According to the preliminary data of the VI Census of Population and Housing, the population of El Salvador is approximately 5.8 million. Sixty-percent of the population lives in the urban area and 40% in the rural area. The composition of the population is: mestizo (91%), Indigenous (8%) and white (1%).
Our program’s area of influence is in the department of Sonsonate, located 65 kms from the capital. Sonsonate means “river of many waters or 400 springs” in the Indigenous language of Nahuat. Of the four Indigenous groups that survive in the country (Lencas, Chortis, Cacawiras and Pipiles), the Indigenous peoples of nahua-pipil origin live in Sonsonate.
The Lutheran World Federation accompanies the strengthening of social, peasant and Indigenous organizations that struggle to defend their human rights. Those social groups are vulnerable to man-made and natural disasters. The main difficulties facing the population in the area of the LWF’s influence are the precarious socioeconomic situation and the environmental deterioration, as well as the crisis of land ownership of the peasant families and the Indigenous population. Many of these people do not own land but are only tenants, which greatly limits their possibilities and capacities for working on productive projects in harmony with the environment.
We specifically work in the municipalities of Santa Catarina Masahuat, San Antonio del Monte and Nahuizalco in the department of Sonsonate, and we are in the last stages of work in the municipality of Tacuba, department of Ahuachapán. These two municipalities have high poverty rates because they are coffee-growing areas in crisis, which has caused high rates of rural unemployment. In addition, cutting down the coffee plantations to build housing projects makes the economic crisis in the communities more acute, with an increasing lack of basic services such as water and electricity; streets in bad repair; low educational level; and little medical attention.
The LWF is undertaking the strengthening of the capacities of the local actors it works with in the four municipalities chosen in this area. These local organizations are: United Intercommunity Development Association (ADIDCU); Association of Agrarian Workers in Masahuat, R.L.; Integral Association for Indigenous Development (ASDEIS); and the Association of Mayan Indigenous Peoples of Cucstalán (APIMAYCU).
The regional LWF program seeks organizations and communities that have coherency between their discourse and practice; that promote new leaders with experience in generational change and gender; that utilize resources in an appropriate and transparent manner; and that have social control at all levels. We work with partner organizations in the understanding and practice of transversal topics in the regional program, and we attempt to build a shared political premise that makes social, economic and integral transformation possible.
The El Salvador program applies these work principles in the four municipalities where its efforts are focused, as well as at the national level were it accompanies, through relationships with NGOs, social and community networks with common objectives.
Four programmatic pillars have been defined in the El Salvador program: food sovereignty, sustainable risk management, environmental protection and respect for human rights.
Food Sovereignty is the right of all peoples to define their own agrarian and food policies that make sustainable development and food security possible. To accomplish this, the program prioritizes local agricultural production to feed the population and the access of campesinos to land, water and seeds, and to credit. And, next, is the need for agrarian policies, of struggling against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in order to guarantee free access to seeds, and the recognition that water is a human right, both as a public commodity and as a natural resource.
Sustainable Risk Management is the development of capacities to assist in and prevent disasters, setting up local risk management systems, strengthening and building civil society networks, and strengthening communities giving attention to risk mitigation. It supposes the strengthening of the community’s capacity to respond to disasters (natural and social) in operational terms and from the appropriate perspective of rehabilitation, reconstruction and recuperation. This requires the participation of different sectors of society in order to incorporate “cultural prevention,” territorial and urban planning as an objective of economic and social development.
Defense and Protection of the Environment begins with understanding that this is the habitat of creation, of all living beings. The main themes of this programmatic pillar are water, the recuperation of soil, uncontaminated air and sky.
Human Rights, in addition to being a transversal focus of the entire regional program of the LWF, is the fourth programmatic pillar in El Salvador in the promotion and defense of human rights: the articulation of social networks for joint actions regarding topics of national importance, such as recovering historical memory, security policies, state of law, real democracy and advocacy for legislation in harmony with human rights principles and norms. Topics regarding immigration, HIV-AIDS, and an analysis of the impact of trade agreements, such as CAFTA and the future Association Agreement between the European Union and Central America, will also be undertaken, as well as mining projects and the construction of dams.
In applying the common “spiral” methodological concept in the entire regional program to link local efforts with the national, regional and/or international efforts, the El Salvador program emphasizes the promotion of respect for human rights and the identity of Indigenous peoples. To do this, the program accompanies TDH Germany and Diakonia, the efforts of the Pushtan Indigenous communities (Nahuizalco and Sam Ramón, San Tonio del Monte) in their national struggle for the recognition of Indigenous rights in the Constitution of the Republic and the ratification of Covenant 169 of the International Labor Organization. We have worked in denouncing, before the International Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD) of the United Nations, the practice of racial discrimination in El Salvador and have supported Indigenous demands, such as lodging an appeal in the Supreme Court for the legal recognition of their identity.
From the LWF office in San Salvador, relationships have been established with organizations that have work in our area of influence and that tackle pertinent topics that are concentrated in the four programmatic pillars described at the national level. We coordinate with ICCO through the reduction of vulnerabilities project (PRVAS); we are part of the Coordinating Committee of the Sphere Project and Joint Church Action (ACT) and we also participate in other inter-agency coordinating committees.
At the national level, we coordinate with the Salvadoran Foundation for the Study and Application of Law (FESPAD), the Citizenship Coordination Social Network, the Word and Image Museum (MJPI), the El Salvador chapter of Mesoamerican Women as well as at the national level, with Young People for Life, the Ecumenical Coordination of the Church of the Poor in El Salvador (CEIPES), the Research Center regarding Investment and Commerce (CEICOM) , the Water Forum, Opening Windows, and the Prudencia Ayala Feminist Coordination.
From the national program, we also work on regional themes such as ecumenism, Lutheran churches, religion and development, gender, youth and solidarity economy.
Our program’s area of influence is in the department of Sonsonate, located 65 kms from the capital. Sonsonate means “river of many waters or 400 springs” in the Indigenous language of Nahuat. Of the four Indigenous groups that survive in the country (Lencas, Chortis, Cacawiras and Pipiles), the Indigenous peoples of nahua-pipil origin live in Sonsonate.
The Lutheran World Federation accompanies the strengthening of social, peasant and Indigenous organizations that struggle to defend their human rights. Those social groups are vulnerable to man-made and natural disasters. The main difficulties facing the population in the area of the LWF’s influence are the precarious socioeconomic situation and the environmental deterioration, as well as the crisis of land ownership of the peasant families and the Indigenous population. Many of these people do not own land but are only tenants, which greatly limits their possibilities and capacities for working on productive projects in harmony with the environment.
We specifically work in the municipalities of Santa Catarina Masahuat, San Antonio del Monte and Nahuizalco in the department of Sonsonate, and we are in the last stages of work in the municipality of Tacuba, department of Ahuachapán. These two municipalities have high poverty rates because they are coffee-growing areas in crisis, which has caused high rates of rural unemployment. In addition, cutting down the coffee plantations to build housing projects makes the economic crisis in the communities more acute, with an increasing lack of basic services such as water and electricity; streets in bad repair; low educational level; and little medical attention.
The LWF is undertaking the strengthening of the capacities of the local actors it works with in the four municipalities chosen in this area. These local organizations are: United Intercommunity Development Association (ADIDCU); Association of Agrarian Workers in Masahuat, R.L.; Integral Association for Indigenous Development (ASDEIS); and the Association of Mayan Indigenous Peoples of Cucstalán (APIMAYCU).
The regional LWF program seeks organizations and communities that have coherency between their discourse and practice; that promote new leaders with experience in generational change and gender; that utilize resources in an appropriate and transparent manner; and that have social control at all levels. We work with partner organizations in the understanding and practice of transversal topics in the regional program, and we attempt to build a shared political premise that makes social, economic and integral transformation possible.
The El Salvador program applies these work principles in the four municipalities where its efforts are focused, as well as at the national level were it accompanies, through relationships with NGOs, social and community networks with common objectives.
Four programmatic pillars have been defined in the El Salvador program: food sovereignty, sustainable risk management, environmental protection and respect for human rights.
Food Sovereignty is the right of all peoples to define their own agrarian and food policies that make sustainable development and food security possible. To accomplish this, the program prioritizes local agricultural production to feed the population and the access of campesinos to land, water and seeds, and to credit. And, next, is the need for agrarian policies, of struggling against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in order to guarantee free access to seeds, and the recognition that water is a human right, both as a public commodity and as a natural resource.
Sustainable Risk Management is the development of capacities to assist in and prevent disasters, setting up local risk management systems, strengthening and building civil society networks, and strengthening communities giving attention to risk mitigation. It supposes the strengthening of the community’s capacity to respond to disasters (natural and social) in operational terms and from the appropriate perspective of rehabilitation, reconstruction and recuperation. This requires the participation of different sectors of society in order to incorporate “cultural prevention,” territorial and urban planning as an objective of economic and social development.
Defense and Protection of the Environment begins with understanding that this is the habitat of creation, of all living beings. The main themes of this programmatic pillar are water, the recuperation of soil, uncontaminated air and sky.
Human Rights, in addition to being a transversal focus of the entire regional program of the LWF, is the fourth programmatic pillar in El Salvador in the promotion and defense of human rights: the articulation of social networks for joint actions regarding topics of national importance, such as recovering historical memory, security policies, state of law, real democracy and advocacy for legislation in harmony with human rights principles and norms. Topics regarding immigration, HIV-AIDS, and an analysis of the impact of trade agreements, such as CAFTA and the future Association Agreement between the European Union and Central America, will also be undertaken, as well as mining projects and the construction of dams.
In applying the common “spiral” methodological concept in the entire regional program to link local efforts with the national, regional and/or international efforts, the El Salvador program emphasizes the promotion of respect for human rights and the identity of Indigenous peoples. To do this, the program accompanies TDH Germany and Diakonia, the efforts of the Pushtan Indigenous communities (Nahuizalco and Sam Ramón, San Tonio del Monte) in their national struggle for the recognition of Indigenous rights in the Constitution of the Republic and the ratification of Covenant 169 of the International Labor Organization. We have worked in denouncing, before the International Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD) of the United Nations, the practice of racial discrimination in El Salvador and have supported Indigenous demands, such as lodging an appeal in the Supreme Court for the legal recognition of their identity.
From the LWF office in San Salvador, relationships have been established with organizations that have work in our area of influence and that tackle pertinent topics that are concentrated in the four programmatic pillars described at the national level. We coordinate with ICCO through the reduction of vulnerabilities project (PRVAS); we are part of the Coordinating Committee of the Sphere Project and Joint Church Action (ACT) and we also participate in other inter-agency coordinating committees.
At the national level, we coordinate with the Salvadoran Foundation for the Study and Application of Law (FESPAD), the Citizenship Coordination Social Network, the Word and Image Museum (MJPI), the El Salvador chapter of Mesoamerican Women as well as at the national level, with Young People for Life, the Ecumenical Coordination of the Church of the Poor in El Salvador (CEIPES), the Research Center regarding Investment and Commerce (CEICOM) , the Water Forum, Opening Windows, and the Prudencia Ayala Feminist Coordination.
From the national program, we also work on regional themes such as ecumenism, Lutheran churches, religion and development, gender, youth and solidarity economy.
