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Pieter is the coordinator of CAPAZ (Capacitacion en Produccion Agropecuaria para la Zona) in western Guatemala, managing an experimental farm and training program for indigenous farmers (men and women), increasing their families’ nutrition and income.
The purpose of CAPAZ is to find and implement feasible answers to combat poverty and to assure a wholesome food supply. This involves training rural farmers (male and female) to be better qualified and trained to diversify and expand their traditional ways of farming. The objective is to contribute to sustainable development, creating conditions and educational facilities for rural farmers and to develop tools and options for their self-development through, an integrated, practical and tailored livestock training program, with emphasis on the active participation of the target population.
To accomplish this, Pieter and the staff at CAPAZ:
* have built a Training Center for the training and practice of managing livestock farms for the participating rural farmers; the Center includes a kitchen equipped to prepare food, sleeping quarters equipped with bathrooms and beds to house workshop participants, and a meeting room with computer technology which facilitates all of the workshop contents;
* have set up alternative energy generating systems such as solar panels and, soon, a bio-gas plant (A biogas plant is the name often given to an anaerobic digester that treats farm wastes or energy crops.) - biogas can be produced utilizing anaerobic digesters - these plants can be fed with energy crops such as maize silage or biodegradable wastes including sewage sludge and food waste;
* have built an experimental farm with 8 lines of livestock - pigs, chickens (laying hens, fattening chicken, turkeys), cows, ducks and rabbits and bees;
* developed a training curriculum, which has been pedagogically assessed, with printed materials and means to facilitate the process; the training includes programs in alternative energy programs;
* developed a trained staff with specialized ability to conduct the training, providing courses in "organization", "life stock technicalities", "commercialization", "administration and accounting", "methodology" and "organization and execution" of concrete projects;
* coordinate with the work team in editing, producing and printing of manuals for the support, application, and distribution of the knowledge and techniques learned in the training centre of CAPAZ;
* provide decentralized training and on-going support and accompaniment to other organizations and promoters (extensionists) who return to their own communities to communicate what they have learned and assure the sustainability and outreach of the Center’s programs. Some of the other organizations include Cultural Action of Guatemala, Sagrada Tierra, and Pastoral Social/Caritas.
The target population belongs to rural communities in Peten, Huehuetenango, Quiche, Alta Verapaz, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Solola, Retaluleu, Suchitepequez, Sacatepequez and Totonicapán, the region where the indigenous population is concentrated, with limited resources, with the highest rates of illiteracy, and mortality. The inhabitants live in poverty and extreme poverty, with a lack of access to education or credit, or specialized technical support, and there is a chronic lack of jobs. The rural indigenous people represent 38% of extreme poverty in the country according to the UNDP - the families who must live on less than one dollar a day. The level of poverty in some areas rises to 62%, and in some municipalities of Sololá, San Marcos, Totonicapán and Alta Verapaz the poverty line reaches to 87% of the indigenous population.
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Amanda graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, MN, in May, where she studied religion and Latin American studies. Amanda is excited to get to know the community of Centro Cultural Batahola Norte (CCBN) in Managua as well as the international Friends of Batahola community. She has spent time traveling and studying in Mexico and Central America. Her semester abroad in the fall of 2007 with Center for Global Education in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua sparked her interest in returning to live in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people. Amanda has spent the last two summers organizing with Latino Catholic church communities facing various immigration-related challenges. She was awarded the Social Justice Internship Award from Carleton College to support her position with the Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good in Portland, Oregon, in June-August, 2008.
Amanda is interested in strengthening the Friends of Batahola Volunteer program started by VMM missioners, Laura and Christine. Additional responsibilities include involvement with the CCBN’s Youth Movement and the Women’s Empowerment and Microbusiness Development Program.
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Danielle serves with VMM's project partner, the SHARE Foundation, in San Salvador as the Grassroots Delegation and Tour Coordinator. SHARE accompanies poor communities in El Salvador as they work for economic justice, democracy and sustainable development alternatives at the local and national levels. SHARE believes that leadership development, women's empowerment, and increased participation in civil society are essential to building solutions to injustice and poverty.
Danielle coordinates and leads sistering, grassroots delegations of U.S. communities who come to El Salvador to visit Salvadoran communities and, in solidarity, experience Salvadorian life. Danielle is charged with educating the visiting groups (or delegations) about the reality of poverty in El Salvador, the role of global economics in Salvadoran life and how Salvadoran civil society works. Many of these delegations are from parishes and universities across the United States. She also helps to coordinate communication and advocacy efforts with the Washington, D.C. office. She says, "Despite the tough stuff (Or perhaps because of it), my life is still infused with a daily grace. I wouldn't be anywhere else right now."
You can visit Danielle's blog by clicking here.
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Danny, who has been serving in El Salvador in Central America for two years, began his new placement with VMM in August 2008 with Maria Madre de los Pobres parish, located in La Chacra, San Salvador. La Chacra is one of the poorest and most dangerous places in San Salvador. The population of La Chacra is about 30,000 people; the majority are young, primarily women. Many of the men have immigrated to find work in the U.S., or are involved in crime. Unemployment is at 50%, and underemployment, where compensation does not pay enough to live on, is at 80%. As Danny describes it, "...the reality you experience here is one of intense contrasts - pain, suffering and sadness positioned directly alongside, or together with, indescribable beauty, hope and joy."
Danny is working with Maria Madre's Social Assistance Program, visiting the sick and elderly, finding solutions to their health, housing and family problems, as well as accompanying the folks who come to the Day Center in the afternoons. He has taught English classes, and helps with the CAPI program, a school for grades 1-3. And Danny corresponds with sister parish communities and other potential donors overseas to help support Maria Madre Parish and expand its various social, educational and health programs. Danny also serves as VMM's Pastoral Associate, serving the needs of our missioners in Central America, and is helping the SHARE Foundation with its Election Monitoring Program in 2009. Danny says, "I feel that doing this work in El Salvador is the culmination of everything that my life has been about up to this point - all the people I have met, everything I have ever read, learned, or believed. Now I have the privilege of accompanying not only Salvadorans, but U.S. citizens as well, as we come together in love, understanding, and solidarity to work for a just, sustainable, and democratic future, not just for El Savlador, but for the whole world - in other words, for the Reign of God on earth."
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David and Nancy are serving with several parishes in the San Jorge area of eastern El Salvador. They're teaching, working in agricultural and water projects, as well as doing pastoral care. They come to VMM from the Greater Milwaukee Lutheran Synod. Nancy has experience as a teacher in elementary school, high schools and college, and was Christian Education Director & Teacher Trainer for 20 years. She was Director of Continuing Education for UW-Washington County and Geneva College in Pennsylvania. She has volunteered with the ELCA Global Mission for Education and Advocacy, GMS ELCA/Salvadoran Lutheran Synod Companion Encuentro, Washington County Hispanic Outreach Committee and Fiesta Cultural Hispania-Museum of Wisconsin Art.
David has also been very involved with the Greater Milwaukee Synod El Salvador Committee, ad the ELCA Global Missions Conference in Costa Rica. He has been the Evangelism Chair of Our Saviors Lutheran Church, and Treasurer of Christos Ministries, and taught Sunday school for 20 years. He worked at Eaton Corp. for many years in management positions, and was Executive Director of Citizen Advocacy of Washington County from 2002-2003. He is currently working with the West Bend Noon Rotary as Project Manager of an international project in La Granja, Nejapa, El Salvador, for a waste water collection system.
Both of them serve on the ELCA Synod El Salvador Committee and have served as International Election Observers in that country. They also travel to El Salvador twice a year to provide text books and school supplies to a rural community public school.
In January 2009, Nancy received $2,000 from the Sunrise Rotary for a support of a roofing project in El Salvador. The $2,000 was combined with other Fundahmer grant money and has provided for 16 new roofs for the homes of the most disadvantaged in a community of Morazán. And just a month ago, they reported on the completion of the West Bend Noon Rotary and Engineers without Borders (EWB) sanitation project in La Granja. Hundreds of volunteers completed the laying of pipe in March and have connected the facilities of the former Refugee Camp (Fe y Esperanza) to the system. The student engineers mentored the residents of the community to carry on with this work after the students returned to school. The next phase of the La Granja project is the bridge.
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Greta is one of the new Friends of Batahola volunteers. She has already spent more than six months working at the Centro Cultural Batahola Norte (CCBN) through the Mennonite Central Committee.
Greta studied in West Virginia University and left in 2006 with a bachelor’s in International Studies and a minor in Music. After college, she worked for a year in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, as a volunteer in a Christian hostel for backpackers. Greta’s activities thus far at the CCBN have included tutoring and teaching English, participating in the choir and small music ensembles, writing newsletter articles, and facilitating an English conversation class. Her main project, in the coming months, is to be the intermediary between scholarship students at the Center and their sponsors in the United States.
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Laura is the new Grassroots Solidarity Education Coordinator at The SHARE Foundation. She will: coordinate and facilitate General Delegations to El Salvador, during important anniversaries for example, or events like the Salvadoran elections where people come to be international observers; coordinate and facilitate Theological Delegations during which theology students visit to learn more about the applied theology of El Salvador; assist with the planning and facilitation of Sistering Delegations -- schools and churches in the US that financially and spiritually support communities in El Salvador, many of which visit every year or two; and collect testimonies through interviews and meetings with people here in El Salvador who are involved in SHARE projects as a way to put a human face on the development work that SHARE does.
Prior to SHARE, Laura completed a fifteen-month commitment with CRISPAZ (Christians for Peace in El Salvador) during which she lived and worked as a volunteer with Centro de Formacion y Orientacion in their youth participation program. The work was related to violence prevention and community organizing. Laura graduated in May, 2007 from St. Louis University, with a degree in Social Work and International Studies, and a minor in Theology. In her sophomore year, she spent a semester with the Casa de la Solidaridad program in San Salvador, studying at the University of Central America and working in the community of San Ramon. A year later, Laura returned with two friends, and completed a documentary entitled “Our Backyard: Realities of War”. While a student at SLU, she spent a summer internship at an shelter, and another year at a St. Louis non-profit.
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Jennifer began her service in early November 2008. While in language school, Jennifer volunteered at a hospital listening and accompanying dying cancer patients including bathing the patients, changing their bed linens, and involving them in fun activities. (Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in this hospital's chapel in 1980.) She is now working with Fundahmer (Fundacion Hermano Mercedes Ruiz), VMM's project partner in San Salvador.
Violence in El Salvador is pervasive, and reports from the Attorney's Office for the Defense of the Human Rights indicate that violence has a significant impact on children, girls and adolescents. Data shows that 48.5% of total cases received were crimes of violence against youth. In the education realm, more than half of the children of school age (4-6 grade level) and more than half of youth (16 - 18 years of age), do not attend school - due to the need to work or because of the costs of the education. Youth in this region feel suffocated by the constant temptations of drugs, violence, and gangs.
Jennifer will be participating in and coordinating a "Youth-to-Youth Leadership Project" Project Team Leaders. This project will provide faith formation and leadership training to youth in El Salvador, specifically in the departments of San Salvador, Morazan and La Libertad. Young people have requested this type of support and training, which can be carried out through a variety of activities and programs; pastoral, recreational, educational or of a cultural nature and social content. Through the "Youth-to-Youth Leadership Project," young Salvadorans will be empowered to actively participate in their communities, the Church, and the world in spite of their social and economic limitations and will be empowered to preserve their dignity and hope.
You can visit Jennifer's blog by clicking here.
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Margaret (Maggie) is serving in El Salvador, at the Center for Formation and Orientation (CENFO), associated with San Francisco de Asis parish in Mejicanos, San Salvador. Maggie loves kids and has always been involved in teaching, which is her primary responsibility at CENFO. Their program serves children between ages 3-12, and Maggie is engaged in morning classes, afternoon tutoring, workshops in out in the communities on self-esteem, theatre, dance, art, etc. She is also involved in planning, pedagogical and methodology work, and assisting in the School for Parents, which does formation work for parents whose children attend the school.
This past May, Maggie received degrees in Religion and in Mathematics, from Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. She has been tutoring in an after-school program since 2005, and has been a calculus tutor in Amherst College in 2008. Maggie spent the 2007 Fall semester in Colon, El Salvador as an English teacher, and spent the summer of 2008 as an English Teacher in Jardines de Colon under the sponsorship of Fundahmer. In addition, she has made Spring-break trips (as well as one in June, 2007) to Yabacao, Dominican Republic as a tutor. Click here to read an article about Maggie on the CatholicSpirit.com.
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