MIddle Stages

In Miniature

Oscar Romero

Juan Jose Rodriguez and Rufina Amaya

Carpentry workshop in the Colomoncagua, Honduras refugee camps

Community leader, Juan Jose Rodriguez, Background Colomoncagua refugee camp

Community Leaders

Father Segundo Montes and Local Singer Meymis Guevara

Carpentry Workshop

La Escenita

Meymis Guevara

Lideres

Alumnos

En Totalidad

The Finished Mural

This Saturday, September 29, nineteen youth from Comunidad Segundo Montes graduated from two months of drawing and painting classes that had been facilitated by Painter Eric Vargas and financed by Voices on the Border. In addition to celebrating the graduation, we also inaugurated the mural of the Memorial Temple of Martyrs and Hero’s, which was a process of collective efforts that lasted for more than a year.

The Right Side

The Middle

The Left Side

Youth Explaining the Mural

Our Work

Jessica very happy

Pastoral Team

Receiving the Diploma

Marta Receiving her Diploma

Radishes….

Oregano Plant

Some fifteen youth from varying municipalities of Morazán are creating a community vegetable garden. The youth were trained in how to prepare the beds from recycled plastic bottles and organic soil and how to plant the seeds. Just this week they have planted chile, tomato, radishes, ginger, oregano,

Watering….

and banana plants.

The youth are replicating this gardening knowledge by teaching six grade school children the steps of creating an organic vegetable garden.

Tomato Bed

Watering the Radishes

School Children Learning about Hortaliza

School Children Preparing the Soil

Portrait of Meymis Guevara, singer-musician, who, last year, passed away at 33 years of age. Never will she be forgotten.

Archbishop Romero

Adela and Jessie Embrace

Youth from Segundo Montes

Painters Maritza and Francisco

Jessie and Meymis

Javier and Francisco Very High UP!

Reaching the Limits…

From Afar.

Templo San Luis

Popular Mass with Rogelio Ponseel

For the past eight years the caserío of Las Raíces, located in the municipality of Torola has hosted a

Dance Group from San Fernando

commemorative vigil in honor of some 233 civilians that were massacred by the Armed Forces in 1980. This year the commemoration was held yesterday, July 29. In addition to being a unique demonstration of unity and solidarity among those of northern Morazán, the activity also gave space to artistic performances by musical and theater groups from the zone.

This year, the commemoration began at 7:00 am with an hour and a half hike from the town of Jocoaitique to a cleared space of Las Raíces. Participants crossed a river on the way. Las Raíces was arranged with artisanal, wooden benches, a banner listing the names of the massacred and floral arrangements.

Theater Group from Los Quebrachos

Father Rogelio Ponseel, a Belgium priest and liberation theologist that came to El Salvador during the

Theater Group from Los Quebrachos

Civil War and has lived for more twenty years in Morazán, initiated the ceremony with a popular mass of the Misa Campesina. Mass was accompanied with music from Sebastian Torogoz and Tiempos de Cambio.

There were also musical performances from Grupo Morazán as well as folkloric dance performances from the San Fernando dance group and theater performances by the JAQ (Artistic Youth from Quebrachos).

Strengthening Cultural Identity through Conserving Historical Memory

Grupo Morazan

The history of northern Morazán holds common themes through which community members can

Banner with Names of the Massacred

collectively identify. This is historical memory. These common themes can be poverty, landlessness, and oppression. They can also be the struggle and the fight to overcome structural and physical violence.Annual commemorations such as the Vigil in Las Raíces are an active effort at preserving the collective historical memory of northern Morazán.

Instead of holding history at arm’s length as a useless relic, community members of northern Morazán have taken ownership of their past, carrying their history into the present in order to not forget what they have already struggled and in order to not repeat it. By constantly engaging in their past, more relevance is given to their daily lives and their cultural identity is strengthened.

Lighting Candles for the Altar

The Hike

Crossing the River

Setting up the Soil for Planting

Since its inauguration this past January 13th, the Center for Documentation and Technological Exhibition for Food Security (CEDESAN) in the coloniaof

Recycled plastic bottles used as barriers for the vegetable garden

San Luis, municipality of Meanguera, has offered a space for academic, social, and intellectual learning for youth and women with the objective of reducing food insecurity in Northern Morazán. Currently some 30 women are undergoing workshops on bread-making. The Center is also facilitating workshops on women’s nutritional and reproductive health, jewelry-making, piñata-making, and is creating a vegetable garden of chile, tomato, radishes, and cilantro.

The Center is organized by PRESANCA, who according to their website, strives to reduce food and

Mabel and Jessie workin’ hard

nutritional insecurity in vulnerable populations in Central America. PRESANCA is financed by the European Union, the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, the United Nations Development Fund, and the government of Finland.

Preparing for Planting

Making Jewelry

Finished products

Bulletin Board in the CEDESAN

ACUDESBAL Office

On July 25^th, representatives of the Communal Association of United Communities for Economic and

Women Participants

Social Development of the Lower Lempa(ACUDESBAL) met with beneficiaries of the Segundo Montes Foundation (FSM). On this day, some 57 FSM community leaders exchanged histories and stories of struggles with representatives of the 29 communities that compose ACUDESBAL. The day was an opportunity for both communities to exchange experiences and knowledge of their distinct formation processes as organized communities as well as the various projects that they have been developing. It was decided that the organized communities share the goal of reaching a level of self-sustainability.

Community Leader from Segundo Montes

Many of the shared experiences between ACUDESBAL and FSM community leaders pertain to their projects that stimulate economic productivity. In the case of the Lower Lempa, the organized communities run a bakery, a candy shop, a community chicken coop, vegetable garden in the summer months, and some of the families receive small credits, all of which are very important for the

Musical Performance

auto-sustainability of the associated families that would otherwise have no income.

In the case of FSM, the organized members, some 200 of them, have been working towards food security and environmental conservation. They have developed projects of fowl, fishponds and greenhouses. Community members have acquired the basic yet fundamental tools about caring for the fowl: how to give a vaccination as well as antibiotics, and local alternative foods for the fowl. The FSM has also facilitated the reforestation of the zone as well as increased the environmental consciousness of community members. This year FSM developed a nursery of forest and fruit trees that were distributed among FSM members and planted in their communities.

Musical Performance

Community Leader from San Luis II, Segundo Montes

Women Participants

Group Photo of my San Luis II students

Painting countrysides

This May 5, fifteen youth from the coloniaof San Luis II graduated from a three month course that I facilitated on basic drawing and painting. The classes

Handing out Diplomas

were held every Tuesday and Thursday in the locale of the Fundación Segundo Montes and oftentimes in the neighboring cow field.

In July we will continue with the classes once a week.

Oscar and Kike in class

Hard at Work

Receiving the Diploma

The mothers entering the Templo (recently painted)

In the Community of Segundo Montes, May 31^st is reserved as ‘The Day of Mothers who Lost Sons and Daughters in the Armed Conflict.’ On this day, the Pastoral Team organizes an activity in tribute to the mothers, to recognize the mothers’ loss as well as to honor fellow community members that were lost during the war.

The activity is begun with a Celebration of the Word by Miguel Ventura, singing by the Pastoral Team choir, an altar decorated with fresh flowers and photos of the deceased, small presents for the mothers, and a special lunch that is prepared for the mothers by the Pastoral Team.

Pastoral Team Choir

Altar decorated with photos, candles, and flowers.

The mothers were served pinol, which is a dish of toasted and ground corn.

Stirring the Pinol.

Procession from the San Luis soccer field to the Templo

In the Procession

In the early stages of muraling.

The mural illustrates historical moments in the history of Morazán such as the exile to Colomoncagua, Honduras during the Civil War as well as

Two Pastoral Team youth painting

ideological movements such as when community members awakened to the reality of their repression. There are also portraits of Oscar Romero, Octavio Ortiz, Father Segundo Montes, and Meymis Guevara, a local singer.

Throughout, it has been a collaborative process. The design process was made possible by the Pastoral Team, Evelin Romero, youth from Comunidad Segundo Montes, and youth from San Salvador, as well as visiting artists from the US.

The drawing and painting process has also been a collective effort between artists from San Salvador and the US. In the last two weeks, youth artists from Segundo Montes have taken the reigns and are continuing painting.

Illustration of Farabundo Marti on the Right.
Illustration of community members meeting under a mango tree on the Left.

Youth from Segundo Montes painting.

Youth from Segundo Montes.

Francisco, from Segundo Montes, putting on finishing touches.

Youth from the community.

Marta from San Luis II painting leaves

Marina painting corn kernels

Community members entering the Templo