Reforestation in El Sauce

By chance, the same week I left for a reforestation project in El Salvador, the drab, grey, dull sidewalk near my subway stop was transformed by the planting of new trees.  What a great way to be sent off!  A while back, the community of El Sauce in Santiago Texacuangos approached Beth asking to reforest the area above their community managed aquifer, which had shown many contaminants in a recent test.  Through fundraising efforts at my work, and with the community’s excitement behind us, we purchased 300 trees and supplies to reforest the hill above the aquifer. 

To kick the project off, CEIBA agronomist and founder, Vladimir Jiminez, joined the community meeting Tuesday to go over some important points.  He gave details on how to space out the trees, how deep to dig the hole so that the primary roots are all facing down, the importance of keeping the space in which the tree is planted flat – but most importantly, he said the community must stay involved with monitoring and caring for the trees.

 

Reforestation is particularly important for El Salvador because of the country’s extreme environmental vulnerability.  Through extensive deforestation during the war (20.5% of forest lost since 1990) and unmanaged logging, only 2% of the country is covered by primary forest.  It has the second highest deforestation rate in the Western Hemisphere, second to Haiti.  That combined with an already vulnerable climate make El Salvador extremely susceptible to landslides, and “natural” disasters.

Vladimir discussed this with the community, and I was glad to see how invested everyone was, arriving with notebooks and questions.  I was thrilled with the great turn out from the youth as well – and impressed that they took interest in the project.  About 20 community members showed up, including one older woman,, Nina Conchita, who I could tell was sizing up the new gringo during the talk.

Friday afternoon we hired a truck and picked up the trees.  Vladimir suggested the community get five kinds: cerezo, cortez blance, tamarindo, guachipilin, and ceiba.  These five together would filter water and stablilize the soil through fast growing roots.

Down a bumpy, muddy road, we fetched and loaded the trees, then headed back to San Salvador to pick up bochucha (fertilizer).  If you haven’t ridden on top of a flat bed truck with 800 lbs of fertilizer and 300 trees through the streets of San Salvador, you haven’t lived. 

    

After cutting through the thick smog and busy traffic, we dropped off the goods to Henry’s home in El Sauce, with the help of community children who formed a fireman's carry.

Early to rise Saturday – the fun began.  As we arrived in El Sauce, the community members were already out hard at work, chopping down vines, and preparing the hillside, Both Beth and I originally thought the area would be relatively flat, and that the we could easily plant the 300 trees, but we quickly found we were totally off.  The area to be reforested is the side of a steep hill, with no path, and loose soil. 

 I again saw Nina; this time pulling the cut large vines off the side of the hill, slowly but surely, and with great strength for someone her age.  It was at this moment I realized one of the most important lessons of my trip.  I think of problems on far too large a scale.  But seeing her (and the whole community) work together and focus just on this small hillside, made me realize you have to just focus on one community, one hillside, one garden…and do the most you can there.  Nina, despite her age and physical limitations, did as much as she could to contribute to the project, and that focus and that work makes the difference to that one area.

With the clang of machetes from the thick vine cover, we learned that the first step, as decided by community leaders and the agronomist, was to remove the invasive vines covering the hillside.  The hillside appears green and lush, but it is really covered with invasive vines that suck up water, and choke the existing trees, killing them, and blocking sunlight for any new saplings.  The roots of the vines are very shallow, providing little to no protection from soil erosion.

What to do? – machete the entire side of the hill to cut out the vines.  I picked up my newly purchased machete (which I was planning to use to cut tall grass in my NYC garden – not one inch thick vines!), and started to hack away at what I could.  I tried to copy the 10 year old kids wielding their machetes with ease, but was getting no where.  What was I doing wrong?  Finally, one of the boys pointed out that mine was completely unsharpened, and basically useless.  Phew, so it wasn’t me who was incompetent, but my machete…or at least that’s what I’ll pretend.

 Fortunately, there were extra machetes, so I was able to hack, hack, hack, and hack the vines down.  You can see here what the area looked like before (not exactly the area, but right to the left of it, giving you the idea of what it looked like before), and then what we were able to accomplish after a day of work.  No trees were planted the first day, but subsequent work days will get them in the ground.

Before

After

 We were invited in to Henry’s house for lunch, and had the most delicious cheese, fresh tortillas, avocado and boiled vegetables.  As I sat and slowly regained my strength, I looked around, and absorbed their humble existence.  I had to force myself to stay composed, as I was already overwhelmed by the day, and now more so because of the generosity of this family.  I could not believe how quickly and gladly we were welcomed to their home, and offered more to eat than we could finish.

The most striking part for me was the family’s water, a giant blue barrel of murky, silty water feeding into a concrete sink.  This water is what they use for drinking, bathing, cooking, everything.  I immediately thought of my own battle to protect our water in New York state against hydraulic fracturing (a kind of gas drilling), and saw first hand how precious water is.  I felt anger and guilt thinking about how easily we take clean water for granted in the US, and the how often we use it for trivial purposes - but here was a family with no choice.  This is their only life-giving water.

I learned and experienced so much during this action packed week, and am glad we were able to begin the reforestation of this one hill.  I won’t forget the hard work I saw, passion to bring about change, and ability to keep going despite difficult circumstances.  I thank the people of El Sauce for allowing me to join them in this project, and especially the young kids for teaching me how to use a machete.

Help make the May 26th Children´s Summit Happen!

Fundraised the amount for the Children´s Summit for Saturday!

thanks to Leslie Garrison, Ashley Armato, Mary Sullivan, Laura Hershberger, Ray and Lois Holdrige, SSPAS, St. Peters Parish, Matthew Mascioli, John Daniewicz and Karen Miller for helping to make this happen

Proposal – Children’s Summit “Agents of Change”

Description

Activity: Summit where the Children’s Emergency Committees of Joya Grande in the municipality of Santiago Texacuangos, and the Children’s Violence Prevencion Committees of the communities Chancala Baja and Próceres Oriente, both in the municipality of Mejicanos can share their experiences and knowledge with one another

Participants: 60 children (30 from Joya Grande and 30 from Mejicanos); 12 adults and youth from the communities (8 from Mejicanos and 4 from Joya Grande); 4 facilitators from each organization (80 persons total)

Total Cost: $740

Tentative Date: May 19th, 2012

Time: 7:30 am to 5:30 pm

Participating Organizations

                The Passionist Social Service (SSPAS) has been working with children in the marginalized communities of Mejicanos since 2007.  Currently, it works in 8 different communities, teaching children to prevent violence and to be leaders in transforming their reality.  The Children’s Program at SSPAS has organized many diverse activities for the children, including forums, street festivals, and field trips, with the objective of empowering the participants and preventing violence in all of its forms.

                The organization CEIBA (Constructing Integrated Spaces for Environmental Well-being) was founded in 2009 after tropical storm Ida.  In 2012 it began a process of psychosocial intervention with the children who had suffered during the storm, culminating in the formation of the first children’s emergency committee.  In 2011 CEIBA formed a second committee with a second group of children from the community, teaching them about risk management, first aid, and how to act in different types of disasters.  

Justification

                In El Salvador there are very few spaces for children.  Most government and civil society programs focus on youth or adults.  At the same time, in many communities there is little interest in attending to children.  Many leaders prefer infrastructure projects to projects aiming to teach youth and children.  However, during their work, CEIBA and SSPAS have seen great potential among the children to be agents of transformation of their reality.  One of the important objectives of these two institutions is to empower children to be leaders within their groups of friends, their families, and their communities.

                During the children’s summit, we hope to reinforce this empowerment through exchanging their knowledge and experiences.  The children of the community Joya Grande will share their knowledge of risk management while the children of the communities of Mejicanos will share their knowledge of the rights of children and the new Law for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents (LEPINA).  Moreover, the participants will have the opportunity to meet new friends and to share their experiences living in a rural (Joya Grande), semi-rural (Chancala Baja), and urban (Proceres Oriente) area.  We hope that this activity will motivate the children who participate to continue organizing and working to improve their communities, even after SSPAS and CEIBA’s projects end.

                During the activity, we will use a recreational-educational approach, using ice-breakers, cooperative games, and educational corners to promote learning and the creation of friendships.  The morning will be dedicated to introductions and ice-breakers, followed by the participation of the children’s emergency committees.  After lunch, the children’s violence prevention committees will share, and at the end of the afternoon there will be a time for recreation, including a boat ride, for the children to have a chance to play and enjoy themselves.

Objectives

Objectives

1.       Children from Mejicanos learn about risk management and disasters

2.       Children from Joya Grande learn about human rights and the LEPINA (Children’s Protection Law)

3.       Children from the different communities reinforce their knowledge and strengthen their leadership abilities through teaching others

4.       Children from the different communities are encouraged to continue organizing and learning new things independent of the presence of NGOs

5.       Children and community members from different parts of the country share their experiences of urban and rural life and form new friendships

Agenda

Time	Activity	Responsible
7:30 AM	Leave Mejicanos	SSPAS
9:00 AM	Arrival, sign-in, distribution of name tags, and snack	SSPAS / CEIBA
9:30 AM	Welcome and presentation of facilitators	SSPAS / CEIBA
9:40 AM	Rules for the day	SSPAS
9:50 AM	Large group game – “The love of colors”	CEIBA
10:00 AM	Large group game – “Hand soccer”	CEIBA
10:10 AM	Presentation in small groups	SSPAS / CEIBA
10:20 AM	Small group game – “Name tag”	SSPAS
10:30 AM	Cooperative game – “Newspaper towers”	SSPAS
10:40 PM	CEIBA’s Presentation	CEIBA
12:30 PM	Lunch	CEIBA
1:30 PM	SSPAS’s Presentation	SSPAS
3:00 PM	Recreation time – Boat ride or soccer game	SSPAS / CEIBA
3:50 PM	Evaluation	SSPAS / CEIBA
4:00 PM	Closing and thank-yous	SSPAS / CEIBA
4:10 PM	Leave for Mejicanos	SSPAS
5:30 PM	Arrival in communities of Mejicanos	SSPAS

Budget

Item	Cost	Quantity	Total
PREPARATION FOR EVENT
Transportation to Joya Grande	$20	5	$100
Snacks for 6 workshops (2 per community)	$15	6	$90
Phone minutes for CEIBA facilitators	$15	-	$15
Total			$205
DAY OF EVENT
Transportation	$150	1	$150
Snack	$1.00	80	$80
Lunch	$2.00	80	$160
Boat rental	$30	4	$120
Community building rental	$25	1	$25
Total			$535
Total			$740

Prayers and Support for a Healthy Recovery of Volunteer Fredy Viera

March 2 2012 at 7pm CEIBA volunteer Fredy Viera was returning home from work with his wife when a bomb exploded on the bus they were riding.  As the bus burst into flames, Fredy jumped from the moving vehicle with his wife in his arms.  While his wife has recovered with an intensive jaw operation, Fredy hit head first, and was in a coma for a month, and has recently woken up.  While his eyes are open and he is out of ICU and breathing on his own, he still cannot speak. Below I describe my experience accompanying Fredy`s family, and ways you can support.

In El Salvador, you don`t walk into the ICU unit. You RUN up the stairs, say your prayers or words of support, and then you RUN down the starts to give the visitor ticket to the next family member. The visiting hours are from 1-2pm only, with one visitor at a time. No exceptions. And the ICU unit looks like a little warehouse, with bodies lined up one after the other, and people walking in and out as they please; often patients die in ICU from pneumonia or other infectious diseases instead of the injury itself. No wonder. In addition, you get exactly one month to be on life support before the government pulls the plus, since most people in a coma will wake up within two weeks if they wake up at all, and the public health system in El Salvador is a bit…underfunded. 

So I sat with Fredy in the ICU warehouse, brilliant, creative, musical Fredy, a 27 year old who volunteered with us for more than a year and half working with the Children`s Emergency Committees in Joya Grande. Fredy is magical with children, and makes his living teaching music, with a million musical icebreakers in his back pocket ready rein in any wild child to attentive concentration.  Fredy, who would at times hitchhike to Joya Grande in order to make it to our disaster drills and workshops, was purple all over and breathing with a machine. Another innocent victim to the violence in El Salvador, to the gang turf wars and extortions that are killing the few Salvadorans with enough hope left to try and rebuild their country.  Fredy was the income earner for his family, which includes two children ages 5 and 1.5, and his grandmother. If Fredy is not working, who will put food on the table?

Rocked by this experience, CEIBA decided to try and pay Fredy back a fraction of how much he supported out work, and hosted a CEIBAR fundraiser, selling beers, nachos, and French fries.  I printed huge 8x10 photos of him and the children of Joya Grande, letting the tears fall as I pasted them around my house. On March 23^rd, a day before the annual vigil and 32^nd anniversary of Romero`s assassination, I asked the party goers to please light a candle and say a special prayer for Fredy`s return so that he make continue to serve his people. Fredy loved Romero, and even hosted a Life of Romero photo exhibit with the youth he worked in Santo Tomas the year before.  I bet Romero would have really liked Fredy too.

In the days following the Romero Vigil, Fredy began to breathe on his own!  I went to the hospital, giving the $300 we raised to Elizabeth, who was with their youngest child Andres.  I showed Andres the 8x10 photos of his father helping children in shelters, and Andres raised his tiny finger to the man he recognized…papi?!? He tentatively questioned, as I nodded, swallowing hard, feeling anger well up inside me at the perpetrators of the crime that kept Fredy asleep.

It was my turn to run up the stairs for my 10 minutes with Fredy. His eyes were open, and he tracked the photos as I tried to jog his memory, telling him about the children in Joya Grande, and the early march rains, asking him to get better soon because I need him for the children exchange we have May 26^th, and how much I missed his ideas.  I told him I was leaving in July, and he blinked faster and harder, and began to move and foam at the mouth as if he wanted to respond? The phone rang. Times up. I squeezed his hand and rushed down the stairs to give the ticket to Fredy`s mother, giving her the photos to decorate his drab room (shared with 15 other patients).

The neurological damage is unknown, and until the feeding tubes can be pulled, and Fredy can speak, we won`t really know.  The Viera family is trying to work on contacts with the FMLN and government to move Fredy to Cuba for neurological therapy, where he can receive treatment 7 hours a day from a therapist, but for a hefty price. In El Salvador, therapists can only visit brain damaged patients once every two weeks. 

I will continue to visit Fredy and his family, and next week plan to bring our 8 minute long children`s disaster commercial video (on our You Tube Channel CEIBAelsalvador) to help jog his memory with sounds, and am hoping to sneak a guitar into the hospital as well. Please pray for him and his family, and for the violence in El Salvador to end. If you want to make a donation to support his family during this time, please send it via paypal (www.friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com) and mark a note that it is for the Viera family.

March 2012 Local Elections

CEIBA has worked hard to prepare the population of Santiago Texacuangos, specifically youth, to become more involved in the electoral process. From organizing youth citizen journalism trainings (vozz) to giving our own workshops on the new youth law in 6 communities (see previous blog post), to organizing workshops on how to vote with other NGOs such as CECADE (Training Center for the Promotion of Democracy), we encouraged community members to learn how to vote and participate. In this photo, youth group member Lester from El Sauce is practicing how to correctly vote for a candidate of the legislative assembly. El Salvador underwent electoral reform this year, and for the first time, constituents will choose not only the party to represent them in the assembly but can choose the face of the senator of their choice.  In addition, El Salvador now allows for the first time ever independant candidates. In the previous system, the voter could ONLY mark the FLAG of the party of their choice, and the party got to choose who the senators were. Now, voters get to have some say in who the senator are, instead of letting the party choose for them.  The reform has marginally improved accountability by connecting voters to a name and face instead of letting senators hide behind a flag. HOWEVER it is important to note that voters can only choose senators within ONE political party. This means that the voters cannot choose one sentator from the FMLN and one independant senator, or their vote will be nulled. On election day, thousands of votes were nulled due to this confusion, as voters attempted to election various sentaors from various political parties, which I saw repeatedly as an election observer.

FMLN, GANA, and PCN candidates attend

nearly 400 youth attend the debate

In addition to teaching people HOW to vote, CEIBA organized a historic first ever debate with the municipal candidates in Santiago Texacuangos to inform youth about candidate platforms. The debate was challenging to organize, as we had to change the time and place of the forum to a space considered by all parties to be nuetral. The ARENA party (right wing, currently in power) planned their campaign closing the same time and place we planned our debate in the municipal plaza, and so we moved the debate to the local Christian Highschool, which became a problem as the prinicpal is part of the FMLN (left party, in power in national government but has never held power in


local government).  After intense negotiations, we moved the debate to a public elementary school, Camilo Campos, and moved the debate to Saturday morning at 9am.  All parties agreed on this time, and signed a gentelmen`s agreement to bring no more than 25 youth participants, and agreed to orderly conduct. As nearly 400 youth from political parties, organized communities, and the public poured into the school, ARENA had yet to show up. FMLN candidate Ricardo Villacorta arrived, the young (25 yrs old) PCN candidate Juan Franco was there, and GANA candidate and public highschool principal

Leko, from Joya Grande, presents their youth needs

and only women candidate, Narda de Marin, was also present. We scrambled to mount canopys for some heat relief, run around classroom looking for more benches and seating for the growing crowd, as the minutes passed. I called our contacts in the ARENA party and the ARENA youth group who had come to planning meetings. No answer. I walked up the municipal government office, where the bathroom security guard informed me that no one from ARENA would be attending the debate. They were boycotting? Why? When we had changed ALL the logistics, spent extra money on the

young journalists interview PCN candidate

 event, and changed the place and time for them to be present? for them to boycott? I felt terrible for the youth form communities, who had worked on their platforms to hand to the current mayor, Alberto Estupinian, who demonstrated a lack of interest in the local youth. But 3 candidates were there, ready to engage local youth, and we started the event without ARENA, explaining to the crowd what had happened. The event began with introductory speeches by CONJUVE, the National Board of Youth programming which represented the national goverment , and CECADE, reviewing the correct ways to vote. Video of these speeches available on our youtube channel here. CIPJES, a youth network and CEIBA counterpart, sent representative Celina Guerra who encouraged the candidate to see beyond the political colors and elections and work for youth rights all year round, especially outside of campaigns, and we began the debate. See videos of Celina`s speech and the debate here.  Youth asked candidate tough questions, both written and spoken like ¨How do you think you can plan a tourism project in Joya Grande if it was declated uninhabitable¨ and ¨Wow...I can see that PES and ARENA parties must be really interested in our proposal if they didnt event show up to the debate...but you are here, and I want to know how you plan to engage both girls and boys, because building soccer fields does not create a recreation space for girls...¨ and ¨Why are we spending so much time listening to the candidates speak? When will they take the time to listen to US speak?¨ The open forum closed with a long line of youth who wanted to ask more questions, and was the first ever participatory space of its kind.  Youth from each sector presented their local needs, challenging the candidates to stick to their promises. After the event, participants wrote evaluation of the event on large pieces of butcher paper. Their evaluation of the event included comments such as ¨I did lot like that that the mayor did not attend the event. How Offensive!¨and ¨¨This is one way for the candidate to realize that youth EXIST and for us to express ourselves¨ AND ¨Thanks for listening. We need more spaces like this.¨
This was by far the biggest event CEIBA has ever done, and we hope it happens every electoral year (next municipal elections are in 2015), and hope ARENA shows!

each party provided transportation to the voting center

FMLN helping voters figure out where to vote.

long line at the voting center

Sunday March 11, was election day. I was an official international observer, while CEIBA organized youth journalists came to over the event, interviewing the parties and citizens about their perspectives, noting irregularities and

accusations of illegal acts of inducing the vote by political parties. Youth election interviews can be found at http://www.vozz.com.sv/.  Santiago Texacuangos has over 11,000 eligible voters, and nearly 70% of the population came out to vote! While I was shocked at this level of high participation, local government officials told me it was a lower than usual turnout, and people are feeling depressed about the situation of the country and apathetic about the

ARENA helping voters figure out where and how to vote

power or will of politicians to actually change the situation.  Nontheless, thousands of people came to vote for senators and the municipal council, and each party provided transportation to the voting center.  The voting center, a local public school, had over 30 stands to vote at, called JRV (junta receptora de voto) which each handle 450 ballots.  There is a 5 person committee, where each party is represented, who look for voting fraud and aim to protect their votes both in the voting process and the counting afterwards. If there is a ¨questionable¨ ballot that has a mysterious X between two parties, or extra markings, the JRV

argue amongst themselves to null the vote, or put in a special ¨to be decided by the Supreme Electoral Tribune¨ box if they cant decide amongst themselves.
This is a heated process where the
guards from each party fight to keep their votes
and if possible null the votes of other parties. I didnt not observe fraud in the elections, although NGO CECADE who observed the local polls noted that the municipal government was open with people inside the building, which is illegal, and that all the political parties instead of explaining how to vote on the ballot, where explaining how to vote for THEIR political party on the ballot, which is a clear violation of the eletoral code,

jonathan interviews an elderly woman about her decision to vote

which stipulates that campaigns must end 4 days before the election.  The Humans Rights Department (PDDH), were also upset they that were not allowed into the building before the elections to monitor the setup and search for fraud, since parties sometimes stuff ballots at 5am during set up.  That interview can be found here.  Despite these irregularities and claims, the elections in Santiago Texacuangos went relatively smoothly, and at around 10pm it became obvious that ARENA would win the elections by a large margin, winning nearly 1,000 more votes than the FMLN. See official election statistics. There was reported violence in other parts of the country, and elections were suspending in nearby San Juan Tepezonte, were shots were fired, and San Lorenzo as well. ARENA by far swept the elections, returning to become the major political power in the country, and winning urban centers of Mejicanos, Soyapango, Apopa, Santo Tomas, Quezaltepeque, Ilopango, and San Martin as well as gaining majority control of the Assembly.  While youth fear this may mean increased militarization and police abuse, it may bring serious changing to the country, and prevent the FMLN from passing laws and reforms under the Funes government, or even reversing current reforms. For example, the FMLN passed budgets for school uniforms and food for every child in the country, but ARENA was against spending and borrowing huge sums of money for education.  Will the program be pulled under the new ARENA legislature? And what does this mean for the 2014 presidential elections? Many speculate that the FMLN lost so many municipalities due to imposing unpopular candidates chosen by the central party command instead of letting local people support their local candidates. In some cases, such as Apopa, the FMLN did not allow a popular female mayor, Luz Estrella, to run for a second term, and imposed an unpopular candidate who lost to ARENA by a landslide.  In others, such as Quezaltepeque, the FMLN government was known to be corrupt and ineffective....whatever the case, this political shift may mean big things for El Salvador, but only time will tell....