HOPE

Has a Face

In El Salvador (which means 'The Savior' by the way for us gringitos) a remarkable effort is being undertaken with a local community of what we would call ghetto/bario dwelling El Salvadoral refugees (IDP's-internally displaced persons) from the violence of civil war in partnership with members of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, DC and others. This community, who built a village essentially on a garbage dump outside the city of San Salvador, are working with a non-profit called SEWINC (http://www.sewinc.org/) which is a women's sewing co-operative with a mission of "empowering women through small business development." It is a grant program to provide the women with the necessary tools to make and market their wares. When you empower women you lift entire families, and thus entire villages and communities. Communities that repress their women destroy and demean themselves.

Holy Trinity in DC has a sister parish called Maria Madre de los Pobres in which they provide teams of people to assist in various projects and help with funding efforts in this rather poor community. The community now has elementary schooling and after school programs, various small business industries (fair trade coffee, and handicrafts, etc.) and basic life sustaining services.

Here is where you come in.

Hurricane Ida brought torrential rains and flooding that destroyed completely 161 homes of parishioners of Maria Madre de los Pobres. The river water is badly contaminated and thus is the first most menacing source of potential disease spread. The rains are coming again (solidly from June through September more or less).

The 2010 US AID Congressional allocation in the 2010 Supplemental for Afghanistan is around $843 Million. Some of it should go to assisting rebuilding the retaining walls and post-Hurricane Ida reconstruction efforts in El Salvador, particularly near and in La Chacra which is in the lowest lying area of El Salvador and thus most devastated. Residents live in literally moldy cardboard and rusted shacks and there is no excuse for it. It can be easily remedied. The polluted waters are a life threatening health hazard. Some 43 bridges were destroyed. The appropriation could be monitored in conjunction with the El Salvador Minister of Public works (MOP), especially to fortify the banks of the River Acelhaute and to improve the La Chacra drainage infrastructure.

I highly urge that people interested in helping please contact their congresspersons (email me or comment below if you need their number(s) and/or the Parish Associate for Social Justice Ministry at Holy Trinity in Washington, DC Eli at http://www.trinity.org/.