of the shelter and living under trees,

which we will continue to support even though their government will not.

Thanks to Joe Heithaus for organzing DePauw kids to collect shampoo and medicine. It will go directly to the shelter housing 43 families as soon as I can get my little pick-up to start again without shaking violently (crossing fingers that mechanic works magic today). Thats part of relief in a developing country. You can get supplies, but could lack transport. or the contacts to figure out who needs help. which again, is why preparation is so important. disaster risk plans could have saved hundreds or thousands of lives in Haiti. Then again, having the money to build building properly would avoid the problem altogether. Someday..... when we efficiently translate human knowledge to human needs....?

I hope that the news keeps its eye on Haiti. and we keep our hearts with Haiti. to those alive buried beneath the rubble, to the unecessary deaths in the hospital while their life saving medicine circles aimlessly above thier heads like the flies festering on the carcasses of human barricades that lines the streets of Port au Prince. to the children who will die of diarrhea while clean water sits in an airport run by someone who has never heard of thier community. to the aid workers who wont sleep for the next few months, and when they do, thier sleep will be interrupted by the faces of dying women and children who lips are stained with blood from unquenchable thirst. I have seen this slice of life. it is unbearable. and haiti got the worst poker hand imaginable, dealing from a deck of cards missing all the aces and half the jacks. please donate. and before you donate, please think. but before you do that, please pray.

Boston College comes to Joya Grande

2010-01-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to El Salvador, Boston College students! First stop, on the margins of disaster, brought to you by hurricane Ida, we bring you the story of Joya Grande...

It might have been shocking, stepping off the airplane, into a van, and meeting a girl and her truck (and this time her brother, too!) alongside the highway and being told to jump in the back of a truck.

I loved the energy of this delegation- the nalgenes, the honest questions, the pride with which they introduced themselves in spanish, they way they giggled and squealed when I crossed the river in my truck (which is NOT four wheel drive). They turned what is normally a long dusty familiar drive into an adventure. I wish I could enter Joya Grande every time the way BC entered Joya Grande with an overwhelmed mixture of curiosity, sadness, and a whole lotta humanity.

This was the first major delegation of foreigners I have brought into Santiago Texacuangos that did not bring material relief. I've gotta admit that deep down, I wondered exactly what this would accomplish. Would the community feel as thought it was disaster tourism?

Of course, Mercedes was there. And Saulito (health promotor) and another member of the Junta Directiva of Joya Grande gave us the tour.

It had been awhile since I'd been to Joya Grande. Much has changed. Many NGOs have come in and out, dropping of small relief packages but never staying long enough to rebuild anything sustainable. The World Food Program has given food to nearly 200 families in Joya Grande that is supposed to last 30 days, thought we all know thin tortillas and meager portions will stretch the aid for months if it must be so. And almost everyone is back- families are rebuilding houses. There is new organization, a disaster committee, an agricultural committee, 20 temporary houses (read- permanent houses. this is el salvador) to be build by USAID. Things seem to have gotten better. Less apocalyptic.

Honestly, I had not been to Joya Grande in over a month. I feared that there would not be a tangible disaster to see. After all, it has been 2 months, and I have heard tons of NGOs have been there. Its in the news! The UN is involved...

Not to worry. My preoccupation with providing BC students an "impactful" experience dissolved the moment we began our tour. Joya Grande looks nearly the same. I could have taken the same shots of the same destroyed and falling over houses I took two months ago. The people hurt the same. Two months is not long enough to ease the pain of losses of entire families in the community. One four-year old boy lost his mother and two brothers. Will any magic number of months change his new facts of life as an orphan? The uncertainty is the same. We were shown hillsides washed away by IDA where crops used to be. Not only did the bean and corns go, but the topsoil went with it. The ministry of agriculture's official study concludes that crop land in Joya Grande is "uncultivatable." What do you say to a farmer who is told it is impossible to grow?

The frustration of the humanitarian crisis continues, and 40 families from Joya Grande are STILL in shelters on the other side of Lake Ilopango. School starts in a few weeks and these families will have to go. and where? into the 20 temporary homes USAID promised to build? The math doesnt compute. Then again, neither does the fact that El Salvador has twice as many gang members as it does policemen. Welcome to El Salvador, where the numbers match up all the wrong ways.

I am an amateur, and I definately did not know what to do when Mercedes dipped around a corner and invited us into a half destroyed home with an old woman sobbing in a hammock. I stopped translating as she pulled me close, cried into my hair, and asked me what would happen to her. ?.
She smelled like booze, and held on to me tightly as Mercedes caught a whiff and promptly led us back to the main road. "Please dont leave me..." She sobs and a rather confused group of students and several embarrassed Salvadorans exit the house.

Welcome to what reconstruction feels like, welcome to Joya Grande, welcome to El Salvador, welcome to the aftermath of a not so natural disaster anywhere and everywhere. It kinda feels like Katina. Olivia, BC student and NOLA native, nods in conclusion.

After thanks and applause, we quickly reboard the pick-ups and head home near nightfall. There was a stretch of road up to Mercedes's community just long enough for her to tell me malas noticias. "Saulito just told me they are trying to build a military base on Joya Grande and kick everyone out. Our government, our leftist FMLN government. Where will people go?"

?.

The future is uncertain. 2010 is gonna be a thriller. But one day at a time right? poco a poco we keep going. and January 7th, 2010, 3 Salvadorans and the girl with a truck got a heck of a lot of energy our of 20-ish eager Bostonians. Joya Grande got to tell its story to foreigners who deemed it worthy of recieving, of feeling, of questioning. This is not disaster tourism. This is exchanging sorrow for hope. Desolation for consolation. It's probably not a fair trade. But BC, thanks for your animo. We are really glad you came.

Christmas Convivio! and Thanks to Brebeuf Jesuit

2009-12-29T14:21:00.000-08:00

Feliz Navidad! And Happy New Year!

My apologies for a longer than usual lag in updates- I have been out of internet for some time due to holiday craziness in El Salvador....

Which of course, included some holiday craziness out in Santa Maria de la Esperanza! We wanted to celebrate life and solidarity as 2009 came to a close, so we planned a Christmas Convivio in the community, inviting other Salvadoran youth and families that have been so instrumental in delivering humanitarian aid and have given time to organizing their own communities in the reconstruction process.

The video above tells the story of a Father who lost his child. Through tears he expresses the lonliness he felt in his heart as he found his son amongst the mud that caked all of his personal belonging and his harvest for the year-his only source of income.

As he described the tragedy, he also celebrated the solidarity of this community as well as others who have come to support him and his family. For me, the hope he was able to express admist his personal tragedy was more impactful than his actue sadness. This happens alot in El Salvador- I get shocked and blinded by lights of hope i never expect to come out of the darkest corners of death, loss and suffering.

We brought a doctor (and bought tons of medicine), we brought salvadoran youth who read poetry, painted faces of the children, and danced with a drum. This was quite a low budget party- but we DID buy two pinatas and cheese to make enough pupusas for everyone. The junta directiva of Santa Maria (local governing board) pitched in with corn and beans and LOTS of women to grind corn and beans, to fry the pupusas, to make the salsa, to clean the plates of nearly 200 people. Everyone pitched in what they had, her hands, his poem, his knowledge of medicine, her ability to make children laugh and dance.
E
It was perfectly humble and joyful. It had food and laughter. And we celebrated solidarity and Christmas the Salvadoran way- not presents or toys or Santa. just each other and a whole lotta food and dance!

Finally, I owe a long overdue thanks to Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, Indiana. This will get personal. It is my alma mater, after all...and I dont just mean i went to highschool there- I mean Brebeuf is where I truly cultivated a love for all things social justice. If you have never been introduced to Jesuit Education, I strongly suggest you look up this amazing pedagogy (esp. if you have kids- i swear my children if i ever have them, will all go to jesuit schools). Brebeuf focuses on making its students "men and women for others." Indeed, the hallmark of a good jesuit education is based in the reality of our world- which as many of us know, is just as full of poverty and disease and corruption as it is full of family, love, and solidarity. Brebeuf taught me how to ORGANIZE. Well- really it was Father Obie, who pass away amidst teaching me how to lead the delegation of the School of the Americas protest. He was found minutes before the Indiana School of the Americas Watch meeting, which he hosted at Brebeuf. of course.

Brebeuf brought me to El Salvador the first time! It supported me and my parent's half-cracked idea of bringing a group of students on an El Salvador immersion trip. Brebeuf let us bring a group of teenangers to El Salvador, one of the most dangerous countries in the world

and Brebeuf still brings kids down to this blessed, struggling place. and of course, my little brother, with whom i had spent many an hour attempting to train him as social justice warrier, came thru. current brebeuf student michael tellman, with the support of my ever perserverant mother, rallied my alma mater to the tune of $3,500 bucks. The kids raised half the money dollar by dollar on a sweatpants day, and the alumni association matched the other half. And even more fun, they SKYPED me and mercedes. o, the joy and fire in mercedes response to the religion teacher who asked, "Why exactly are you speaking out against the Catholic Church?!?!"

I know you, Brebeuf, and I am very grateful. not just to your current generous donations, but for teaching me how to see, feel, and RESPOND to the world. To Mr. Kantz who taught me how to debate (argumentation tactics are ESSENTIAL when battling corruption and trying to organizing a social movement), Michael Christiana who helped me control my empathy and anger, Father Obie for forcing me to pay as much attention to detail of organizing as to the ethical rationale of organizing, to Mr. VanSlambrook who has never been afraid to be progressive, and to Mr. Brown who not only supported my first social justice project (guitar drive and classes at the Oaks Academy in "dodge city", the part of indy where you will most likely have to "dodge" from bullets- tho thanks to the Oaks Academy the area has much improved), but also challenged but conceptions of diversity beyond the colors that I thought I could see so clearly. there are many, many more wonderful teachers, mentors and students out there i could brag about endlessly.

O jesuit education. its not perfect, but its pretty damn good. mmm dont even get me started on Santa Clara.

Happy New Year! Go Jesuits! more updates when I get out of bed and into the field. as long as i dont have swine flu.... hehehe!

seriously michael, thanks. whatever you learn doing social justice at brebeuf will serve you more than any math, english, or spanish test you study for. reality is worth exploring and struggling with, I swear.

we are on NPR!

2009-12-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

Check out this AWESOME NPR piece done by my fellow fulbright and casa alum Chris Hallberg. Chris is a Marquette grad, focusing on a sociological-photography project here in El Salvador to explore interplay between identity and immigration of salvadoran youth.

http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=870

please read. its in incredible 6 minute piece on a day in the relief effort in Santa Cruz de la Vega, only 4 days after the storm.
here the pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/wuwm/sets/72157622890944295/

Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed the newsletter. email me if you didnt get a copy. ill figure out how to upload it here next week.

We are delivering food to hundreds of people this Christmas Eve. ill post about it in the next few days. Thanks to the Share Foundation for thier generous donation...
http://www.share-elsalvador.org/

Merry Christmas!

3 Projects!

2009-12-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

Before I launch into an explanation of our projects, I want to acknowledge several large donations we recieved this week. First, a $3,000 donation from the SHARE foundations was transfered to NGO Mujeres Transformando in nearby Santo Tomas. This enabled us put 100 families in a food aid program with CONFRAS (Confederations of Agrarian Reform Cooperatives). Mercedes and Beth's truck will deliver food grown by Salvadoran cooperatives. Double Whammy! Food for those who need it AND a boost to the local economy.

Big thanks to Xavier College Prep Highschool in California and St. Peter's Catholic School in Kansas City MO. Each of these schools organized HUGE fundraisers for Salvadorans! Obviously, I was blown away by the sheer $ amount of the fundraiser. However, more amazing I think is the solidarity and energy it took to organize something like that. The Media, NGOS, The World Food Program, and the Government all seem to have forgotten about Salvadorans affected by the storm. It is a bright light of hope for Salvadorans to know that students far away have not forgotten them. Mercedes is constantly excited at how many new friends El Salvador has made in the wake of the disaster. What a different world we would have if humanity always did this kind of stuff for each other...

I hope to get out an e-newsletter to all those who donated before Christmas (altho I wanted to send one out Dec. 7th...things have been nuts as always!)

However, I wanted to inform you of our direction as we moved towards reconstruction. Please feel free to email questions/suggestions/comments at friendsofsantamaria@gmail.com....

Preliminary Project Ideas: FRIENDS OF SANTIAGO TEXACUANGOS.

Summary: Heavy rains in El Salvador on November, 7th 2009 killed over 190 poor Salvadorans and have left 15,900 homeless. Friends of Santa Maria of Santiago Texacuangos wish to express their solidarity. Santa Maria as well as 20 other communities in the area are organizing their own recovery, we are ready to pitch in. We have come along way in the past month, mostly organizing immediate food and water relief. We have called every NGO we can, and traed to access government aid. We suceded in including 500 families in aid program with the World Food Program for 30 days starting December 15th. We estimate nearly 700 families need food that are NOT included in the program. We are trying to organize commnity to access aid in terms of repairing water, electricity, schools, and housing from the government. We want to focus our funds on immedite and life threatening needs (food and water) as well as programs that the government will not cover (like psychological attention). There is no local NGO in the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos. Our budding organization is all these people have. We promise to do the best we can with the resources we have.

PROGRAMS:

• FOOD SECURITY: This program would consist in filling the primary and urgent food and water needs of the communities (500 families) who are not covered by the World Food Program or covered by other NGOs. While we work to find institucional aid for these communities, we will fill immediate food needs. The second phase of this program would include workshops, technicians, fertilizar and other inputs needed to revive the agricultural systems destroyed in the hurricane. We will focus on organic agricultura, as it will simultaneaously stimulate local economic growth, reduce crop loss vulnerability as organic systems tend to withstand climatic stress, and will empower the community with new knowledge and tools to feed their familias.

Aproximate Duration: around 12 months (until next years harvest)

Methodology: Contract CLUSA (or another NGO if we can find a cheaper alternative) to assess crop damages and select the farmers who are in most need and most likely to succeed in the program (community leaders will help with selection: the idea is that if we cannot afford to support ALL farmers, we will Stara with those who are most likely to share knowledge and experience with others, thus multiplying impact of the Project. CLUSA will send a technician 2 days a week, and will run workshops about organic fertilizar, organic marketing, how to plan which crops where etc. The focus of the agricultura will be hedging risk for future climate stress, which will include building “live barriers” such as izote plants, to hold soil roots in a way the PREVENTS further landslides tos ave both crops, lives, and homes.

Proposal: $500/ farmer. We would like to begin with 50 farmers, which would cost $25,000. We are currently looking into alternatives for other programs that may cost less.

Program Supervisor: Beth Tellman, Sara Garcia

Program Counterpart: CLUSA? UNES?

• TRAUMA THERAPY: This program include therapy and psychological attention for inhabitants of communities affect by hurrican IDA, with the objective of helping people overcome post-event trauma. A team of psychologists and social workers will assess emocional health of the community and implement intervention work in groups. The goal is to move community members from being victims of a tragedy to becoming agents for change, uniting the community in a desire to work together.

• Metholodology: In addition to crisis intervention therapy (which lasts about 4 weeks), we hope to work for 6 months in a process of social-cultural animation. This would form a group of 20 representatives from 4-5 communities near santa maria. This would create a micro-region of communties who have leaders trained in emocional health in order to accompany thier own communities. This will also add to community resilience and adaptive capactiy in future disasters.

Project Duration: 6 months

Project Leader: Dany Portillo from CRISOL (Solidarity Group in Response to Crisis Intervention) , Support from Quino Caso Foundation (Jonathan Velásquez)

Presupuesto: $4,000 (to pay psychologists and social workers and for materials for workshops and intervention)

• COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND RISK MANAGEMENT: This program consists in organizing communities with a special attention to risk management. This program includes leadership workshops for local community leaders, a disaster prevention comité to prepare communities for future disaster with emergency planning, and democratic participation and political empowerment. The objective is to teach communities how to help themselves by contact internacional NGOs, manage community funds, and organize and demand aid from local government. This serves as a basis for community growth, and will be essential in maintaining good data collection (familia surveys, medical needs, setting and measuring reconstruction goals etc.)

Estimated Time: At least 4 months (would like to extend depend on success and available funds)

Methodology: Organize community meetings, leadership workshops with Mercedes. Send disaster comité members to other NGOs with experience in disaster prevention and risk management to aid in disaster emergency planning. Run surveys to identify and prioritize community needs. This will help monitor success of all projects, and serve as a platform for accessing aid from the local government (which is the only route to access internacional aid distributed by the goverment)

Project Leader: Mercedes Monge (community leader with experience in community organizing with Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Oscar Romero

Presupuesto: $1,400.00
(Mercedes’ salary will be set at 250/month. Other 100/month includes communication with cellphone, transportation, and workshop materials and fees)

a lot more corruption :( but a lot more solidarity :)

2009-12-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

(photo 3 is Uca student sara garcia helping unload packages for la bomba, santo tomas. first aid package three weeks after the storm; photo 2 is a child outside a shelter in santa cruz la vega, san francisco chinamequita; photo 1 is a child receiving a whole chicken for his family (casa program had leftover we got to donate!!). i could not get a good look at his faced because he couldnt stop smelling the chicken he was SO excited)

hola companer@s

sorry that it has been so long since the last post! I have been trying to wait until we gather needed evidence to document corruption- thus details will remain fuzzy.

However, we have evidence that the mayor's office has only been helping families that vote for the conservative political party. the most dire communities are deliberately left out of the municipal aid process, which unfortunately, is how to get access to tons of international aid. community leaders have been downright turned down for help. to make matters even more political, the mayor's office is labeling medicine bottle donations with stickers representing the political party. politizicing aid and discrimination based on religious and political preference is a human rights violations. the community leaders and developing a press release and organizing to go through legal processes to denounce this.

in addition, the priest of our parroquia was caught pretty red handed last week when caritas when to the communities to check a few id #s on his aid list. As it turns out, the names and #s on the list are...fake. these people do not exist. rumor and history tell me that he was expecting to distribute the aid himself, and thus have control to sell it (other allegations include the priest recently selling school supply donations). however, caritas figured out the scheme, and let us include more families on the World Food Program 30-day food program. We are very anxiously awaiting this aid that finally comes THIS WEEK! woo hoo!

I also want to report the awesome solidarity snippits of the past week:
First, thanks to brebeuf jesuit for skypeing myself and mercedes last week! She LOVED it and was telling community members ALL DAY how cool it was to see so many supportive faces. She especially loved the question about why she was upset at the catholic church...really both for me and for her it was an awesome infusion of solidarity energy. any other school/group of people who would like to skype me and mercedes is totally welcome- i translate and you get to ask questions live!

We really like being overwhelmed with solidarity.

The best tho, was friday night, when me and 2 UCA students (sara and Karla, Sara pictured above) and mercedes whole families (grandma and grandpa too) prepared over 100 aid packages because....
this NGO called circulo solidario dropped off aid in Santa Maria, which is on the world food program list. So instead of taking the aid (though it came before the world food program), the community voted to GIVE IT AWAY to other communities not on the world food program list. amazing. when those affected by the disaster give the little they have- and believe you me this was nearly everything they had for some families- to other disaster affected communities just a smidgen worse off...that kind of solidarity will make you cry in amazement at how beautiful and selfless humans can really be-if they choose.

Thus, I am supplementing the aid packages with your donations (mostly oil and sugar we lack) and going back out tommorrow with several salvadoran volunteers (jonathan and marvin) to deliver solidarity packages from victim of disaster to victim of disaster.

Finally, i want to report that our lil advisory group that has been meeting in san salvador weekly is trying to expand therapy, food security, and community organization. unfortunately, replanting and fixing crops for the next year costs $500 per farmer!!! meaning we can only help a small group- we are trying to get creative with how to cut costs tho...

reconstruction is really really expensive. but as we know, teaching people to fish is way more valuable than continueing to drop off fish in the community. teaching is just quite exepensive, and its hard for me to accept that we cannout help every one (1000 famlies) rebuild. we can help maybe 20 rebuild crops at this point.

sigh. we will do everything we can with the resource we have, and do it well. oscar romero always said that "we cannot do everything. and there is liberation in knowing that. but we can do one thing, and we can do it well."

Thanks to all of you for accompanying the pueblo of Santiago Texacuangos. as well as me and the other volunteers on this project (special word-up to danielle mackey, laura hershberger, cesar, jonathan velasquez, sara garcia, sam baker, and anne schafele whose help, free labor, sweat, and tears, has been ESSENTIAL on the ground in constant attention to this project).

we still need your energy, money, and prayers. any combination of those three will do. or just prayer even. we are pulling off quite the women led revolution in santiago texacuangos- which i am convinced is thanks to your positive energy. Salud Pues!

It has been one month.

2009-12-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

Beth, Sam and friends of Santa Maria,
Thank you for all of the work that you are doing. I know you're are doing your absolute best to be able to provide for and walk with Salvadorans while in the country. From the states, it feels as though there is so very little that we can do but spread news and gather our financial resources for those in need. As so many of you have written, this "disaster" is due only in part to the rains; more truthfully, those suffering have been most marginalized and simply forgotten by the senselessness of symbolic but oppressively controlling powers. In hopes that some images from the devastation can encourage more folks to donate, I share these photos from the time we did relief work last month, three days after the rains. En solidaridad, animo y adelante, Katy

The photos below are just a few of the images that we saw when we first arrived to the communities on the way to Lago Ilopango. (Below) Is the road we traveled to get down to folks living nearest to the lake, with the support from Friends of Santa Maria many of these roads are now cleared).

(Above) When we arrived to the community so ironically named La Joya Grande--the 'Great Gem' or in another sense 'Great Pride', these were the first things that we saw. Men risking death from dehydration decided to stay at their homes in order to keep neighbors from looting their sheet metal and corrugated tin used for walls and roofing. Although it lost one of is lateral walls, the house that is immediately to the left of the blue house still had occupants trying to live in it.

These were people's homes:

(Below) Surrounded by mountains and at an altitude of only 1,450 ft, Lago Ilopango rests in the crater of an extinct volcano. It is a basin for drainage and run-off water from rains in the hillside communities above. What appears to be a road above is a small creek during the rainy season, but when the rains and subsequent mudslides came, it became a white water river pulling all of the debris above with it and knocking over houses in its path.

(Right) Mudslides like this one carved their way down to not only the basin of the lake, but the flatter lands where most local farmers were growing their beans and corn. Both of which would provide not just food stuffs but the only income some campesinos would generate.

Unnatural Disasters- By Maggie Mattaini

2009-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Maggie is living in El Salvador working with VMM (Volunteer Missionary Movement) for 2 years. Maggie helps with violence prevention workshops, teaches math and english classes, tutors in math, and care for children whose mother's are at women's workshops in a catholic parish in Mejicanos, a violent neighborhood in San Salvador. Maggie spent a saturday delivering supplies to communities in Santiago Texacuangos...this is her reflection (Taken from maggie's El Salvador newsletter, Sopita's Stories, issue 2 dec. 6 2009)

Unnatural Disasters

On November 7th, El Salvador was pounded by strong rains. Although the storm wasn’t strong enough to merit a name, it dropped as much rain on the country in one day as Hurricane Mitch did in four days in 2005. The rain caused floods and mudslides across the country, and left nearly 200 people dead and thousands homeless. A perfect example of a natural disaster, right?

Wrong. What happened in El Salvador was far from “natural.” True, the rains were natural and totally outside of the control of humans (putting aside concerns that global warming has affected these sorts of storms). However, the effect of those rains was not natural. Every one of those deaths was unnatural and unnecessary. It was the injustice and poverty that leaves the majority of Salvadorans vulnerable to such natural phenomena that really killed all of those people.

People in El Salvador build houses in high-risk areas, knowing the dangers, because they can’t afford to build elsewhere. They build houses out of tarps, sheet metal, and plastic because they can’t afford proper building materials. Even those houses built with cement or bricks often lack the appropriate reinforcement because materials like iron bars are too expensive. Then, when the disaster happens, roads which are poor in the best conditions become impassible and aid only reaches easily accessible communities.

After the rains, my friend and fellow Casa alum Beth Tellman, here for a year on a Fulbright scholarship, began organizing alongside other US citizens living here to help out communities who were affected by the rains in the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos. Since there are no large NGOs working in the region, Beth and her friends were (and at the moment still are) the only help that some of the communities had received. To learn more about her work and the situation of those communities, visit her blog at www.friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com.

One Saturday, I went out with Beth and her team of Salvadorans and US citizens. In the morning we went to the store and used donations from people across the United States to buy as many supplies as we could fit in her truck - food, soap, toothpaste, candles, matches, and other such items. Then we drove out to the FMLN building in Santiago Texacuangos where we joined a team of FMLN volunteers to sort out the donations. Finally, we drove out to distribute the supplies to a community which had yet to receive any outside help, even two weeks after the rains.

This community had lost four members that night - an entire family: mother, father, and two children, one nine years old and the other ten months. We met the woman’s brother, who showed us the pictures of the family that he had set up in a shrine to the victims. Then he brought us to the house where the family had lived. Since the strongest rains had come between 1 and 2 a.m., the family had been killed in their sleep. In the wreckage of the house, we could still see the beds where the family had been sleeping, mangled buckets, pages of the children’s books, and pieces of broken toys.

It was heartbreaking, standing there in the ruins of the house littered with the shattered remains of the family’s life, listening to this man tell us about his sister and her family. The hardest part was knowing that their deaths could have been prevented. The family lived on the side of a mountain, at a high risk of mudslides. To protect themselves, they had built a retaining wall to hold back the hill above them. These walls are built from cinderblocks and reinforced with iron bars, which provide the majority of the strength for the walls. However, since iron is expensive, this wall, like so many throughout El Salvador, was built with far fewer bars than necessary. Above the house, at the top of the hill, the construction of a retreat house was underway. However, the workers clearly had little training and had inadvertently diverted water flows, creating a large pool of water at the top of the hill on the night of the rains. In the end, the dirt gave way, sending the water and mud rushing down the hill, through the weak retaining wall and onto the house below.

El Salvador has no zoning laws, no building codes (at least not ones that are enforced), no protection for people like this family. Their poverty prevented them from building in a safer place or from building stronger structures to protect themselves. And of course, this family was not a unique case. Their story was repeated many times throughout the country that night. Just in that community, we saw many families had barely escaped death. Many houses had lost walls or roofs. Others, perched at the top of a cliff, had their back yards literally slide away down the mountain. Another 5 feet and their houses would have fallen as well.

All across El Salvador, there are millions of people who are similarly vulnerable to natural phenomena. The question is when we will stop picking up the pieces of people’s lives and start preventing the disasters.

...its the blood of the martyrs...

2009-12-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

Many of you know the story of El Salvador's martyers well. I knew the story too, but I did not understand what it meant, really, until Dec. 2 2009.

On this day, about 30 years ago, 4 churchwoman, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorthy Kazel were kidnapped, raped, and killed for fighting for justice in El Salvador. But you see, altho they died, they were reborn in the Salvadoran people.

And before they died, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke taught Mercedes Monge about human dignity. They taught her to organize youth and to fight for justice up in Chalatenango in the 70s. They even helped her (and dozens of other families) to relocate to Santa Maria de la Esperanza, Santiago Texacuangos, when Chalatenango became too dangerous for women and children during the war. Maura and Ita bought land for this community, and taught them to farm organically, collectively, together. They founded an ecclesial comunidad de base with the guidance of Oscar Romero, one of many communities founded in the spirit of people with God-given dignity, a community that does justice.

Mercedes knew Romero. She ate tortillas with him in the mountains of chalate, when he told her never to lose hope (todo va a salir bien, hija). He told her the fight for justice is like birthing a baby. It is painful, but it will give light to something more beautiful that you could possibly imagine. new life.

As this story was told to be Dec. 2 , 2009, I finally understood Dec. 2 1980. At the risk of getting personal, let me confess to you that I have not REALLY believed in God in years. But Dec. 2, 2009, I found myself praying to Oscar Romero in a taxi in San Salvador traffic on the way to the Cartias office at the arzobispado. I was all out of hope. I had contact every NGO and person I knew to get food aid in an organized way, and it seemed to be a waste of time with only dead ends. I had nothing- I didnt even have hope. But I had the martyrs.

It was then I realized that the martyrs maybe one of the only things Salvadoran have to keep them going. There may be some who can only get out of bed in the morning because of the inspiration of the martyrs. There are others who tirelessly fight for justice, and the energy comes from the martyrs.

As I sat crying with Mercedes after our frustrating Cartias meeting, her friend took her hands and squeezed them. Tear rolling down her face, Mercedes told us she was all used up. She was tired. So many nights, she would come home to her house of nothing and lay down on a wooden bedframe, because she had given all her mattresses and blankets away. She had given away her food and water. All her energy. Everything.
Alma let her unload her pains, and then she squeezed Mercedes's hands, "Mercedes, Romero gave us his life."

A conservative church and conservative priest has broken the comunidades de base. It has actually painted over the Romero murals on the church wall. It not only shuts Mercedes out of the church and divides communities, but it publicly denounces her in mass of all places.

But on Dec. 2, 2009, Mercedes remembered that we have something the others do not have. We have Romero, Maura, and Ita. We have Diosito on our side. And truth. and the poor. and you!

Last night, nearly 40 people gathered in a classroom in santiago texacuangos. It was a mix of community leaders, me, 2 salvadorans from morazon (my personal friends and amigos in la lucha), and 3 members of the comunidad de base san antonio abad here in San Salvador. Of course, Mercedes and the community leaders stole the whole show. as it should be. "romero will give me words," mercedes comments before the meeting.

Mercedes told the stories of aid corruption with the church and mayor's office. She apologized that the leaders had worked so hard to gather information only to come empty handed to they hungry communities (expect for the food your donations have bought and a handful of NGOs that have done food drops once or twice. remember, the salvadoran government has declared the emergency to be "over").

However, the leaders were not to be defeated. Every single person in that room spoke his or her opinion. The affirmation that "we must be united in solidarity" that "if i ever had bad drama with any of you I am leaving it behind. we are together or we are nobody." "Has this country forgotten the martyrs'? I havent!!"
Among other inspirational words. I happily sat in the background, bursting with pride and the revolution Mercedes had begun. Let the people organize. Let them rewrite the letter Jonathan (one of our youth group members that has been volunteering here in San Salvador) wrote to the mayor's office because they want a better letter to sign and give THEMSELVES to the mayor. empowerment. Mercedes and I create space in a meeting, and the leaders realize thier own power and do the work. It was a moment of incredible hope, to see people who had lost hope regain it again and realize their own power. The martyrs are alive.

I am often asked my Salvadorans and North Americans alike- What is so special about El Salvador?

Good question. I have been to a lot of countries, a lot of developing worlds. El Salvador somehow occupies a bigger space in my heart, and I, as well as many of my young NorthAmerican friends, have spent hours wondering WHY!

A good friend of mine, Greg Stock, once asked Trena Yonker-Stalz, co-director of the Casa de la Solidaridad Program, What was so special about El Salvador?

"It's blood of the martyrs," She whispers.

Dec. 2nd, 2009, 29 years after 4 Northamerican church women were martyrs, I am finally beginning to understand.

Ita Ford, presente. Maura Clarke, presente. We feel your presence in Santiago Texacuangos. Please don't leave us.

RE: lo mas vello de la vida es tener amigos y amigas .

2009-12-03T09:57:00.001-08:00

hala amigas y amigos , es un gusto comunicarles , este dia jueves tenemos reunion con lideres comunitarios de santiago texacuangos , para explicar dificultades con el saserdote de la lo calidad que no tomo en cuenta los referentes comunitarios para el programa ,MUNDIAL DE ALIMENTOS PARA LOS DAMNIFICADOS de la tormenta IDA, SOLO por no con partir, ideologías y o credo religioso , esto es una violacion a los derechos humanos ante un desastre o una calamidad publica no se de ve marginar a las personas por su condicion religiosa o ideología politica ,
nos a indignado amuhos amigos y amigas solidarias con santiago texacuangos por esta actitud in humana que han de mostrado el jerarca catolico, y no vasto que lo dijo en la misa que las personas que pediamos ayudas eramos para aprovecharnos de las ayudas ,solo los lideres pueden dar tes timoneo y las comunidades a las que representamos que es injusta esta acusacion .
por esta razón estamos asiendo una denuncia publica por que es nesesario ponerles paro a la corrección que se dan en los que predican en un dios falso , y no en el dios de la vida y de los pobres,
sabemos que monseñor Romero acompaña a su pueblo que lucha por la justicia de un pueblo oprimido DURANTE MUCHOS AÑOS .

ayudar a los pobres a que tengan un poco de comida es ser revoltoso dar todo las energias físicas y emocional para el servicio de la gente ,es ser peligrosa ,todos los que me conocen saben que vengo luchando durante muchos años por los mas pobres de los pobres y tengo testimonio de mi entrega in condisional ,por esta razón les pido solidaridad con migo y con mi pueblo que sufre toda clase de miserias DIOS ESTA AQUI EN CADA SER HUMANO QUE RES PIRA .

importantes , gracias por construir un reino de dios de verdad , monseñor nos ilumine y nos de sabiduría para hacer bien las cosas y actuar con justicia , ya es tiempo que el pueblo se levante ante tanta injusticias y corrección, de los grandes poderes economicos , y religiosos que han mantenido sus privilegios mientras que los pobres se mueren de a hambre. que dios nos iluminé y monseñor romero de si a que el reino de DIOS SE CONSTRUYE en cada ser humano y en el pueblo pobre por eso luchamos todas y todos los que creen el la justicia verdadera , gracias por estar con migo y el pueblo ,

mercdes monge.

no podemos permitir corrupcion nunca mas

2009-12-01T08:05:00.001-08:00

La corrupcion es peor que el odio

bueno, solo quiero comentarles los niveles de corrupcion que he visto en la iglesia catolica de Santiago Texacuango , verdaderamente una burla a la fe cristiana y el dogma religioso de ayudar al progimo, resulta que los amigos de Santa Maria atravez de Beth Tellman y Mercedez, recibieron instrucciones de CRS de recopilar los numeros de DUI de cada lider de familia de cada comunidad que esta afectada para recibir la ayuda que esta canalizando CRS atraves de la ONU, entonces comenzo la historia, un problema contactar a cada lider comunitario pero al fin se contactaron, y cada lider consiguio los datos necesarios de su comunidad, lo que quiere decir que no durmieron toda la noche debido a que las casas de cada habitante estan retiradas una de la otra y hay comunidades con numerosas familias, entonces al ia siguiente se habian convocado a una reunion donde estaria el sacerdote de la localidad, debido a que CRS solo puede trabajar con iglesias cosa que creo es una enorme equivocacion pues muchas veces como esta los sacerdote no tienen la capacidad ni el conocimiento de las realidades de las comunidades, entonces, los lideres se hicieron presentes a la reunion desde las ocho de la manana a pesar que la reunion esaba programada para las nueve, la gente del Arsobispado llego a las diez de la manana, para mpezar una falta de respeto a los lideres comunitarios que habian caminado tres o cuatro horas a pie para llegar a la reunion, al inciar la reunion, el sacerdote local salio de su escondite por que tiene miedo a los lideres comunitarios y a la comunidad debido a que en muchas ocaciones no los toma en cuanta y solo toma en cuenta a personas allegadas a su estructura y a la de la alcadia, cuando la gente me comento esto no podia creer, pero ahora veo que es cierto, que personas como este sacerdote son una verguenza para la comunidad, la fe religiosa y la raza humana, bueno inicio la reunion y el sacerdte salio de su escondite donde paso todo el tiempo sin enfrentar a los lideres, salio acompanado de personas que segun eran lideres comunitarios pero la verdad es que eran sus amigos y allegados a la iglesia, quienes habian elaborado una lista biciada y sin tomar en cuenta la gente que de verdad lo necesita,entonces el sacerdote literalmente hecho de la reunion a todos los lideres comunitarios y a Mercedez, no les dejo participar en la reunion a ecepcion de la gente que el habia comvocado, este frente las narices de las personas del arsobispado quienes no dijieron nada y permitieron que la gente fuera descriminada y la corrupcion sonriera, que verguenza tambien por esta gente que al final no hace bien su trabajo y dicen profesar el bien.

la unica persona que pudo entrar fue ELizabeth, para empezar no es de la comunidad, no conoce la realidad de todas las comunidades a pesar que lleva dos semanas trabajando duro en el lugar llevando comida y agua y tratando de organizar las comunidades, al preguntarle al sacerdote por que no dejaba que entraran los lideres y no dio una respuesta con sentido, lueo empezo a quitar gentes de las listas como si se tratara de un juego de azar, este si este no, este es mi amigo este no, luego, pregunto si habia lider de la comunidad los puentes y no habia entonces quito a esta comunidad pero afuera estaba el lider de la comunidad y no le dejaron entrar, esto se llama corrupcion, violacion a los derechos humanos que gozan de proteccion mundial , discriminacion o por credo religios, abuso de poder y sobre todo falta de etica y conciencia social, es lamentable que ONGs internacionales y organismos internacionales como el Programa Mundial de Alimentos no tenga el conocimiento minimo de la realidad de las comunidades afectadas y peor aun canalizen su dinero mediante este tipo de personas. ojala un dia recapaciten y dejen de ser complices de violaciones a derechos humanos.