Gulf of Hope

Year End Review

2010-12-31T07:34:00.005+03:00

Apologies for not posting more on the blog in recent months, but we have been traveling extensively. Right now, we are preparing to move back to the States, so January will also be a slow blog-month! Nevertheless, I thought we should take a look back at 2010 and see what we - Omar and I and the countless people who have helped along the way - have managed to achieve this last year!

First of all, the blog has been going for just over a year. In this time, we had almost 2,000 hits - most from people we don't actually know ourselves, so someone (and I think Google is playing a part) is spreading the word. Thanks to all who tell their friends about us and who come and check what we are doing!

Our Gulf of Hope family in La Union has been growing steadily. There are now about 50 kids with their families that belong to the group. I am a little vague as there is some kind of flux in this number, and as communications are a little difficult at times, 50-ish will have to do.

In addition to this, we have five little ones in Private School and I am pleased to announce that we have enough funds to keep them going in 2011. Aim is to have enough sponsorship to get all five of them through to final graduation in 8,9, 10 years time!

For the first time we now have a young girl in College. Laura Elena has finished her first year and has one more year to go before Graduation. The Gulf of Hope is paying for her school fees and a small monthly sum for traveling and personal expenses.

Overall, we have received over 4,800 USD in donations this year! We also have 30 backpacks and plenty of school supplies that will make their way to La Union early in 2011 to be shared out amongst the children. We also have received donations of clothes and other goods that will be taken to El Salvador at the next possibility. Thanks to all those who contributed and donated money or goods, and in some cases both!

From the money, we have paid school and college fees (about $200 per month), held a celebration day at the beach in April, fed the children on Children Day in October, and started on the path to registration as a Foundation. None of the money has gone to administration as all those that work for the GoH so far work for free.

Many have asked us to help particular children, so for the next year, when we will be geographically closer, we want to organise individual sponsorship options. We will push for official registration with all that entails. We are also hoping to work with the greater community in La Union to organise activities for the children, not only those that are supported by the Gulf of Hope - we are aiming to raise our profile and get the word out about what we are trying to do here!

So, once Omar and I are back state-side, watch this space!

In the meantime, thanks again to all those who have found our blog and read the posts, and those that have contributed with money, goods, and words of encouragement and thus joined our growing family of friends and supporters. Thanks to y'all and have a wonderful and blessed 2011!

Little Steps Count

2010-11-27T08:48:00.006+03:00

Since the beginning of 2010, the Gulf of Hope has been sponsoring 5 little girls in Private School. We are proud to let y'all know that one of them, 8 year-old Lucero has won FIRST PRICE in a national competition.

Lucero's Certificate

This has only been possible through the kind donations that allow for Lucero and the others to receive the best education available in La Union. For 2011, the Gulf of Hope has already ascertained donorship for three of the five girls and we hope that donors for the other two will come forward before long.

Lucero is dreaming of a bright future that will lead her and her family to a decent home and food on the table every day

November 25, 2010: Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

2010-11-27T08:34:00.002+03:00

On this day, the Law for a Life Free of Violence for Women in El Salvador is approved. As the country with the number one rate of femicides in the world, its about time something changes. Hopefully this law will actually be enacted.
Here is why...
In the past ten years in El Salvador, violence against women has increased by 197%, making it the number one place for femicides in the world, with 129.46 assassinations per one million women.
According to the Second National Report of the Situation of Violence Against Women in El Salvador, put out by the Salvadoran Institute for the Development of Women (ISDEMU), between January 1st and November 5, 2010, the ISDEMU saw 6,320 cases of violence against women. Among those including: domestic violence, child abuse, sexual harrassment and abuse, labor abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Of the 477 femicides registered in 2010, 74 were under the age of 17, thirteen were tortured, 14 were burned and 8 were decapitated. These are the characteristics of femicides in El Salvador.
In 2007, approximately every 73 hours a woman was assassinated, in 2009, it was every 31 hours and in 2010 , every 13 hours a woman was assassinated.
According to the ISDEMU document, in 2010, 702 women have been victims of sexual aggression, 4,230 have suffered from domestic violence, and 1,325 young girls were abused.
85% of the cases of violence denounced happened in the home or in the victim’s community. 47.96% of those cases occured in the home, and 14.38% in the homes of aquantainces.
According to the ISDEMU, 76% of women victims of sexual aggresion are under the age of 19.
According to the National Morgue, the most vulnerable age group for sexual aggression is girls between the age of 10 and 14.
Of 6,803 cases of sexual crimes against women in 2008 and 2009, only 436 of the victimizers were condemned with a crime.
According to the women’s organization Las Dignas, of 119 labor violation denouncements that they received in 2009, 52 were for unjust job termination and 13 for sexual harassment in the work place.
In El Salvador, men earn 14% more than women.
In El Salvador, of 84 National Assembly representatives, only 16 are women.
Yes...time for things to change.
Violence against a woman is an abuse of human rights. Check out the Safe World for Women Campaign.

Return to El Salvador

2010-11-06T08:01:00.003+03:00

Directed by Jamie Moffett and narrated by Martin Sheen, famous American actor and activist, Return to El Salvador, which has been endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, documents the aftermath of a 12 year civil war and features interviews by former US ambassador to El Salvador Robert White. Return to El Salvador brings the struggles of this beleaguered country back into view. You are introduced to a Salvadoran couple who fled death threats in the 1980s, finding asylum and a political platform in the United States. You will learn of a couple who, after escaping during the war, returned to El Salvador to work with churches and poor communities.

You will also be witness of the disappearance of prominent mining activist Marcelo Rivera. Marcelo’s kidnapping, torture and murder signifies a shift. No longer are people being disappeared solely for political reasons, but now for environmental ones. Investigating further, the crew found clues that point towards a Vancouver based mining company, Pacific Rim.

“I’m eager to share the story of the torture and death of Marcelo Rivera as it relates to Canadian mining corporations,” says Moffett. “The story I came across changed my life. It’s critically important that Canadians take stock of what corporations that fly the Canadian flag are doing and the way this affects how Canadians are perceived worldwide.”

“Return to El Salvador is a moving documentary which highlights the unwavering strength of the Salvadorian people through immense hardships,” says MP John McKay. “Chronicling the country’s difficult past, Jamie Moffett, the film’s director highlights the key issues that exist in the country today. His portrayal of the issues this country faces, particularly those related to matters of foreign interference demonstrate the importance of our own countries actions, on those living in this small country.”

Watch the first seven minutes of the documentary here:

Threats to Women in El Salvador: The Case of Irma Medrano

2010-10-30T07:03:00.004+03:00

Forty-four-year-old Irma Medrano fled El Salvador, where she lived a life of terror at the hands of an abusive husband, in 1995. Medrano was repeatedly beaten, strangled with a belt, and threatened with death. She was forced to watch as her husband submerged her children in corn, restrained them under piles of bricks, broke her daughter's nose, and ripped her nephew's earlobe. Earlier this year, word made it to her husband in El Salvador that Medrano might soon be deported. He is now on the hunt to find her. If Irma Medrano returns to El Salvador, she and her sister insist, she might never bee seen again.
Medrano reported her abuser to the Salvadoran police, who told her that there was nothing they could do to protect her because, after all, he was her husband. She was stuck with him. Medrano had no choice but to come to the United States where her husband could not track her down.
Though she testified early on to this extensive abuse, Medrano was not aware that she could apply for asylum until after an immigration judge ordered her to leave the U.S.; had she known, she would likely have qualified for protection as a member of a particular social group — in this case, a victim of domestic violence in El Salvador. Medrano's new attorneys have filed a motion with the Justice Department that would allow her to apply for asylum. The Justice Department has not yet ruled on the motion, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied her request to wait for the Justice Department's decision before deporting her. As it now stands, without a swift decision or government intervention, Irma Medrano will be deported any day now to El Salvador where, as she told the Justice Department, she "will face certain torture or even death."
Department of Homeland Security assurances that conditions for women have improved in her country are no comfort. Irma Medrano's lawyers say her husband is awaiting her deportation to El Salvador, and they fear for her safety. Despite this, her deportation is imminent.
Medrano entered the USA illegally while fleeing her violent husband. She obtained temporary refugee status for unrelated reasons. Two misdemeanor traffic convictions revoked that. Her deportation's been pending since 2006. She was just taken into custody during her weekly meeting at a local immigration office.
There's tension between the country's immigration laws, the personal safety of immigrants, and conflicting government assessments of country conditions. Immigrants may be granted asylum if they can show a systemic threat to their personal safety exists in their home country. Tolerance of violence against women or an inability to prevent it are asylum grounds. But asylum won't be granted just because a woman's being stalked by her abuser.
An immigration judge has accepted DHS's assertions that conditions in El Salvador have changed. Medrano's lawyers disagree. They say a State Department report warns rape is widespread in El Salvador. Rape laws aren't enforced effectively. Domestic violence remains socially acceptable. So we have two government departments with different views of the rule of law in El Salvador. In what might prove a matter of life or death, which opinion should count more?
If you want to support Irma Medrano, then sign the petition to stop her deportation HERE.

World Connect Projects in El Salvador

2010-10-30T07:00:00.002+03:00

World Connect, a nonprofit that empowers local leaders in undeserved communities to solve local challenges faced by women and children, today announced its support of 16 new World Connect projects that will impact over 13,000 women and children in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mali, Morocco, Peru, Philippines and Rwanda.
Introduced last spring, the World Connect Grants program provides women with the tools to improve the health and wellbeing of themselves, their families and their communities. Grants of up to $2,500 and program support are given to Peace Corps volunteers working on the front lines with local leaders to address very specific community needs and create innovative projects that are both attainable and impactful. With this round of projects, World Connect has now supported 35 projects impacting 21,500 women and children.
Please visit PR Web for the full story.

Women for Sale - at a Store Near You?

2010-10-30T06:54:00.002+03:00

An unusual window display shocked shoppers at a busy Tel Aviv mall last week when among the run-of-the-mill shops, they came across a group of young women standing in a storefront.
On them were price tags detailing their age, weight, height, dimensions and country of origin.
Organizers said the campaign is designed to bring awareness to women trafficking. It aims to collect enough signatures to pressure the Israeli justice ministry to back legislation that makes it a crime for men to go to prostitutes.
This legislation is the next important step in the fight against women trafficking, said attorney Ori Keidar, one of the founders of the task force against the problem.
Prostitution has a major influence on the number of women trafficked into the country.
If you want to read the whole story and a video, go to CNN.

InsideToronto Article: Caravan of Hope hits the road for 10th humanitarian aid trip

2010-10-30T06:44:00.002+03:00

InsideToronto Article: Caravan of Hope hits the road for 10th humanitarian aid trip

After a special service to mark the 10th Caravan of Hope trip, North York's Father Hernan Astudillo (minister of San Lorenzo Anglican Church on Dufferin Street south of Lawrence Avenue) and 20 volunteers will begin another trek of ambulances and supplies to poor communities in El Salvador.
Many of the communities receiving ambulances will use the vehicles as mobile hospitals in poor neighbourhoods.
The group will spend the next 10 to 12 days driving seven ambulances filled with food, clothing and medical and school supplies to El Salvador.
The City of Toronto has donated two of its aging ambulances to the cause and sold the remaining five at a discounted $10,000 each.
San Lorenzo's local community raises the money for the ambulances and supplies. The volunteers on the caravan donate their time and pay for all their food and accommodation themselves.
Between the generosity of the North York community, most of whom are not wealthy themselves, and the appreciative reception the caravan receives at its destination, Astudillo calls the initiative an opportunity to bond people across a continent.
"This event unites the community. This is a chance to share. It is another miracle I see in this community. For us, it is very important to keep the mystic of solidarity," he said.
"It is a miracle, the poor helping each other. When we have solidarity with each other, we don't have to listen about the economic recession."

U.S. Prevents Anti-Mining Activist from testifying before Inter-American Human Rights Commission

2010-10-23T08:06:00.002+03:00

This from CISPES:
On October 18, the United States Consulate in El Salvador refused to allow Hector Berríos to travel to Washington D.C. and appear before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC) to give testimony on mining-related violence in El Salvador. He is the fourth anti-mining activist to be denied a travel visa to the United States this month. By denying Mr. Berríos the right to appear before the IAHRC, the U.S. is denying the people of El Salvador access to a justice system to which they are entitled to as a member country of the Organization of American States (OAS). Mr. Berríos is scheduled to appear before the IACHR on Monday, October 25 – please take action immediately!

Benedict XVI Receives El Salvador's new Embassador

2010-10-23T07:36:00.003+03:00

On the 18th of October, Pope Benedict XVI received El Salvador's new Embassador to the Holy See, Manuel Roberto López Barrera.
During their meeting, the Pope suggested that the work to be done in El Salvador offers an overview of the many fields in which the Church seeks to serve the human person.
The Pope stressed the Catholic Church's belief in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, the sanctitiy of life from conception to death and assured his prayers that the people of El Salvador will definitively renounce "everything that provokes confrontations, replacing enmities with mutual understanding and the safeguarding of their persons and possessions."
For this, he said, they must "be convinced that violence achieves nothing and everything worsens, as it is a dead end, a detestable and inadmissible evil, a fascination that fools the person and fills him with indignity. Peace, on the contrary, is the yearning that every man has."
“Within her own specific field of competence and with independence and freedom, the Church in El Salvador seeks to promote the public good in all dimensions, and to foster the conditions that enable men and women to develop fully. … Evangelising and bearing witness to love for God and for all persons without exception becomes an effective element in eradicating poverty and is a vigorous incentive to fight against violence, impunity, and drug trafficking, which are wreaking such havoc, especially among youth. … The ecclesial community also finds itself continuously called upon when so many people are in need of adequate housing and employment, … and are being forced to emigrate from the country. Similarly, it would be strange if the disciples of Christ remained neutral to the aggressive presence of sects, which seem to offer an easy and convenient religious response, but which are actually undermining the culture and customs that have shaped the Salvadoran identity for centuries, obscuring the beauty of the Gospel message and tearing apart the unity of the faithful”.
The Catholic Church in El Salvador has leant an active voice in the recent past, speaking out against violence in the country. In mid-August, for example, the Catholic Church in El Salvador asked the authorities to step up their fight against a spate of violent murders in the country. Archbishop of San Salvador Jose Luis Escobar Alas said he thought the security forces were well-meaning, but needed to do more to "purge the bad elements in the police, the armed forces and the prison system".
The Pope's stance against the 'sects' reminds me of the Gulf of Hope's promise to stay non-denominational. Our willingness to help the children of La Union cannot and will not be guided by their or their parents religious affiliation! These children need and deserve a quality education, to allow for improvements in their future, and to make up their own minds on what dictates their choices.
However, we hope that the Pope's prayers for an end to the violence in El Salvador, and the chance for more jobs and a better future for the people of El Salvador will be taken up and heard.

Please Sponsor a Child

2010-10-02T14:11:00.005+03:00

Meet the Triplets.

Their names are Bessy Guadalupe, Maria Concepcion, and Lourdes del Carmen. This year (2010), they are eight years old.

They live with their Grandmother and Aunt in two rooms on the outskirts of La Union. Grandma and Aunt make tortillas for a living – getting up at 3:30 each morning, and baking 1000 maize-based pancakes each day. 4 of them cost the public a quarter dollar. If all goes well, the family of 8 can make a profit of up to $20 or so a day.
There are three more little girls in this family: Reyna is the triplets’ little sister, she is only 6. Then there are the two daughters of the Aunt, Edis Lucero and the baby. Edis is 7, the baby a toddler.
We have known this family for several years, as they used to live next to Omar’s family rent house (the Meson). They lost their house and had to move around the corner into a place that is not really suitable for the girls. But it provides a roof over their heads.

The new home of the triplets and their family

Their father lives with them. He helps out at a local farm, but he does not make enough money to support his children.
Due to the money situation, the children would go to school in the past, but most often they did not. So, at eight years old, they are way behind. In January 2010, the Gulf of Hope got them enrolled in a private Collegio, where they now are settled in. They are in Prepatory Grade, pre-Year 1, as they are not at the same level as the other 8-year olds. However, they are slowly improving and catching up.

The Triplets flanked by their little sister and cousin

It costs $500 a year to sponsor one of these girls: $25 per month in school fees; $40 each January to enroll them for the next year; about $70 for all school books; $10 for a set of skirts. The PE kits come from the school, as well as a set of uniform shirts.

If you chose to sponsor one of the girls, your donation of $500 will keep one of them in school for one more year. The new school teaches them not only to read and write, but also English from Year 1 (and German or French in higher years), computing and allows access to a school psychologist. At this school, the children get the support they need.

If you chose to sponsor one of the girls, you can send any mail for ‘your girl’ to us and we translate it for you and pass it on. We then ask the child to reply – that might just be a picture or a short note, given the age of the child – and we get this scanned and sent back to us via email. Postage costs too much and is generally not reliable. If you ever chose to visit El Salvador to meet the children, please let us know and we can organize a visit for you.

If you have any questions about sponsoring one of the triplets or one of the other children, please get in touch with us on gulfofhope@gmail.com.

Thanks for your help!

October 1st - Day of the Child

2010-10-02T14:03:00.004+03:00

On October 1st, El Salvador celebrates the Day of the Child.

For those kids that the Gulf of Hope supports, there will be a get-together in one of the houses, with food and sodas for all the families, and a pinata for the children. I am hoping to get some photos and will share with y'all!

The kids and their families at our last get-together in April 2010

UN Millenium Development Goals

2010-09-25T08:11:00.003+03:00

In 2000, the United Nations formulated a set of eight goals that aim to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health standards around the world. These goals are:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The UN itself concedes that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to meet some of the targets. However, more than 140 world leaders are currently meeting to discuss progress and define ways forward towards achieving their set goals. The deadline is 2015, and time is ticking away.

On the BBC News website is an interesting set of graphs that show where progress has been made, but also where progress is still lacking.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target: between 1990 and 2015, halve the number of people who live of less than $1 per day.
Developing nations are on track to meet the poverty target largely because of progress in China. But in Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia the proportion of hungry people has increased. Globally, the number of hungry people rose from 842 million in 1990-92 to 1.02 billion people in 2009. Latin America is on target to achieve this goal.

Goal 2: Universal Primary Education
Target: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
While countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have seen great improvements by abolishing school fees and offering free school lunches, the target is unlikely to be met. The drop-out rate is high, and although there has been some investment in teachers and classrooms, it is not enough. Latin America is furthest away from reaching this goal.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.
Gender gaps in education have narrowed, but remain high at university (tertiary) level in some developing countries because of poverty. Employment for women has improved but there are still many more women than men in low-paid jobs. There have been small gains for women in political power.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Target: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
Child deaths are falling but at the current rate are well short of the two-thirds target. They more than halved in Northern Africa, Asia,Latin America and the Caribbean but remain high in parts of Southern Asia. In Sub-Saharan Africa the absolute number of children who have died actually increased.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Target: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
Although in all regions there are advances in providing pregnant women with antenatal care, the maternal mortality rate is unacceptably high, with progress well short of the decline needed to meet the target. Those at most risk are adolescent girls, yet funding on family planning is falling behind.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases
Target: Achieving, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/ AIDS for all those who need it, compared to 2005.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has stabilised in most regions, but new infections are rising in some areas and antiretroviral treatment has mushroomed. Global funding has helped control malaria but is still far short of what is needed. On current trends tuberculosis will have been halted and started to reverse.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Halve proportion of people without improved drinking water source/ improved sanitation facility.
The world will meet the drinking water target on current trends but half the population of developing regions still lacks basic sanitation. The 2010 target to slow decline in biodiversity has been missed. Improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers has been achieved but their actual numbers are rising.

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Target: 2010 = 0.56%, 2015 = 0.70%
Levels of aid continue to rise, but major donors are well below target. In terms of volume the USA, France, Germany, UK and Japan are the largest donors. G8 countries have failed to deliver on a promise to double aid to Africa. Debt burdens have been eased for developing countries.

Watch UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on UNTV, four days before the Summit commenced:

Going for Gold

2010-09-25T07:28:00.005+03:00

As a second international mining company is suing the Government of El Salvador for the right to strip the country of its resources and pollute its environment (see Tim's El Salvador Blog), I would like to link back to an article I found on CNN this summer - which has obviously stuck with me as my memory is usually not that good.

The article describes the fight against lead poisoning in Nigeria.

At the time of the article, over 160 people had already died.

According to its Material Data Sheet - MSDS, lead as a substance may be toxic to blood, kidneys, central nervous system (CNS). Repeated or prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organs damage. It is also a known carcinogen. The symptoms of lead poisoning include abdominal pain or cramps (lead cholic), spasms, nausea, vomiting, headache, muscle weakness, hallucinations, distorted perceptions, "lead line" on the gums, metallic taste, loss of appetite, insomnia, dizziness and other symptoms similar to that of inhalation. Acute poisoning may result in high lead levels in the blood and urine, shock, coma and death in extreme cases. In the U.S., the standard for residential-area soils is normally 400 parts per million; in the effected villages in Nigeria, it is 10,000 parts per million -- which is 1 percent lead.

Please note that lead is not the only pollutant linked to gold mining.

If you wonder how this is connected to El Salvador: Many of the men in the region [Zamfara State] are gold miners. They bring the metal ore mined from the local mines back to be crushed by their wives and children in their homes. Unbeknownst to them, the gold ore contains extremely high levels of lead. The ore processing has since been moved out of most of the villages and, in theory, the lead could be cleared away.

Using basic tools, the villagers have started to bag up the poisonous top soil. It is put into plastic bags and buried away from the villages.

The Commerce Group, based in Milwaukee, owns a Gold mine in San Sabastian, La Union department in the Eastern part of El Salvador. Current concerns are for the San Sebastian river, which already shows high levels of environmental pollution around the site of the mine (there has been gold mining in the area for about a hundred years or so). The San Sebastian river runs into the Gulf of Fonseca.

Water in the San Sebastian river near the Commerce Group mine

You can catch a virtual presentation and Q & A about the Commerce Group Mine with David Pereira and Cidia Cortez from CEICOM, the Center of Investigation of Investment and Commerce and the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining by going to http://www.justin.tv/usessc/b/270060549.

Water for Life

2010-09-18T09:13:00.003+03:00

Water is the life-blood of agriculture; it is the liquid elixir that nurtures the growth of billions of hectares of crops needed to feed the world. The ample supply of water for farming and agriculture often means the difference between feast and famine. Many parts of the world, however, suffer from the opposite - the growing scarcity of water available for agriculture. The reasons can range from drought and desertification to climate change and climate variability, pollution, over-use and poor water management practices.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, helps countries use nuclear techniques to solve water supply problems. To read more, click here.

UN: World hunger down

2010-09-18T08:59:00.002+03:00

Even though things are improving in developing nations and people generally eat better, the United Nations estimates that nearly 1 billion people will still face chronic hunger this year.

The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme estimated that 925 million people, almost three times the population of the United States, will go hungry. That's down from 1.023 billion people in 2009 and the first decrease in 15 years.

But:

A child dies every six seconds due to problems related to undernourishment

More than 40 percent of the hungry live in India and China

Two thirds of undernourished people live in just seven countries -- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia

The region with the most undernourished people continues to be Asia and the Pacific, with 578 million

The proportion of undernourished people remains highest in sub-Saharan Africa -- at 30 percent in 2010, or 239 million

Go to the United Nations web page to read more about the Global Food Security Crisis.

The Cost of Free Education

2010-09-11T09:14:00.003+03:00

Ask practically any impoverished parent what it will take for their children to break away from the grip of poverty and discover a measure of success in life, and you’ll more than likely get a very simple answer...

Education.

Parents who themselves face an endless cycle of economic deprivation have no trouble pinpointing the way out – what they lack is the means to get there.

Basic education in El Salvador is free. Parents do not have to pay for the teachers or schools. In 2010, President Funes promised to provide all school-age children with free uniforms even. And still, that is not enough. School supplies and books are expensive. Then there are shoes and for the bigger children, computer access is required. How can parents afford the 50 cents it takes at the cyber cafe for a half hour of computer time, when the whole family only has $5 to survive the week?

Coupled with prohibitive costs for food and shelter and the fact that every hand is needed to add to the family’s income, many children simply have no choice other than to drop out. When a boy or girl does finish school, and then goes on to pursue higher education or vocational training, it's a significant achievement.

Laura Elena is a perfect example. She made it through school with top marks and today is in college thanks to help from the Gulf of Hope. (Laura Elena featured in a story on this blog in May 2010)

Giving children an education attacks poverty from many angles, opening the door to future opportunities and improving the financial prospects of the whole family. It allows the family to use the money it would have spent on school supplies to pay for essentials like food and housing, which helps the local economy, since families spend their money within their own communities. Besides this, investing in children’s education helps make sure their communities will have an educated workforce to draw from in the future.

Simply put, education means hope. It means the way out of poverty.

The Gulf of Hope supports five young girls in private primary school, where they get the best possible resources. Laura Elena is about to begin her final year at College. Then there are around 50 children we provide school supplies for. Our aim is to provide medical and dental support for these children and their families, after-school care and homework help. If you would like to help us in our efforts, please donate or sponsor one of our children. For more information, please get in touch with us at gulfofhope@gmail.com.

Sheryl WuDunn on CNN

2010-09-11T09:05:00.004+03:00

This video is from a story that I ran across on CNN. It shows a speech at the TED Global Conference in Oxford in July by author Sheryl WuDunn about the importance of investing in girls' education.

Discrimination against women and girls takes a staggering toll around the world. It leads to as many as 100 million fewer females than males in the world.

Ending the oppression of women is the great moral challenge of the 21st Century, a cause she compares to fighting slavery in the 19th century and totalitarianism in the 20th Century.

WuDunn, a former reporter for The New York Times who is now an investment banker, and her husband, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, wrote "Half the Sky," a book focusing on the role of women in the world.

Please watch the video and think about what Sheryl says.

Alma y Lucha: Soul and Struggle in Women Migrating from El Salvador

2010-09-04T08:33:00.003+03:00

About half of all migrants coming to the states are women. Forty percent of migrants sending money home to El Salvador are women. And women are not only immigrating to support children back home or following a husband, many are now traveling alone - unattached. Only 20 percent of Salvadoran female immigrants have children in their country of origin. Kate Sheehy, a Journalist from Washington, wants to use her reporting to shed light on this new social pattern of women and of immigrants from El Salvador in general, and how it adds to the richness of life around the nation's capital.

Part of this story is a story of the “pobrecita,” as migrant policy expert Manuel Orozco puts it, the women who face terrifying circumstances migrating alone out of the need to feed their children. What is underreported is the number of these individuals who are taking a newfound control over their lives both in the home country and in the states. More women than men have college degrees in El Salvador, and many are in executive roles at companies and NGOs. Let's see how women use this empowered presence at home to find further opportunities once in the U.S.

Kate is raising funds on spot.us for her project. Take a look and see whether you can help her!

Festival of Fire

2010-09-04T08:21:00.003+03:00

The BBC World website brought a video about the Festival of Fire in Nejapa, El Salvador. This is celebrated each year on the 31st of August. Interesting enough to do some digging ...
According to Spooky (see the video here), "“Las Bolas de Fuego”, as the locals refer to this bizarre event, is actually a reenactment of the fight between San Jeronimo and the devil. In 1922, the people of Nejapa and the surrounding area were forced to evacuate, by the eruption of a nearby volcano. As they were leaving, locals saw great balls of fire spewing out of the volcano, and believed their patron saint was actually fighting the devil with them.
Ever since they witnessed the fight between good and evil, the people of Nejapa have celebrated it each year, by organizing their very own fireball fight. If you didn’t know this was an organized celebration, you’d be tempted to think you’ve been dropped in the middle of a war-zone. Two teams of young men, with their faces covered by war paint, throw flaming fireballs at each other, surrounded by hundreds of bystanders who watch their every move.
Equipped with gloves and clothes soaked in water, the brave combatants throw and at the same time, evade the flaming fireballs made from rags and dipped in fuel. Some of their clothes do catch on fire, and some of the participants are often hit right in the face, at point blank, but despite all the health hazards, few injuries have been reported during the Fireball Festival.
It’s definitely a shocking display, but in a country like El Salvador, where gangs and violence are everywhere, getting hit by a flaming fireball, during “Las Bolas de Fuego” is the least dangerous thing that can happen."

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Salvador bans gang membership after bus massacre

2010-09-04T08:11:00.002+03:00

El Salvador has made it illegal to belong to a street gang in the wake of an attack on a passenger bus that killed 17 people.

The new law, approved by lawmakers, makes gang membership punishable by four to six years in prison. Gang leaders face up to 10 years.

President Mauricio Funes introduced the measure in July, a month after suspected members of the Mara 18 gang opened fire on the bus and set it afire.

Gangsters arrested for specific crimes already fill El Salvador's jails, but it previously was not a crime simply to belong.

The new law was criticized by a non-governmental organization that works to rehabilitate former criminals.

"This law is a bit strange," said Luis Romero Gavidia of Homies United, which works with ex-gang members. "They are only talking about repression and have forgotten about rehabilitation. ... They are confronting sickness with another sickness."

An estimated 20,000 Salvadorans belong to street gangs that deal drugs and extort businesses.

Death of a Dream

2010-09-04T07:53:00.006+03:00

On Aug. 24, a wounded, 18 year-old Luis Freddy Lala stumbled to a highway marine checkpoint in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and alerted the authorities of what he had witnessed and survived.
Lala, a migrant from Ecuador, led the Marines to a ranch, where they found 72 massacred bodies of Central and South American migrants.

Picture released by Mexican authorities of the Ranch where the bodies were found

According to Mexcican government security spokesman Alejandro Poire, the migrant told authorities his captors identified themselves as Zetas, a gang of former Mexican army special forces, and that the migrants, 58 men and 14 women, were from Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras. The group had traveled together when they had been taken to the ranch in San Fernando, a town about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. There, they were given the option to join the gang. All but one of the group refused and were executed.
The Navy said it dispatched aircraft to check out the man's report and when the gunmen saw the marines, they opened fire and tried to flee in a convoy of vehicles. One marine and three of the suspects were killed in the shootout.
Navy personnel seized 21 assault rifles, shotguns and rifles, and detained a minor. The youth, who was apparently part of the gang, was handed over to civilian prosecutors.
If the investigations corroborate Lala’s story, the massacre will be the most gruesome example yet of the plight of migrants trying to cross a country where drug cartels are increasingly scouting shelters and highways, hoping to extort or recruit vulnerable migrants.
This was the third time this year that Mexican authorities have discovered large masses of corpses. In the other two cases, investigators believe the bodies were dumped at the sites over a long time.
In May, authorities discovered 55 bodies in an abandoned mine near Taxco, a colonial-era city south of Mexico City that is popular with tourists.
In July, investigators found 51 corpses in two days of digging in a field near a trash dump outside the northern metropolis of Monterrey. Many of those found were believed to have been rival traffickers. But cartels often dispose of the bodies of kidnap victims in such dumping grounds.
In 2009, The National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH) issued a report documenting the alarming levels of abductions of migrants by criminal gangs, and related abuses. The report concluded that, on the basis of the interviews conducted, as many as 9,758 migrants had been kidnapped over a six-month period between 2008 and 2009, including at least 57 children.
The report suggested that Mexico was experiencing a hidden epidemic of kidnappings, with the majority of the most severe abuses occurring in the states crossed by the freight trains on the principal routes used by migrants, such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Veracruz and Tamaulipas, where the massacre took place.
The journey through Mexico has become more and more treacherous as suspected drug traffickers branch out into other businesses, including human trafficking, forcing “coyotes” (smugglers) to hand over their migrants.
“Every year, thousands of migrants are kidnapped, threatened or assaulted by members of criminal gangs,” Amnesty International said in a report released in April.
“Extortion and sexual violence are widespread and many migrants go missing or are killed. Few of these abuses are reported and in most cases those responsible are never held to account.”
Lala was flown home to Ecuador after recovering from his wounds at a Mexican hospital. He is now under a witness protection program in Ecuador. A second survivor, a Honduran who managed to escape the shooting, is under the protection of Mexican security forces.
Lala said he approached two groups of people who refused to help him until he finally reached the marine checkpoint.
The Honduran walked for a long time until he found a migrant shelter. No other information has so far been given about this man, but he was in good health and had been in contact with his family in Honduras.
During a meeting in Guatemala, Central American foreign ministers urged Mexico to find the killers and take steps to avoid more atrocities.
"We call on Mexican authorities to take measures as soon as possible to avoid events like the one that occurred in Tamaulipas," said Honduran Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati.
Thirteen Salvadorans have been identified among the victims of the massacre, while 138 families have reported to El Salvador's foreign ministry that they have a missing loved one who they fear may have been a victim. Among them were a 15 year old girl and a 16 year old boy. Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes has requested a meeting with the Mexican president Felipe Calderon to discuss the issue.
Archbishop of San Salvador, Jose Luis Escobar Alas condemned the massacre but rejected the idea of mounting a campaign to discourage immigrants from traveling to the United States, saying they are doing so because of the lack of opportunities in their own countries.
“It’s not tourism, it’s survival… If the government could provide enough jobs and opportunities so that no young person would have to leave their own country, that would be great,” the archbishop said.
He called on the governments of the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador to establish an agreement protecting the rights of the undocumented.
The body of an official investigating the massacre was found, dumped along a nearby road near another unidentified victim, according to local news reports.
Earlier in the day, two cars exploded outside the studios of the TV network Televisa in Ciudad Victoria. There were no casualties.

Violence against Women and Girls and AIDS/ HIV

2010-07-31T06:56:00.003+03:00

Violence against women and girls is widespread and deeply rooted in cultural norms.
􀂃 One in three women around the world will be physically or sexually or emotionally abused in her lifetime.
􀂃 One in five women will survive rape or attempted rape.
􀂃 Between 20% and 50% of women indicate that their first sexual experience was forced.
􀂃 20% of girls and 10% of boys experience sexual abuse as a child.
􀂃 Nearly 50% of all sexual assaults are committed against girls 15 years or younger.
􀂃 60% of women whose first sexual experience was forced later experience sexual violence at the hands of an intimate partner, compared with only 25% of those whose first sexual was consensual.
􀂃 In many places both men and women believe that violence in the family is acceptable. A WHO study found that in Ethiopia 80% of women feel it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife for at least one reason.
􀂃 A study in South Africa found that 27% of adolescent girls and 32% of adolescent boys felt that “forcing sex with someone you know is never sexual violence.”

I copied this data from a factsheet the Global Aids Alliance has put together.

Violence against women and violence against children is a public health and human rights crisis of epidemic proportions. Not only that, but VAW/C fuels the HIV/AIDS pandemic, both by hindering prevention efforts, including access to education, and by creating barriers to counseling, testing and treatment services. The fight to end the global scourge of HIV/AIDS must include a commitment to end violence. Without addressing violence, we will fail to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals by year-end 2015.

On the Global Aids Alliance website, you will also find a petition to end the violence. Consider signing up - we have.

El Salvador Prison Story

2010-07-30T08:38:00.003+03:00

This is a documentary from BBC three, following Duke, a member of 18, who ends up in prison. The story covers his wife and children, his life in prison, visiting times. Hypnotic viewing. Makes you think - it's so easy for kids to be drawn into this, how to stop it? How to channel all this potential away from violence into something better?

People and Power - Salvadorian Salvation Pts 1 and 2

2010-07-30T08:19:00.003+03:00

It's not all about the gangs and the violence. There are plenty of people that are working to stop spiral of violence, and the videos linked below tell the story of one such organisation, Barefoot Angels, who is working out of Santa Ana. Well worth watching not only because of the story, but also because the videos show real footage from El Salvador: this gives you an idea of how the children and families of the Gulf of Hope life, too.

El Salvador hospitals overwhelmed by respiratory diseases

2010-07-30T07:53:00.003+03:00

AFP - Hospitals in El Salvador have been overwhelmed by an unexpected rise in respiratory diseases including pneumonia and dengue fever, health authorities said Wednesday.
"We've got our hospital network and neighborhood health clinics working at full capacity... with a huge increase these past few weeks in patients with respiratory ailments and possible dengue," Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza told reporters.
The official said acute respiratory disease has shot up in 11 of the country's 14 departments, totaling some 1.3 million cases since the start of the year, including 26,546 cases of pneumonia and 6,584 cases of dengue fever.
Espinoza said health authorities were investigating another 15,893 cases of suspected dengue across the densely populated Central American country, adding that one person has died from the disease so far this year.
He said El Salvador's 30 main hospitals and 300 clinics have enough medicine to attend the spike in respiratory ailments, but were badly understaffed.
Dengue fever symptoms include high temperatures and muscle aches. In extreme cases, hemorrhaging and death can follow.
There is no known vaccine, but scientists estimate to have one ready in about five years.
Global warming has allowed the mosquitoes, and hence dengue fever, to spread to areas where the disease had not previously been known.
Government health authorities together with rescue units and army troops are fumigating urban habitats of the dengue mosquito, and a public awareness campaign for the disease is under way in El Salvador.

Central American Summit: Security at top of Agenda

2010-07-30T07:44:00.002+03:00

69 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States is moved along the Mexico-Central America Corridor
Gang-related violence, drug trafficking are daily occurrences not only in El Salvador

Cecilia Farfán Méndez writes on July 20, 2010 in the New World Human Security Observatory:
Central American leaders assembled in San Salvador Tuesday to step up cooperation at a time when concern grows—particularly in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—over the growing strength of organized crime. Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes called the extraordinary meeting of the Central American Integration System (SICA) to address five topics: security, social policy, climate change and natural disaster prevention, economic integration, and regional institutionalism. But two of the more pressing topics on the agenda are how to stem spiraling gang violence and bringing Honduras back into SICA’s fold.
...
With this pressing concern in mind, El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Hugo Martínez said the SICA summit would create a security plan that involves sharing information and coordinating actions with Colombia and Mexico in order to effectively fight against drug and human trafficking, as well as organized crime. Martínez also declared that Central America needs a security strategy separate from the Merida Initiative, which focuses mostly on the fight against Mexican drug cartels.
To read the entire article and for more information on the Summit, click here.

Surfing El Salvador

2010-07-24T15:17:00.006+03:00

With summer well on the way, several stories have highlighted the beauty of the surf spots along the coast of El Salvador.
According to a recent article on ezinearticles.com, surf travel to El Salvador has not been a priority for most surfers in years past. Surfing in El Salvador has been largely unheard of by many surfers and thoughts of El Salvador bring to mind the past war and issues with crime and violence. Well it has been over a decade since the war and El Salvador has been investing in infrastructure and wiping out the crime and violence problems of the past. The point unknown to most surfers is that the surfing in El Salvador is un-paralleled.
The country's coastline is often compared to that of Santa Barbara but with the swell window of Puerto Escondido. There are many surf spots similar in quality to Rincon but with less crowds and exposure to much larger swells. El Salvador faces directly south so has the premier swell window in Central America for south swells. It is typical to see waves in the 4-8 foot range and bigger on solid swells.
Most of the surf spots can be reached within 30 to 60 minutes from the airport, and are linked by easily accessible roads. Accommodation and food are cheaper than in Costa Rica.
If you are interested in surfing, check out the Playa El Tunco area and the waves at Sunzal.

The most favorite surf spots, most in close proximity to the International Airport

Violence Against Women & Girls: Significant Challenges

2010-07-24T15:09:00.004+03:00

In March 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Rashida Manjoo, warned that the recommendations made by her predecessor six years ago to the Salvadorian authorities “are still applicable and relevant.” Ms. Manjoo shared her views and recommendations in a public statement prepared at the end of a three day follow-up visit to El Salvador.
While acknowledging that the country “has come a long way in institution building and human rights protection since the end of the twelve year civil war in 1992,” the independent expert expressed her concern “at the significant challenges that continue to exist in the area of violence against women and girls” in El Salvador.
“Of particular concern to me,” Ms. Manjoo said, “is the growing prevalence and forms of such violence, especially the alarming rise in the numbers of murders of women and girls and the brutality inflicted on their bodies, which is often accompanied by kidnapping and sexual assault.
The UN Special Rapporteur noted other forms of violence were identified and continue to be prevalent and pervasive: “Domestic violence, sexual abuse against women and children in the home and the community, violence and sexual harassment in the workplace, particularly in the maquila sector and the domestic sphere, police-related violence and sexual commercial exploitation.”
The UN independent expert also focused on the issue of abortion, noting that “the interpretative conflict between the constitutional provisions and the Penal Code has led to the criminalization of abortion, which is having a direct impact on the current high rates of maternal mortality and adolescent pregnancies, and thus denies women and girls the right to control their bodies and their lives.”
According to her predecessor’s report: “The criminalization of abortion is discriminatory primarily for poor women, as women of higher social standing are said to have access to other options for dealing with unwanted pregnancies.”
Ms. Rashida Manjoo (South Africa) was appointed Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences in June 2009 by the United Nations Human Rights Council for an initial period of three years. As Special Rapporteur, she is independent from any government or organization and serves in her individual capacity. Ms. Manjoo is also a Professor at the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town.
For the full text on violence is not our culture and on other texts on the topic of violence against women and girls, please click here.

July 18th - Mandela Day

2010-07-16T19:43:00.001+03:00

Mandela's birthday, July 18th, has been designated by the UN as an international day of humanitarian action in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy. It serves as a catalyst for each and every person to realize that they have the ability to change the world through action.

The day hopes to inspire people to embrace the values that Mandela shared. These values include democracy, freedom, equality, diversity, reconciliation, and respect.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela

Violence Against Children

2010-07-16T09:23:00.003+03:00

In 2003 Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro was appointed Independent Expert to lead a UN Study on Violence Against Children on behalf of the Secretary-General. This was the first comprehensive global research project by the UN on all forms of violence against children, and combined human rights, public health, and child protection perspectives.
The aim of the study was to research, report, and make recommendations on violence against children in five settings: the home and family, schools, care and justice systems, the workplace and the community. What it found was shocking levels of violence affecting the lives of children in all countries.
The Violence Study was a collective process that involved consultations in nine regions and dozens of expert meetings, involving thousands of people from governments, children, civil society and a number of UN agencies.
The Study was presented at the GA in 2006 and was accompanied by a book World Report on Violence Against Children. The Study provided 12 Recommendations and proposed the establishment of a Special Representative to the UN Secretary General on Violence Against Children (SRSG).
Please visit the CRIN website to read the full text and find out about their important work.

The Gulf of Hope, A Children's Charity

2010-07-16T08:34:00.007+03:00

We have all seen the appeals from charities asking us to help support the world's poorest children. They ask for our money, our time and our compassion. But can we be sure these charities put our donations to good use? Do their good intentions lead to worthwhile actions? If they are Christian charities, do they truly follow and share Christ's message of love and hope? (for full text of this article and author, click here)
There are a number of charities, big and small, dedicated to helping children in need. The challenge they face is immense. Nearly half the world's 2.2 billion children are living in poverty to some degree. One in three children in developing nations lacks adequate shelter, one in five has no access to clean water, and one in seven lacks health care.
Tragically, every day 24,000 children die because of poverty.
The fact is that, without the efforts of the respected children's charities, many more would die, and thousands, possibly millions more would lack basic amenities. The work of these organizations, supported by donations, offers a glimmer of hope in the poorest countries.
The Gulf of Hope is only a small charity; as a matter of fact, for now, it is merely more than a time-consuming hobby for Omar and myself. Over the last year or so, we have managed to raise awareness and have garnered support from family and friends, and those reading this blog. As we are not fully registered yet, money has been an issue, but thankfully, there always has been just enough. Or maybe we just shaped our projects to fit the level of money in the bank.

These girls are being sponsored by the Gulf of Hope and are doing well in their new school

The families that are part of our group in La Union are families that currently have a roof over their heads. The parents have some form of income. They are a short way away from 'making it', but not quite. They can afford basic foods, but when it comes to the education of their children, this is where it falls down for them. Basic education is almost free, but then there are the notebooks and pens, the rucksacks and other utensils. They don't cost much and a couple of dollars for people in the Western World are nothing to think about. But for those families, a spare dollar is non-attainable. So for 40 or so children, this is where the Gulf of Hope steps in.
We ensure that the kids stay in education. With this gift comes hope. With education comes the possibility not only to escape poverty, but also the opportunity to train as a teacher or doctor and help generations to come. First and foremost, with education comes the chance for a better job and a way away from the dirt floors and bare feet.
Providing any more requires a much larger support structure. As we are still very small, this is a huge task. For this, we would need many more financial supporters and a much larger staff in El Salvador. Not only do supporters need to know that their money is well spent, but we then would have to employ people and I no longer could insist that 100% of all donations go straight to El Salvador and our various projects there.
Many have asked us about direct sponsorship, about being matched to a single child. We have 40 or so kids in our group, however, the communication is difficult. Nobody in our group in La Union speaks English to a good enough standard to help with letters to and from sponsors. However, as so many have asked about personal sponsorship, we are working on setting up a computer-(email)-based system where Omar and I would do the translating and passing-on of letters. Support per child would cost about $20 per month, and provide clothing, shoes, school supplies, visits to doctors and dentists. As always, sponsors would be welcome to visit the children in El Salvador: the best way to see what your money does!

Kids like Josue Alberto will benefit from sponsorship

The Gulf of Hope on purpose chose not to be a Christian charity. Most of our children go to church, however, we as the founders will not insist on adherence to any specific faith. This enables us to help families no matter what their belief system. Most are following either Catholic or Evangelical faiths.
Our main aim is to bring hope and to let them see that there are people who care and people who want them to have succeed in life.
Please consider supporting us. If you want to learn more about what we currently do, please send us an email (links on the right hand side on the blog) and ask your questions!

The Gulf of Hope Family, April 2010

The new port in La Union

2010-07-10T08:23:00.004+03:00

Earlier last month, the new port in La Union officially opened. This is a development of about $200 million, mainly sponsored by Japan. Container ships from all over the world are beginning to unload (well, some, and so far, it has been a good start).

January 2009, before it was all finished

From the port, lorries will distribute the containers throughout Central America and potentially further.
La Union will be busy once again. For now, new jobs are being advertised and the people of the area are having prospects of regular incomes. Much has to be done, though, to improve the levels of qualifications of the workers. Knowledge of computers and languages is in demand.
More development hopefully will follow. There even was talk about re-instating the railway lines from La Union back to San Salvador and beyond.
The port has its own website, click here.

Will be good to see this busy

How to curb the violence?

2010-07-10T08:10:00.004+03:00

18 days after 15 people were killed by gunshots and the minibus in which they were traveling was burned in San Salvador, Mauricio Funes sanctioned an ordinance that would have daily Bible readings in all public schools in the country. The law was established to prevent violence and diminish the influence of gangs that plague El Salvador.
For Funes, the reading of the Bible could be an "initiative that alleviates the situation of violence in the country."
Religious Leadership opposes this legislation. They warned that the measure could bring about religious conflict and division between churches.
"The perspective with which violence is approached concerns me; we are not looking at what lies behind," said Miguel Tomas Castro, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Salvador.
Ecclesiastical leaders agree that the possible solution lies in fostering moral, ethical and spiritual values in all spheres. Rivas, the well-known evangelical pastor of the International Revival Tabernacle, for example, proposed a center for the formation of values in the Ministry of Education.

2010-07-10T07:57:00.005+03:00

Halfway through June, Reuters AlertNet reported that "Adverse climatic conditions and weather-related disasters are damaging crops in El Salvador and neighbouring countries in Central America, aggravating the food vulnerability that the region already faces. In late 2009, for the first time ever, Guatemala was included on a worldwide list of countries in crisis requiring external assistance, compiled by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). ...
Losses in the agricultural sector have been estimated at six million dollars in El Salvador, according to official figures. However, the full economic impact of the storm has yet to be calculated, although it will be massive, stated Alexander Segovia, the technical secretary to the president of El Salvador.
"Whether it is flooding or drought, extreme weather conditions always hurt agricultural yields, especially since approximately 60 percent of grain crops in El Salvador are grown on hillsides," Edgar Cruz of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) told IPS."

Related follows this article as reported in the Latin American Herald Tribune, July 10, 2010:
"Two children are dead and their parents and siblings remain hospitalized after the family ate tortillas made from seed corn that was treated with pesticide, officials at Salvadoran hospitals said Thursday.
“It’s an entire family: papa, mama and five minors. Two of the five minors had already died” by the time medical assistance was available, the deputy director of Jose Molina Martinez General Hospital, Dr. Jose Roberto Gonzalez, told Efe.
The fatalities, ages 10 and 12, died Wednesday after eating the tortillas made from government-issued seed corn, which is treated with the pesticide carbamate.
Gonzalez said the parents remain at Martinez General, while the three other children were taken to Benjamin Bloom, a pediatric hospital in San Salvador.
“The parents are stable, they have improved, though they are still in fragile condition,” the doctor said.
The director of Bloom hospital, Alvaro Salgado, told reporters that one of the three surviving children remains on a respirator in the intensive care unit, while the other two are listed as stable.
Neighbors in the community of Rios de las Cañas, near the Salvadoran capital, told media outlets the father asked his wife to cook the seed corn because the family had nothing else to eat."

With loss of arable land again this year during the rains, the situation of many families in El Salvador will get worse. In addition, money coming into the country from elsewhere has diminished due to the financial situation in Northern America and Europe, where many Salvadorans had found work. Cases like the one reported above will only increase as people will find food wherever they can.

For now, the situation for the families that belong to the Gulf of Hope is not that desperate yet. However, rainy season has not ended yet and we are keeping in close contact with the children to ensure that they, and their families, are safe.

Music feature: Vallenato

2010-07-03T09:13:00.005+03:00

Vallenato, along with cumbia, is currently a popular folk music of Colombia. It primarily comes from the Colombia's Caribbean region. Vallenato literally means "born in the valley". The valley influencing this name is located between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía de Perijá in northeast Colombia. The name also applies to the people from the city where this genre originated: Valledupar (from the place named Valle de Upar - "Valley of Upar"). In 2006 Vallenato and cumbia were added as a category in the Latin Grammy Awards.
This form of music originated from farmers who, keeping a tradition of Spanish minstrels, mixed also with the West African-inherited tradition of griots (African version of juglar), who used to travel through the region with their cattle in search of pastures or to sell them in cattle fairs. Because they traveled from town to town and the region lacked rapid communications, these farmers served as bearers of news for families living in other towns or villages. Their only form of entertainment during these trips was singing and playing guitars or indigenous gaita flutes, known as kuisis in the Kogi language, and their form of transmitting their news was by singing their messages.
The first form of vallenato was played with gaita flutes, guacharaca, and caja, and later adopted other instruments like guitars. These troubadors were later influenced by Europe's instruments: piano and accordion. Shocked with the sound from the accordion, troubadors probably obtained later on accordions from Aruba and Curaçao. Vallenato was considered music of the lower class and farmers, but gradually started penetrating through every social group during the mid-20th century.
During one of the early versions of the Vallenato Legend Festival, Daniel Samper, an influent cachaco (denomination given in northern Colombia to people from Bogotá) journalist, started dancing vallenato with his wife. Such practice was not common and generally not accepted by local vallenato followers, but later it became a tradition that spread to parties, concerts, and nightclubs. Today, Colombians commonly dance along to vallenato, and newer compositions have become more rhythmical and hence more suitable for it.
Thanks to the Vallenato Legend Festival this musical genre became known through the region including regions of Venezuela, and when a popular telenovela, "Escalona", based on the life of Vallenato composer, Rafael Escalona was aired on national television (with vallenato superstar Carlos Vives as Escalona), Vallenato became widely known in Colombia and internationally. Some renowned traditional vallenato performers are Guillermo Buitrago, Alejo Duran, Enrique Díaz, Emiliano Zuleta, Luis Enrique Martínez, Abel Antonio Villa and Lorenzo Morales. Other important characters such as Tobías Enrique Pumarejo and Rafael Escalona never played any instrument, but were important writers of very well known songs across Latin America.
The current ambassador of the genre is multiple-time Grammy Award-winner Carlos Vives, who has progressively helped vallenato gain popularity worldwide by combining traditional vallenato music with pop/rock music, subgenre that has come to be known as "vallenato-pop".

Summer time

2010-07-03T08:57:00.004+03:00

Remember how exciting the word summer was when you were young? When it represented long days of freedom and nights ripe with adventure? As adults, most of us don't get summers off anymore. Yet we still equate the season with fun - vacations and swimming pools, backyard barbecues and family picnics. As things start heating up, let's take a moment to appreciate how good we've got it. In many places around the world, summer conjures entirely different images.
For the people in El Salvador, the season brings the rains, unbearable heat and hurricanes. Only last week, Hurricane Alex brushed El Salvador with so much rain that rivers overflowed and landslides damaged bridges and road systems. Most seriously of all, people were killed or hurt, and many lost all they possessed.
Those people, and many like them, need our help.
Don't get us wrong - we want you to enjoy your summer. But please spare a thought for the children of the Gulf of Hope and their families who will not have access to ACs or pools, who live in crowded conditions in houses with mud floors that provide inadequate shelter against the rain and storms this time of year throws their way. Let them know that people think of them, and if you can, please donate to ensure that funds are available to help in an emergency.

No shelter against heat, rain or worse

No asylum for those fleeing gang violence

2010-07-03T08:25:00.005+03:00

Here is a story that initially caught my attention on Tim's El Salvador Blog: it is the story about Salvadorans fleeing from gang violence, and making their way illegally to the USA. If caught there, they are being deported back to their country of origin.
In the last few years, there have been several rulings that makes it more and more difficult to claim asylum in the USA and petitions based on the threat of gang violence are generally not granted. In a landmark ruling in 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied a petition by three Salvadoran teenagers who fled recruitment by a gang called the MS-13, saying they had not shown that they were in more peril than Salvadorans in general.
The New York Times printed an article (read here) that relayed the stories of two families that were directly affected by this.
The cases of Benito Zaldívar, who was killed, and Nelson Benítez Ramos, who lives in hiding, have increased the pressure on the courts and the Obama administration to clarify asylum law so foreigners facing life-threatening dangers from gangs would have a chance at refuge in the USA.
Gang violence in El Salvador has to be addressed in El Salvador. However, the effects that the gangs have reach further and impact other countries as well.
In El Salvador, shouts are getting louder that call for the to re-introduction of the death penalty. Again, I would like to point to Tim's Blog, this time to the story about the bus massacre, and ask you to read the comments as well as the story.
Violence should never be the answer.

2010-07-03T08:09:00.004+03:00

The e-commerce journal published an article that focuses on internet and e-commerce progress in El Salvador and paints a highly positive picture.

"El Salvador represents the smallest but at the same time the most densely populated country in Central America with almost 7.2 mn inhabitants. The country, which lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. The capital city of San Salvador is the largest city of the republic. El Salvador has the third largest economy in the region, behind Costa Rica and Panama, with GDP per capita standing at $4,365. Actually, most of El Salvador's economy has been hampered by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Moreover, the country has suffered from extreme income inequality, rampant crime rates, lack of infrastructure, inadequate social capital, and one of the highest homicide rates in the world. However, at present, El Salvador has managed to gain steadily growing economy."

Currently, about 13.5% of people are connected to the internet. At the moment, two of our children have direct internet access in La Union.

With the help of our sponsors, we would like to open an internet cafe at our side of town with free access for the children that the Gulf of Hope is supporting. For this, we are looking for sponsorship of hardware (computers, monitors, etc).

The planned facility will provide training and an income for the people running it. However, without your help, we are unable to go ahead with this idea as we are lacking funds.

If you want to help us, please either use the link to our paypal account or get in touch for any questions concerning the Gulf of Hope and our latest projects.

Train of death

2010-06-25T08:26:00.004+03:00

This is a story I found on CNN. It tells about the train ride people catch on their way from Central America into Mexico and beyond.
Human rights groups estimate thousands of migrants have died after falling off the train, due to fatigue, dehydration or attempts to board while it was on the move. Thousands more have fallen under the wheels and lost legs or arms -- and in some cases both.
Even if they manage to cling onto the train, the route north is fraught with risk.
Government human rights workers say criminal gangs and corrupt immigration officials and police regularly prey on the migrants, robbing them, raping them and kidnapping them.
Fernando Batista, a Mexico City-based senior official at the government National Human Rights' Commission (CNDH), said in a six-month period last year 9,700 Central American migrants were reported kidnapped.
Sneaking a ride on a goods train to the border
The article highlights some of the reasons why these people leave their own countries, but it mainly focuses on the journey they take to what they hope is a better life for those they leave behind.

Music Feature: Ranchera

2010-06-25T07:54:00.003+03:00

The ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico originally sung by only one person and a guitar in the times of the Mexican Revolution. Years later it became closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco in the post-revolutionary period, rancheras are also played today by norteño (or Conjunto) or banda. Drawing on rural traditional folklore, the ranchera was conceived as a symbol of a new national consciousness in reaction to the aristocratic tastes of that era. Perhaps the greatest exponents of the ranchera have been Cuco Sanchez, José Alfredo Jiménez, Lola Beltrán, Vicente Fernández, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, and Javier Solís.
Traditional rancheras are about love, patriotism or nature. Rhythms can be in 3/4, 2/4 or 4/4, reflecting the tempo of, respectively, the waltz, the polka, and the bolero. Songs are usually in a major key, and consist of an instrumental introduction, verse and refrain, instrumental section repeating the verse, and another verse and refrain, with a tag ending. Instrumentation may include guitars, strings, trumpets, and/or accordions, depending on the type of ensemble being utilised. Besides the typical instrumentation, ranchera music, as well as many other forms of traditional Mexican music, is also noted for the grito mexicano, a yell that is done at musical interludes within a song, either by the musicians and/or the listening audience.
The most popular ranchera composers include Lucha Reyes, Cuco Sánchez, Antonio Aguilar, and José Alfredo Jiménez, who composed many of the best-known rancheras, with compositions totaling more than 1000 songs, making him one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of western music.
Another closely related style of music is the corrido, which is often played by the same ensembles that regularly play rancheras. The corrido, however, is apt to be an epic story about heroes and villains, whereas rancheras may not necessarily be heroic ballads, and also vary more in terms of tempo. However, two notable exceptions to this rule are the songs, 'Corrido de Chihuahua' and the 'Corrido de Monterrey', which are considered rancheras in spite of their names. Their lyrics are concerned with patriotism for the states of Chihuahua and Nuevo León, respectively.
The word ranchera was derived from the word rancho because the songs originated on the ranches and in the countryside of rural Mexico. Rancheras that have been adapted by conjuntos, or norteño bands from northern Mexico and the southwestern US, are sometimes called norteños, from the Spanish word for northern.
Even ranchera music is still popular, at last times it has fused with Cumbia music, creating the low-class, popular and widespread subgenre known as "chera" music, that lacks the romantic style of the original rancheras and instead contains roguish, low-class, appealing lyrics; it also lacks the formal instruments from rancheras, often consisting in only accordion, drums, guitar and tololoche.
And how to dance to this music? Look at this 5-year old and you get an idea!

Gangs target buses in El Salvador

2010-06-22T16:00:00.001+03:00

This from the BBC news website:
Police in El Salvador say they have captured a number of alleged gang members they accuse of torching a public bus, killing 11 people.
Gunmen had earlier boarded another bus in the capital San Salvador and shot dead two children and an adult.
Police said they suspected gang members had carried out the attacks in revenge for President Mauricio Funes' clampdown on violent street gangs.
But some analysts said it could be part of a turf war between rival gangs.
Salvadorean Security Minister Manuel Melgar called Sunday's incident "an act of terrorism".

Protection rackets

Attacks on public transport companies are not uncommon in El Salvador.
Criminal gangs have in the past torched buses of companies who have refused to pay protection money, but this is the first time a bus was set alight with its passengers on board.
An investigator who asked to remain anonymous told BBC Mundo two rival gangs were fighting over control of the neighbourhood where the attacks happened.
"The Mara Salvatrucha gang wanted to extort money from this bus company, but the company was already being extorted by the 18th Street Gang and told them they couldn't pay off two gangs, and that's how this butchery started," he said.
The BBC's Eric Lemus in El Salvador says the attack has taken gang violence to a new level and shocked the country.

The vulnerable communities of the lower Lempa River

2010-06-21T14:58:00.002+03:00

With Tropical Storm Agatha behind them, now able to asses damages and plan for the future, the Movement of Rural Communities Affected by Flooding held a press conference. Representatives of communities located near the lower Lempa, Grande, Jiboa and Paz rivers came together on this rainy, grey Friday morning at the CRIPDES National Office to make a number of concrete demands. These four rivers flooded during Hurricane Ida, and these communities have been among those arguably most affected by hurricanes, rains, flooding and landslides for decades. Representatives included SHARE counterparts CRIPDES San Vicente and ACUDESBAL, who work with communities on the western and eastern banks of the lower Lempa River, respectively.
The conference began as the representative of ACUDESBAL summarized the situation. Communites located in lower river basins in El Salvador and throughout the country, dependent on agriculture to survive, are unsure whether to plant. Those that didn't lose their crops in Agatha are hesitant to plant now, for fear of continued flooding with more rains on the way. Their livelihoods, though, depend on the year's corn, bean and sorghum harvest.
Due to the massive amount of water rushing downstream, the levees, already in a serious state of disrepair, broke in eight places along the lower Lempa River, leaving the communities always in threat of flooding even more vulnerable. This, coupled with what is widely expected to be an extreme hurricane season, has planted fear in place of the corn seeds, washed away. Repairs to the broken levees demand heavy machinery, impossible to bring into a zone that resembles marshland when it rains heavily. So communities are forced to wait it out, saying their prayers and crossing their fingers until November.

Rio Lempa before the rains started

El Salvador versus Pacific Rim Mining

2010-06-18T10:26:00.014+03:00

Cabañas, a rural, poverty-stricken department of northern El Salvador, has become deeply polarized over mining exploration projects operated by foreign companies hoping to extract the region's abundant gold deposits. Residents fear the contamination and depletion of water that mining is known to cause, and are outraged that they have not been consulted in the plans to extract resources from their land.
The most controversial of these companies is the Canadian-based Pacific Rim, which operates the country's most advanced exploration project in San Isidro, a small municipality of 10,000 people in Cabañas. Community members and local NGOs began to organize in 2005—the same year that Pacific Rim requested an extraction permit from the Salvadoran government. Motivated by the urgency of their cause, activists in Cabañas reached out to San Salvador-based NGOs, forming a national coalition with strong international networks.

Location of the disputed area

According to their website,
“Pacific Rim is an environmentally and socially responsible exploration company focused exclusively on high grade, environmentally clean gold deposits in the Americas. Pacific Rim's primary asset and focus of its growth strategy is the high grade, vein-hosted El Dorado gold project in El Salvador. The Company owns several similar grassroots gold projects in El Salvador and is actively seeking additional assets elsewhere in the Americas that fit its project focus.
Pacific Rim's exploration strategies and geological programs are conceived, planned and carried out by a core group of successful explorationists including Tom Shrake, the Company's CEO, Bill Gehlen, VP Exploration and Dave Ernst, Chief Geologist. This team has over 75 years combined experience in gold and copper exploration and was responsible for the identification and delineation of a number of world class mineral deposits. They have many years of experience working in North, Central and South America, and have a unique understanding of the gold belts of Central America.
As a result, Pacific Rim's exploration focus and strategic advantage centers on gold in the Americas. The Company exclusively explores for high grade, environmentally low-impact deposits that offer the potential for high margins. Our exploration is conducted with the utmost respect for local communities, their culture, health and the environment.”
Over the past couple of years, there has been an escalating campaign of threats and violence aimed at environmentalists and civic leaders in El Salvador, culminating in the recent assassinations of three antimining activists. While it remains unclear who is behind the bloodshed, it appears that the aggressors may be fellow community members who support mining.

Solidarity response to the killings

Tensions are particularly evident in Trinidad, a remote village two hours north of San Isidro, where Pacific Rim conducted preliminary explorations at Limón Peak. Trinidad has been the site of most of the recent violence, which many believe is the result of deep rifts between residents who staunchly support mining and those who actively oppose it. The latter have taken non-violent action on four occasions, blockading the highway to prevent Pacific Rim's equipment from entering, and forcing the company to remove the machinery operating at Limón Peak. Many activists speculate that these actions angered local mining advocates, many of whom may have a financial stake in the mining.

Anti-mining street protests

Community members in both Trinidad and San Isidro have reported that Pacific Rim has made attempts to gain favor with local inhabitants by paying some residents to promote mining, and by offering gifts such as free eye-glasses in exchange for support. "The ambition for money is the root of all this," says Israel Menjívar, a Trinidad resident, who, like many community members, believes that the violence is the result of these divisions.
Community members have long asserted that Pacific Rim has quietly contributed to municipal activities in San Isidro, most notably sponsoring the local patron-saint parties. In an interview, José Ignacio Bautista, the Mayor of San Isidro, was asked to respond to these allegations, and he remarked: “We (the municipal government) don’t have a lot of funds. We have to manage our resources and negotiate. This is not corruption. We didn’t sign anything with conditions. We are not obligated to them in any way.” He added that various institutions, including the local church, the hospital in the nearby town of Sensuntepeque, the Ministries of Health and Education, and local sports teams, have accepted help from Pacific Rim, though he did not elaborate on the nature of that help.

Protest against a very real threat

The Salvadoran government has not granted Pacific Rim the extraction permit it seeks, and due to the community's efforts, both former President Tony Saca and President Mauricio Funes have publicly declared their opposition to gold mining. In April 2009, Pacific Rim commenced a lawsuit against the Salvadoran government for hundreds of millions of dollars in lost profits to which it feels it is entitled under the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The preliminary hearing at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes ("ICSID") began on May 31.
Voices from El Salvador blog were watching the hearings and wrote a thoughtful summary of day 1 and day 2. The writer summed up what could be gleaned from these formal legal proceedings:
“I found these hearings interesting on a couple levels. Much of what we hear about the mining debate comes from grassroots organizations that support the anti-mining movement in El Salvador. While the information we receive is important and interesting, too often we don’t know what is happening within the government ministries, or what Pacific Rim is really thinking. We see how their decisions manifest in Cabanas, but we don’t necessarily see the process. These hearings have been a window into what the Salvadoran government and Pacific Rim have been doing and thinking over the years. Granted, the information that we are getting is filtered through legal teams and the facts have been methodically organized to support legal arguments, but its more than we’ve gotten in the past.”
Please watch this or this for an inkling of why people do not want Pacific Rim in their area.

Return to El Salvador

2010-06-17T18:36:00.004+03:00

Why do 700 Salvadorans leave their native country every day? This is the burning question behind documentary filmmaker Jamie Moffett’s latest project, Return to El Salvador. Narrated by Martin Sheen and endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the film provides a rare glimpse into how the lives of North Americans are directly tied to those of this tiny Central American nation.
On Upside Down World, you can read the interview with Jamie Moffett and find some more links.
Here, a snippet to give you a flavor of what you can find (and it links back to some of the stories you have read on this blog before):

"Tim Hoiland: What surprised you the most while making this film?

Jamie Moffett: There was one important nugget that didn’t make it into the film that really disturbed me. We went to the morgue in El Salvador and the scientists were studying DNA there from 80 bodies from four days’ time. The average rate of murders in El Salvador is 12 people per day. And at this morgue, they were all related to drugs - not drug use, but drug trafficking. So I began asking questions. Who are the victims of the drug trade? That answer was clear. Where are the drugs sent? They are sent mostly to the north, to the United States. And what would happen if the US didn’t have the appetite for illegal drugs that it currently has? The woman at the morgue answered point blank that none of these people would be in the morgue.
I’m disappointed that this didn’t make it into the film. I hope I can somehow communicate to people who use drugs in the United States that what they use to put in their arm or up their nose - they’re not just harming themselves. There is literally a trail of blood behind every hit, up from South America, through Central America, and lots of people are killed along the way. I’m sure there are folks who have absolutely no understanding of that in their worldview and I hope this can be more strongly communicated to American consumers. It really comes down to supply and demand, and this demand is literally killing thousands of people every year, but North Americans never see it."

The FINANCIAL - IFC’s First Remittance-secured Financing Enables Credit for El Salvador’s Microenterprises

2010-06-17T18:22:00.002+03:00

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, will provide up to $30 million of debt financing to Fedecredito using an innovative funding approach that leverages the significant remittances of El Salvadorans working abroad to increase lending to microentrepreneurs and low-income people in the country.
According to IFC, this will be the first funding backed by future remittance flows undertaken anywhere by a financial intermediary focused on low-income clients. Fedecredito is a cooperative owned by 55 El Salvadoran credit unions and workers banks that mobilize savings deposits from 600,000 low-income member owners, who represent close to one-quarter of El Salvador’s workforce. In addition to raising wholesale funding for these credit unions and workers banks, Fedecredito also processes remittances for them.

For the full story, click here: The FINANCIAL - IFC’s First Remittance-secured Financing Enables Credit for El Salvador’s Microenterprises

Rainy Season has arrived

2010-06-12T07:31:00.003+03:00

The first named Tropical Storm of the year, Agatha moved over Salvadoran territory early in June. The papers reported on the deaths in the region – deaths due to the flooding and the landslides and the chaos. The Environmental Minister, Herman Rosa Chavéz, released data saying that the levels of rain during Agatha were above 483mm in only 24 hours, surpassing those during Hurricane Mitch, at 375mm.
In El Salvador, heavy rainfall for days straight led to flooding and landslides throughout the country, and after elevating alert levels throughout the weekend, a state of emergency was declared. In his Sunday afternoon address, Funes asked citizens to cooperate with authorities and heed calls for evacuation, promising security for the homes and belongings families would leave behind and food and shelter at their destination. He made a call to solidarity organizations, political parties and governmental institutions to respond and unite to this most recent disaster.

Photo thanks to Worldnews

Preliminary data from the Civil Protection Department informs that 10,335 people are in temporary shelter in 198 shelters throughout the country. Flooding of the Río Lempa caused evacuations in San Pablo Tacachico and El Paisnal along with dozens of communities in the Bajo Lempa, including the municipality of Tecoluca, along with dozens of communities in La Libertad, Cuscatlan, La Paz, Usulutan and San Vicente.
What probably is worse is that planting season already began, meaning that much of this year's crop may be lost from flooding, landslides or saturation of water.
According to Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Guillermo Lopez, the tropical storm Agatha left losses of more than six million dollars in the agricultural sector in El Salvador. Preliminary studies indicate that rains and winds caused damage in the agricultural infrastructure of about $ three million, and crop losses by a similar value, explained the Minister.
According to López, nearly 30 percent of crops were affected by the rainfall. The most affected crops were corn, rice, vegetables, and sugar cane, he said. These are the staples for most Salvadoreans, meaning that prices will go up yet again, meaning more will go hungry this next season.
Agatha also left damage to road infrastructure of $ 20 million.
Civil Protection Director Jorge Melendez said that more than 120 000 people were affected by the rains, due to damages to their homes, loss of crops or having to leave their economic activities such as fishing, trade, and tourism, among others.
With so many friends and family around El Salvador and the Gulf of Mexico, Omar and I keep monitoring NOAA’s National Hurricane Center.

Music Feature: Bachata

2010-06-04T14:25:00.002+03:00

Bachata is a genre of music that originated in the countryside and the rural neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic. Its subjects are often romantic; especially prevalent are tales of heartbreak and sadness. In fact, the original term used to name the genre was amargue ("bitterness," or "bitter music"), until the rather ambiguous (and mood-neutral) term bachata became popular. The form of dance, Bachata, also developed with the music.
Bachata originates from the Dominican Republic, with mixed boleros combining traditional latin/carribean rhythms with bachata rhythms, and is a guitar based music which recently evolved from bolero. During much of its history Bachata music was denigrated by Dominican society and associated with rural backwardness and delinquency. As recently as 1988 Bachata was considered too vulgar, crude and musically rustic to enter mainstream music. In the 1990s, bachata's instrumentation changed from acoustic Spanish guitar to electric steel string. The new electric bachata soon became an international phenomenon, and today bachata is as popular as salsa and merengue in some Latin American dancehalls.
Bachata was first recorded immediately after the demise of Trujillo whose 30 year dictatorship was accompanied by censorship. José Manuel Calderón is credited as having recorded the first bachata singles: (“Borracho de amor” and “Que será de mi (Condena)”) released on 45rpm in 1961. After Trujillo's death, the floodgates were opened: following Calderon's historic bachata debut came more recordings by the likes of Rafael Encarnacion, Ramoncito Cabrera El Chivo Sin Ley,Corey Perro, Antonio Gómez Salcero, Luis Segura, Ramón Cordero and many more. The 1960s saw the birth of the Dominican music industry and of the bachata music which would dominate it.

While the bachatas being recorded in the 1960s had a distinctly Dominican flavor, they were regarded at the time as a variant of bolero, as the term 'bachata' had not yet come into use. Bachata, which originally was a term used to describe an informal rustic party, was a label first applied to the music by those seeking to disparage it. The higher echelons of Dominican Society felt that bachata music was an expression of cultural backwardness, and a campaign ensued to brand bachata in this negative light.

The 1970s were dark years for bachata. The music was seldom played on the radio, and almost unmentioned on television and in print. Bachateros were also barred from performing in high society venues - having to content themselves instead with gigs in bars and brothels in the country's poorest neighborhoods. The music was influenced by its surroundings; sex, despair and crime were amongst numerous topics the genre highlighted. This, of course, only furthered the cause of those seeking to tar bachata as a music of the barrios. Despite its unofficial censorship, bachata remained widely popular; while orchestral merengue benefited from the country's major publicity outlets. However, bachata continued to outsell merengue. Some Bachateros to emerge from this era were Marino Perez, and Leonardo Paniagua.

By the early 1980s bachata's popularity could not be denied. Due to popular demand, more radio stations began playing bachata, and bachateros soon found themselves performing on television as well. Bachata in the mean time had begun to take on a more dance-hall sound: tempos increased, guitar playing became punchier, and call and response singing more prevalent. Bachata style merengues, or guitar merengues, also became an increasingly important part of the bachata repertoire. Blas Durán was the first to record with electric guitar in his 1987 bachata-merengue hit, "Mujeres hembras".

By the early 1990s, the sound was further modernized and the bachata scene was dominated by two new young stars: Luis Vargas and Antony Santos. Both incorporated a large number of bachata-merengues in their repertoires. Santos, Vargas and the many new style bachateros who would follow achieved a level of stardom which was unimaginable to the bachateros who preceded them. They were the first generation of pop bachata artists and received all the hype and image branding typical of commercial pop music elsewhere. It was also at this time that bachata began to emerge internationally as a music of Hispanic dance-halls.

Juan Luis Guerra's Grammy winning 1992 release, Bachata Rosa, is routinely credited with making the genre more acceptable and helping bachata achieve legitimacy and international recognition. Surprisingly , although he used the word bachata in the album title, none of the songs reflected the indistinguishable bachata sound.

Aventura, based in New York City, is today the best known bachata group. Their 2002 single "Obsesión" dominated airwaves in Latin America countries, the US Hispanic market, and Caribbean Spanish speaking Islands. Other popular modern artists include Raulin Rodriguez, Zacarias Ferreira, Frank Reyes, El Chaval,
Monchy y Alexandra, Andy Andy, Elvis Martinez, Joe Veras and Luis Vargas.

There are plenty of instructional vids available to show you how to do it. Just click on the links and try it for yourselves!

From Schoolkids for Schoolkids

2010-06-04T13:47:00.008+03:00

After the story of the Gulf of Hope was run in the UAE media, we had some amazing feedback. People wanted to help, wanted to talk to us and find out about the work we do.
Amongst the responses was one from a young lady who goes to the American School of Dubai. She told us that her friends at the school had collected a mountain of backpacks filled with school supplies, and she asked whether we were interested. O yes, of course we were!
So, yesterday, we finally had a car arranged to take us from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. We don't go there often, and usually just to catch a plane. The day was hazy, but we still tried to take in the sights either side of the road.

The tallest building of the world, hazy in the distance

At the ASD High School Building, we met with two students and a teacher and took over three boxes full of goodies for the kids in La Union.

Thanks!

Bringing home the goodies

30 backpacks with school supplies ... it would have been nice for some of the kids from Dubai to come with us and deliver these in person, but I hope they will enjoy the photos we will take when we give them to 'our kids'. I can assure them that their donations will find good homes! Next time we go to El Salvador, these items will come with us and we will tell the kids about the kindness of the people we have met here, especially that these backpacks have come from kids at school.

A mountain of backpacks

Thanks again to the kind people at the ASD and good luck to Dana and the other graduates! We at the Gulf of Hope wish them all the best for their future and hope all their dreams come true!

Music Feature - Reggeaton

2010-06-03T09:18:00.004+03:00

Reggaeton (pronounced /ˌrɛɡeɪˈtoʊn/; also spelled reggaetón, and known as reguetón and reggaetón in Spanish) is a form of urban music that became popular with Latin American youth in the early 1990s. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton's predecessor originated in Panama as reggae en español. After the music's gradual exposure in Puerto Rico, it eventually evolved into a new musical style known as reggaeton.
Reggaeton blends West-Indian music influences of reggae and dancehall with those of Latin America, such as bomba, plena, salsa, merengue, latin pop, cumbia and bachata as well as that of hip hop, contemporary R&B, and electronica. However, reggaeton is also combined with rapping or singing in Spanish. The influence of this genre has spread to the wider Latino communities in the United States, as well as the Latin American audience.
While it takes influences from hip hop and Jamaican dancehall, reggaeton is not the Hispanic or Latino version of either of these genres; reggaeton has its own specific beat and rhythm, whereas Latino hip hop is simply hip hop recorded by artists of Latino descent. The specific rhythm that characterizes reggaeton is referred to as "Dem Bow." The name is a reference to the title of the dancehall song by Shabba Ranks that first popularized the beat in the early 1990s. Reggaeton's origins represents a hybrid of many different musical genres and influences from various countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States. The genre of reggaeton however is most closely associated with Puerto Rico, as this is where the musical style later popularized and became most famous, and where the vast majority of its current stars originated.
Reggaeton lyrics tend to be more derived from hip hop than dancehall. Like hip hop, reggaeton has caused some controversy, albeit less, due to alleged exploitation of women, and to a lesser extent, explicit and violent lyrics. Further controversy surrounds perreo, a dance with explicit sexual overtones which is performed to reggaeton music. Perreo was the subject of a national controversy in Puerto Rico as reggaeton music and the predominantly lower class culture it derived from, became more popular and widely available.
If you like to hear more, check out these regeatton big-names: Don Omar, Pitbull, Daddy Yankee, Wisin y Yandel, Tego Calderon, Ivy Queen and don't forget that music styles change over time and some of the earlier rawer edge of reggeaton has been smoothed out to an extent.

Music in El Salvador

2010-05-28T16:36:00.000+03:00

No matter how difficult times get, it seems that there is one thing that makes Salvadoreans happy every time: music!
It does not seem to matter what kind of music it is, as long as it is loud and you can dance to it.
There is music in the streets. Every shop has a boom box with plenty loud speakers, enticing folk to come and linger. And there is dancing in the streets - as you can see in this video.
Around Christmas time, many streets have discos booked, people get together and make merry. Food and drink, plenty of it, and dancing, all night long. People talk about these parties the whole year, and if it was really good, for much longer still.
Every occasion has its music. So it is time that we should have some on this blog.

CUMBIA
Cumbia is a Colombian musical style and folk dance that is considered to be representative of Colombia, along with Vallenato. Cumbia originated from the Caribbean coast of eastern Colombia, with folkloric variants in Panama. Cumbia began as a courtship dance practiced among the African slave population that was later mixed with European instruments and musical characteristics. Cumbia is very popular in the Andean region and the Southern Cone and was until the early 1980s more popular in these regions than the salsa.
In El Salvador, Orchestras such as Orchestra San Vicente, Los Hermanos Flores and Grupo Bravo perform cumbia with basic instrumentation, replacing accordion with brass instruments and woodwinds, and using traditional percussion and electric bass.
"Chanchona" is a neoligism to describe a musical band that follows a cumbia rhythm and uses instruments such as the accordion, electric bass, conga, güira, and the occasional keyboard. This genre is popularized by artists such as La Chanchona de Tito Mira and La Chanchona de Arcadio. Chanchona sometimes also features a marimba, made famous in the genre by Fidel Funes.
My personal favorite is Aniceto Molina. We have seen him play several times now, and will see him again no doubt.
There are several videos on youtube on how to dance cumbia. Just in case you are interested, this is an 'official' one, and this is an advanced one. Most of all, however, this is about having fun and enjoying the music.

RESTORED

2010-05-24T16:51:00.002+03:00

Violence against women is the most common but least punished crime in the world.
Globally, women between the age of fifteen and forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined.
At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her. Domestic violence is the largest form of abuse of women worldwide, irrespective of region, culture, ethnicity, education, class and religion.
Systematic rape is used as a weapon of terror in many of the world's conflicts. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women in Rwanda were raped during the 1994 genocide.
Studies show the increasing links between violence against women and HIV and demonstrate that HIV-infected women are more likely to have experienced violence, and that victims of violence are at higher risk of HIV infection.

These statistics were taken from the RESTORED site - please visit and support!

Restored is an international Christian alliance working in partnership to promote healthy, biblical relationships between men and women and to end violence against women. Restored aims to raise awareness of male violence and equip the church to stop it happening. We want to see churches and communities built on restored relationships where women are free from violence and the fear of violence by men.

The Global Jobs Pact in El Salvador

2010-05-23T17:29:00.002+03:00

President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador announced that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has selected his country to develop the first pilot programme for the implementation of the Global Jobs Pact. President Funes made the announcement on the eve of May 1st, International Workers Day, at the inauguration of “Centro Obrero Dr. Humberto Romero Alvergue”, a new community sports and entertainment facility for workers and their families in Conchalíofue.

The President called upon his Government and the Ministry of Labour to support the Jobs Pact pilot programme and seek appropriate means to be used in its timely implementation. A tripartite committee will start working immediately on proposals to be submitted to the Social Economic Council. On the immediate agenda, the president announced the launch of a health programme providing medical coverage for thousands of domestic workers not previously affiliated with the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS). "Today, I announce the implementation of special arrangements for the integration of domestic workers into ISSS health system. This initiative means that more than 100,000 people who work every day in our households will have the same rights as the workers in the formal sector," added the President.

Minister of Labour, Victoria Marina Velasquez de Aviles, commended the decision and added that her Ministry is working to promote a new concept of a healthy family environment. Velasquez said that newly created centres for employees such as the Alvergue Center will certainly contribute to improving the working lives for thousands of people in El Salvador.

About the Global Jobs Pact: Faced with the prospect of a prolonged global increase in unemployment, poverty and inequality and continued distress for enterprises, in June 2009 the International Labour Conference, with the participation of government, employers’ and workers’ delegates from the ILO’s member States, unanimously adopted a "Global Jobs Pact". This global policy instrument addresses the social and employment impact of the international financial and economic crisis. It promotes a productive recovery centred on investments, employment and social protection. The fundamental objective of the Global Jobs Pact is to provide an internationally agreed basis for policy-making designed to reduce the time lag between economic recovery and a recovery with decent work opportunities. It is a call for urgent worldwide action: national, regional and global.

Facts About Armed Violence

2010-05-22T12:43:00.000+03:00

With less than five years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a growing number of states, international organisations and civil society are addressing one of the paramount obstacles to their achievement: armed violence.

• Each year more than 740,000 people—over 2,000 per day—die as a result of the violence associated with armed conflicts and large- and small-scale criminal violence. The majority of these deaths—490,000—occur in non-conflict settings.
• According to the World Bank, efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger are at 10 percent of target; efforts to extend universal primary education are at 45 percent of target; and the extension of maternal health are at 14 percent of target in conflict-affected and fragile states.
• Armed violence destroys lives and livelihoods, breeds insecurity, and hampers prospects for human development. According to the most recent estimates, the total cost of armed violence in non-conflict countries amounts to $163 billion—more than the total annual spending on official development assistance.
• In El Salvador, firearm violence costs the state and its citizens 11.5 percent of GDP —more than twice the budget for education and health (4.8 percent of GDP), according to the most recently available figures (2003).

As seen in San Salvador

• An estimated 875 million small arms and light weapons (SALW) are in circulation today, three-quarters of them in the hands of civilians. Globally, 60 percent of homicides involve the use of SALW.
• In June 2006, UNDP and the Government of Switzerland co-hosted a summit that resulted in 42 states endorsing the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, an initiative designed to achieve measurable reductions in armed violence by 2015. As of March 2010, 108 states had signed the declaration. Building on the work of the Geneva Declaration, UNDP and the Government of Norway are working with Member States to ensure that commitments to armed violence reduction and prevention are included in the High Level Plenary Meeting on the MDGs, and are reflected in subsequent MDG and developmental strategies through 2015. (Note: El Salvador signed in 2006)

For more information about the United Nations Development Programme, click here.

Latin American Herald Tribune - El Salvador Extends Army Role in Crime-Fighting

2010-05-21T13:51:00.002+03:00

Latin American Herald Tribune - El Salvador Extends Army Role in Crime-Fighting

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes announced Friday a one-year extension of the deployment of troops to help police battle crime.

“The military presence in the streets has had a very positive impact, all the opinion polls reflect that,” he told members of the armed forces at an event marking the Day of the Soldier.

Special Police presence at a football match in La Union - Funes decision will help security

USAID Works With Private Sector To Encourage Sea Turtle Conservation Efforts

2010-05-21T13:45:00.001+03:00

USAID Works With Private Sector To Encourage Sea Turtle Conservation Efforts
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) hosted a diverse group of private sector representatives in San Salvador today, encouraging them to join the sea turtle conservation effort. Sea turtles, which are an endangered species, nest along the Salvadoran coastline.

For the photo of the sea turtle and more information, go here.

En route to a better future?

2010-05-21T12:24:00.003+03:00

If you have been reading this blog regularly, you will have come across references to the fact that most of the children grow up in families that are either not their own or where a parent has left for work. Many of the adults are working outside of El Salvador, in the USA or elsewhere. Many of them leave without the correct paperwork and end up in the States illegally, doing menial jobs on less-than minimum wage. The Epoch Times earlier this month printed a piece about the hazardous trips those endure that come to the US illegally:

"En route to a better future, Central American migrants face a variety of abuses while crossing through Mexico to the United States.
...
Poverty, government instability, and lack of opportunity drives out migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to embark on risky journeys to the United States. Referred to as “irregular migrants,” the Mexican crossing is often the gap that separates them from the world they want to leave behind, and hopes for a better future.
With Mexico locked into a war with drug cartels and violent gangs, on the journey to the land of opportunity, migrants face discrimination, kidnapping, assault, and rape by criminal gangs. Some of the more fortunate ones are detained by Mexican state agents.
There are many who make it safely, however. In 2008 there were an estimated 1.1 million immigrants who became American residents. Of them, 17 percent were from Mexico, and 65 percent became residents through family ties, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Reports for the People.
There are no exact statistics for the number of people who manage to enter Mexico as irregular migrants or who get past the American border, but the National Immigration Office reports that it detained 64,061 migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in 2009. Only 87 of those asylum-seekers were granted refugee status.
...
A shelter for migrants in Mexico reported that 6 out of every 10 women who pass through the doors of a shelter in Arriaga, Chiapas experience rape, stated Father Heyman Vazquez Medina. Even these statistics are not complete, since women are often afraid to report rape, or to seek help as it will cripple their chances of ever reaching the United States.
“Transnational migration continues to be a business in Mexico, largely operated by transnational gang networks involved in smuggling and trafficking in persons and drugs, with [the] collaboration of the local, municipal, state, and federal authorities,” said a U.N. Special Rapporteur in an Amnesty International report.
...
Human rights organizations speculate that migrant assaults have increased in the past few years.
The situation is not any more welcoming on the other side of the border in the United States. In the state of Arizona, new anti-immigrant laws allow police to investigate the legal status of individuals if they think that the person is illegally residing in the United States. Citizens of Arizona will also have the right to sue the government if they presume that the law is not being enforced enough.
The National Immigration Forum states that this legislation promotes racial profiling for American residents who the police find substantially suspicious: “What will give police ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a person is in the country illegally? Most likely, the color of their skin.” "

Before embarking on the perilous journey north, migrants are aware of the dangers. Everybody knows someone who has made it to the other side in one piece, but everybody has a story. But with only a few dollars a week to sustain a family in El Salvador, is it not worth the risks?

Jobs that pay more than just a few dollars a week are available to those who speak English and who have a good education. By providing children with the tools they need for a better education, the Gulf of Hope is working towards providing better opportunities for the future. Please help us.

A day in Perquin

2010-05-20T17:13:00.008+03:00

During our recent visit to El Salvador, we took a day trip to Perquin. Perquin is the municipality of the department of Morazan. These days, it is a quiet, small town, tugged away in an area that reminded us almost of Switzerland or Austria. However, during the Civil War (1980 – 1992), Perquin was known as the guerrilla capital.

Mountains, Green, Happy Cows

The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing militias. Significant tensions and violence had already existed before the civil war's full outbreak, over the course of the 1970s. It is estimated that some 75,000 people were killed.

The Guerrilla Camp is not far from the Museum

We visited the Museum of the Salvadoran Revolution, located right in town. The museum is the only one of its kind, and recounts the experience of the guerrillas during the civil war, utilizing hundreds of photos, documents, and weapons. Founded by a group of ex-combatants in Perquin just after the civil war, The Museum of the Salvadoran Revolution, Homage to its Heroes and Martyrs tells a first-hand history of the 12 years of armed conflict that divided this small country. The exhibits focus largely on the experience of the guerrillas of Morazan.

Guns from the conflict

The Museum is divided into five major sections: the causes of the war, the international solidarity effort, life in the guerrilla camps, the peace accords, and the Radio Venceremos. This last exhibit is located in the very spot from which the guerrillas broadcasted their famous radio program during much of the war. The museum also boasts the wreckage of the helicopter of Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, alleged author of the Mozote massacre of 1981, and a great story to go along with it.
On the day we went, we were the only customers. Our guide, an ex-guerrilla himself, took us around the exhibits. He answered our questions freely and allowed us however long we needed with the various exhibits.

Radio Venceremos played music and broadcasted news

Several of the exhibits are in English and German; not that I remember much about the war from when I grew up in Germany. There was one specific poster that really got me to think. It summarized the reasons for starting the war. It was a plea for understanding and went along the lines of ‘we are fighting for our people, because our people live in houses that are built of corrugated iron and trash; because our people have no clean water; because our people have nothing but rice and beans to eat; because our people have no education and cannot read and write; because our people are poor and have no way to better their situation ...’. There were other items on this list that I have forgotten.

People still live in part of this structure

But I looked around and thought that nothing much really has changed: people still live in houses built of corrugated iron, with no running water and some still without electricity. People still live off rice and beans as the staple of their diet. There is little education and no jobs. And I realized that the current level of violence, the drugs and alcohol abuse, the gangs and all the other bad things that fill the press about El Salvador are not the result of the war as so many want us to believe. In reality, nothing much has changed!

A day at the beach for the children of the Gulf of Hope

The Gulf of Hope is but a drop in the ocean. There is so much more we could do – but we cannot do it alone. Please consider to help us and the children. We currently are supporting 11 families and over 40 children with school supplies. We are hoping to start a food program soon. I believe the most important thing we do, however, is to give hope to these families, that the future of their children might just be improved.

If you want to hear more, or have questions about what we do, about El Salvador or our children, please email us on gulfofhope@gmail.com.

Changing a Child’s Life is Easy – You Can Do It!

2010-05-14T18:47:00.006+03:00

People often ask us, why we started the Gulf of Hope. Why go through all this trouble for the children of La Union? Children that might not even realize the efforts we take to provide school supplies, tuition, or clothing for them.
We usually reply with another question: Why not? If you can see how your contribution impacts these kids, how could you not help?
The children of the Gulf of Hope live in an area at the edge of La Union, up a dirt road.

You can see the houses from the main road

Their houses are built of brick or corrugated iron, covered with roof tiles, plastic or whatever else. Some of the houses have water lines; at other houses, someone needs to go and get the water from the nearest well. Most houses have electricity, but none have air conditioning. At times, the heat becomes unbearable. Houses have dirt floors, no windows.

This is home for someone

This is the only kitchen this family has

The children go to school: they walk forty minutes or more each way.
The children have families that support their going to school. But there is hardly any regular money coming in, and the families live off few dollars per day. Things like school supplies are often out of their reach, and the kids sometimes get teased for not having pens or paper. This is where the Gulf of Hope steps in. Without someone helping out, it would be only too easy for these kids to eventually end up like so many others, uneducated and working themselves to exhaustion for pennies a day, swallowed by poverty and hopelessness. There are children everywhere facing the same grim reality. You've heard about them before, living in desperation and heartbreak. You've wondered how you can help.

We want you to know that you can. And it's easy.
Have a read of the different stories covered in this blog. If after reading you still are not sure about us, feel free to send us an email with any question. Be assured that 100% of any donations will benefit the children of La Union.

The children of the Gulf of Hope at Las Playitas

GoH 2010: Yermin

2010-05-11T16:09:00.001+03:00

When we first started going to La Union in 2006, I met Yermin. For the first two years, he was ‘Keep Back’: that was the slogan on his t-shirt, which I used as I could not get to grips with his real name.

Yermin in 2006 at the end of a day out

Yermin is 16 now and shares a room at the Maison, the rent house of Omar’s family, with his mom Mila and Victor, who is about Yermin’s age. Ever since I have known him, I have been impressed with his attitude, looking after the younger children, helping with homework, and helping me with language and whenever I needed any fetching done. Ever since I have known him, he has been telling me that one day he wants to work with computers. Ever since I have known him, he has been telling me that soon, he would get a laptop.

Moms and kids in craft mode

When we got to La Union in April, Yermin was busy with school. In his off-time, he hung out with us and the other kids, joining us at the beach and for the Meeting under the Tree. He started learning English at school recently, and we did some homework together. Together, we translated a poem he had been working on. When I asked about his laptop, he shook his head.
His sister in the USA had lost her job, and now only worked part-time. She was struggling to get through herself, so could no longer afford to send him the money for a laptop. If he was disappointed, he did not let it show: if you live his life, you understand that luxuries like a laptop or new clothes come way after the bare necessities.
We talked a lot about what it would mean to have a computer. It would help him as well as Victor with their studies, and would connect them to family abroad. It would also help with his future as a graphic designer or programmer.
Omar and I discussed the situation and we ended up spending some of our own holiday funds to buy a laptop for Yermin. When we brought the box back to the Maison, his eyes lit up. When we explained to him that this machine was his, he was speechless. ‘For me?’, he asked, again and again.

Victor and Yermin getting to grips with the new laptop

We made an agreement with Mila, Yermin’s mom, who added an internet package to her basic cable: Victor’s dad will be helping with the $18 per month. We paid for a router. That means that Laura Elena can come to the Maison and use the internet there, saving her the long trip into town and the expense at the Internet Café.
There are many kids like Yermin who could benefit from a laptop.
If you would like to help the Gulf of Hope in providing computer access for the kids in La Union, please get in touch. We can take used laptops or collect money to buy new ones in El Salvador (a basic model costs around USD 600). This has the benefit that the machine would be under guarantee and come pre-loaded with Spanish-speaking systems and software, making it easier to use.

GoH 2010: Laura Elena

2010-05-10T16:38:00.000+03:00

We almost met Laura Elena last year, when we visited the house of her family to give out clothes and school supplies. At the time, she had chicken pox and would not come out.
Laura Elena lives with her mom, two sisters and brother in the area where all the kids live. They have a small house with only one lockable door at the bottom of a dusty dirt road. One afternoon I brought her home in the car, but could not get to the house as the road was too steep and I feared I would not be able to get up or down it. Her dad lives in La Union, too, but they have not had any dealings with him for many years.
Laura Elena graduated from school at the end of last year.

The official graduation photo

Ever since Prep, the year before 1st Grade, Laura Elena has been winning prizes, finishing on top of her classes. So, when she graduated, her mother Maritsa enrolled her in Megatec. This is a fairly new college in La Union, allowing for Further Education, offering courses that are similar to University but lead to a degree after only two years. University in San Salvador simply was not an option due to cost of classes as well as the additional onus of accommodation and living expenses.
Maritsa suffers from a heart condition and struggles to keep the family going. Laura Elena’s brother works to help support his mom and sisters, and goes to school on weekends. Even though money is tight, she insisted that Laura Elena should be given the chance to continue her education.

Laura Elena with her mom and two sisters

Support was supposed to come through a person who offered financial help. However, as it turned out, this help was not without ties. So suddenly, the financing for Laura Elena’s course disappeared.
The Gulf of Hope had been helping Laura Elena’s sisters, so she decided to write us a letter that explained her situation.
At Megatec, Laura Elena is studying Information Technology. Her two-year course is built of modules that can be paid as and when she takes them. In addition, she needs to provide her own utensils. This includes a laptop.
We were very impressed with Laura Elena and her family. They are kind and generous people who through no fault of their own are in an unstable situation. We promised to find the financial means that Laura Elena can continue her education at Megatec. Unfortunately, the funds of the Gulf of Hope did not stretch to a new laptop, so I loaned her my little notebook for the duration of her course. This is not an ideal solution, but the best we could come up with at short notice. Laura Elena is struggling with the computer as all the programs are in English and she only just started to learn. If possible, we would like to raise the funds to get her a full-size laptop that comes pre-loaded with Spanish speaking software.

At the Graduation Ceremony with her brother and Themis

If you would like to learn more about how to help Laura Elena and her family, please contact the Gulf of Hope at gulfofhope@gmail.com. We promised to help with the tuition fees, but there are other necessities we cannot cover.

GoH 2010: A Kind of Progress

2010-05-09T12:52:00.000+03:00

When we went to El Salvador in April, we had a list of items we wanted to address. However, once we got there, things started to move at a different pace, and Salvador time took over. Here is a summary of what we achieved and some bits and pieces.
Before we went, we had six little girls in Private School. One of our tasks was to check up on the triplets and their siblings to see how they were doing.

Overall, they had settled in well enough. Even though the triplets are eight years old, they were placed in Prep-class – that is between Kindergarten and First Grade, just to see how they coped. Before they had been enrolled at the Collegio, they had been in and out of schools, and they were far behind other kids their age. They have catching up to do, but Prep is the right place for them. They are showing marked improvement and all of them like their new school.

Our five stars straight out of school

Lucero has been enrolled in Second Grade, and is doing extremely well. She showed us her report card full of 9’s and 10’s (top marks) with the lowest grade one single 7. She promised to work on that and make sure to get that to at least an 8. One night, she read for me some really big words from the paper and I know she will be getting medals before long.
Reyna is the youngest of the five and has joined the triplets in Prep. Her grades are in the middle range, but the teachers were telling us that she, too, is getting better.
On the sad side, though, the kids have lost their house and had to move to a set of rooms round the corner. This is not a good place for them, but there was nothing we could do and their old place was already rented out to a new family. At least they are all still together!

This now is home

The children's new playground

Then there is Iris. If you remember and have been reading this blog earlier, Iris has been the reason for us starting on this journey of supporting the kids of La Union. She has been in the Collegio all of last year, and finished second in her Prep Class.

Iris last year

When we went to the school, they were telling us that this year, they were having a lot of problems with her, and that she would not always show up for her classes. Her report card is nothing but 5’s, 6’s and 7’s and only two 9’s. What had happened? We asked to speak with her carer, Mama Martha, and her dad. He did not even bother to meet with us. From Martha we learned that Iris had been put straight into second grade and was now struggling to keep up. Together, we decided that we would speak to the school and let Iris go to 1st grade. Instead, her father took her out of the Collegio altogether, and refused to talk to us. So, I am sad to say, we lost Iris.
On the other hand, we were approached by Laura Elena who asked us whether we would be able to help her at the Megatec. More of that story will follow in the next few days on the blog!

With Laura Elena at the Meeting under the Tree

This trip, laptops have been a big issue. You will read about this in the stories of Laura Elena and Yermin.
We started on our path towards registration as a Charity by creating a team of Salvadorians that want to be involved. We need six to get started, and the process has been set in motion. Once we have more news on this topic, you will read it on the blog!
Two other items we had wanted to organize were an English teacher and a doctor to come and see the children.
Most of the kids are now learning English at school, but not from an early age. So, this item is still on our list, but we have not been able to find a solution.
We have spoken to a couple of doctors who want to help with the Charity, but again, have not finalized anything yet. For now, and as funds are tight, we will continue to support the children with school supplies, and pay the school fees for the five kids in the Collegio. As soon as we raise more funds, we will widen our support and include doctor visits. That is an important issue for me: during April, one small boy close to where our kids live has succumbed to the fever.
We had a brilliant time with the kids, and we got to know more about their situations and their needs. There are still plenty of ideas we are talking about, and this next year will be as exciting as the last. We hope that we can raise more awareness and support to keep going.
The kids and their mothers at the beach

GoH 2010: A Day at the Beach

2010-05-08T11:08:00.000+03:00

On our last Sunday morning, we finally managed to arrange for a day on the beach. We invited all the children and their parents, and most of them made the half-hour drive. Some started out on foot, but got picked up on the way.

A dirt road links La Union to las Playitas
At Las Playitas, our group of more than 40 took over most of the small beach. We played in the waves of the Gulf de Fonseca, played football on the sand, sat and talked, and enjoyed our time together.

Las Playitas is fairly empty during the week, with only local fishermen using the beach. It gets crowded on a weekend

Some of the mothers had brought basic supplies, so the women went to the house of a friend to cook rice, vegetable soup and tortillas. All got fed.

Jacky, Jessica, Maritza and Themis organised the food for the troops

In the afternoon, I heard the bell of a Minutero - that is a man who makes minutas. Minutas are shaved ice with syrup, a treat that goes down real well in the heat.
I asked a couple of our girls whether they would like minutas, and then Themis herded as many of our kids to line up. A little girl from another family misunderstood when she heard that all kids that wanted minutas should stand in line, and joined our group. Her mother tried to call her back, but we could not send her back empty-handed. In the end, we catered for 6 children that did not belong to us.

Waiting for Minutas

As it took the Minutero so long to make each treat, the mothers took over. They poured the syrup, heaped on the coconut shavings and slices of banana. Themis handed out spoons and kept a count of the portions handed out. It had been a long time since the Minutero had this many customers in one go!

Helping out and having fun

There were no fights, no squabbling. The day was full of fun and joy. In the end, the kids were tired but happy.

GoH 2010: The Meeting Under the Tree

2010-05-07T09:39:00.011+03:00

It has been over a year since we last had seen the children. This April, we called a meeting and on the 14th of April, we met under the Tree opposite Themis’ house. All the children were invited, as well as their parents.

Themis is our support in La Union

When we had left with our promise of return and further help with school supplies, we had agreed with the parents that all we wanted in return was for them to keep us informed of their children’s grades. In El Salvador, every three months, kids will get a report card. To be part of our family, all the parents had to do was provide Themis with their children’s report cards.

Not all could attend, but this is a good chunk of the GoH family

Our friend Themis had kept track of the grades of 24 children. 8 families had put their trust in us and believed that we would be back. With these families, we celebrated under the Tree. One family had decided not to bother, but the group decided later to give them another try.
As it turned out, this was also the tenth birthday of Josue Alberto. Reason enough to get a cake and juice for all.

A nice birthday surprise

Three of the children received medals – two finished top of their classes, and one came second. If we can find enough supporters, these three would be in line for sponsorship to the private school, starting in January.

Three medals - we are as proud as they are!

Last year, when we first met the families, Omar had promised that he would buy a TV for the family whose children did the best. Now, in the last year, the economic situation of many of the families had worsened, and we felt that buying a TV for one family was not the best thing to do. Instead, we put it to a vote and decided as a team to split the money we would have spent on a TV to give an equal bonus to all families. So, eight families received an envelope. Looking around, we believe that this gesture was well received and all went away happy.

Each envelope was recorded with a photograph

In addition, we welcomed a new family into the fold. So, all in all, we have more than 30 children from 10 families we will be watching over this year.

Mum and four children have joined the team

Sustainable Agriculture - The Campesino a Campesino Movement

2010-04-10T09:03:00.000+03:00

Campesino a Campesino is a grassroots movement where poor peasant farmers teach one another how to protect their environment while still earning a living. It has grown up in southern Mexico and war-torn Central America over the last three decades. It is perhaps the world's foremost sustainable agriculture movement.

Sharing the knowledge, sharing the story

The movement started in Guatemala, and has spread through Mesoamerica in spite of (and sometimes because of) military conflict, widespread agrarian failures and chronic economic crisis. Presently there are well over ten thousand practicing farmers in Central America alone. The effectiveness of the agro-ecological practices promoted by the movement were made clear in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch: thousands of “agro-ecological” farmers survived the century’s most destructive hurricane with more topsoil, less erosion and fewer crop losses than their neighbors practicing conventional agriculture.
The CaC movement is built on experimenting on small, local scales and widely sharing knowledge, creativity, experience and wisdom, farmer to farmer.

The movement sees with the shared visions of farmer-led sustainable agriculture. In its heart members of the movement are motivated by deeply held beliefs in the divine, in family, in nature and community. The shared expression of these beliefs in practice has led CaC to reaffirm the cultural capabilities and the social imperative of farmers’ contribution to sustainability, both locally and globally.

The basic principles of CaC evolved from Roland Bunch’s concept of “people-centered development” three decades ago:
• Start small, go slowly
• Small-scale experimentation to overcome limiting factors and stabilise ecological functions
• Multiplier effect
• Limit introduction of technology
• Teach others
• Reduction, substitution, redesign: 3-phase conversion to sustainability
• Vertical and horizontal integration of production
Experience over the years has brought out a number of activities and methodological/ organizational lessons. First is the centrality of campesino culture. Farmers learn from each other by sharing wisdom, creativity and knowledge, not just information and techniques. Rather than simply transferring technologies, farmers first and foremost “make culture” - sharing that leads to action builds a culture of sustainable agriculture. Technology transfer is actually just one (and not always the primary) component of this cultural matrix. Part of farmers’ enthusiasm for developing agriculture comes from the sense that they are actually contributing to and shaping society. This subjective, but very powerful motivational force has been nurtured through cross visits, “encuentros” (farmer gatherings) and the inclusion of farmer-promoters in workshops held by national and international agencies for agricultural development.

The combined approach of developing pools of local expertise and sharing experiences widely has accomplished three important tasks in the development of a more sustainable agriculture:
1) It has generated and adapted locally-based alternatives that are easily incorporated to the ecology of each particular area, increasing agro-ecological diversity and resilience,
2) It has spread simple, adaptable technologies at low cost to thousands of farmers and has improved the capacity to innovate,
3) It has developed farmers’ social and agro-ecological capabilities.
These farmers have often been the first and/or most successful in converting to organic practices, in diversifying their markets, and in vertically integrating production.

While over 10,000 farmers identify in one way or another with the movement, thousands more have been influenced. Likewise, many professionals within NGOs have adopted parts of the CaC methodology or technologies without specifically identifying with the movement. In fact, the movement has profoundly influenced the technical and methodological agenda of many NGOs in Latin America.

An incredible resource for sustainable agriculture can be found here.
Food First executive director, Eric Holt-Gimenez wrote the first English-language account of the CaC movement.

Permaculture - A Sustainable Way Forward

2010-04-07T08:13:00.002+03:00

The term “permaculture” is a combination of the words “permanent” and “agriculture” or “culture”. Permaculture is as much as a design process as it is a way of life. It is a way of thinking to transform our world. It combines observations of how ecosystems work, the wisdom in traditional ways of living and farming together with modern scientific and technological knowledge.

Permaculture was developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970’s when they brought together traditional and new knowledge in a completely different way of looking at the world. Their original focus was on designing ‘sustainable human settlements’.

Bill Mollison, Founding Father of Permaculture

Permaculture takes its inspiration from nature – for instance observing that plants absorb their energy from the sun, animals eat the plants, and when they die, decompose to provide nutrients for plants in a never ending cycle. Everything is interdependent and nothing is wasted.

Permaculture aims to change the way we consume, using and reusing our local natural resources, to live in a way that does not pollute or exploit, is affordable and is sustainable in the long term. Led by the team at the Permaculture Institute of El Salvador, the focus in El Salvador is on natural farming, water conservation and developing stronger communities and local economies.
We can look at our current society and see how it exploits resources without care for the future of our own or other species. Permaculture principles help us to visualise a transformed society where people in a localised area are as self-reliant as possible, relying on and replenishing their natural resources without damaging the ecosystem around them. Permaculture practice helps to identify and analyse potential problems and, using nature’s patterns and principles as a guide, consciously work out solutions to transform the world.

Natural Resources of El Salvador

In the last 30 years permaculture has spread across the world and been developed in many different ways, but the three key ethical principles have stayed the same, and are: Care for the earth, Care for people, and Fair sharing and rational use of all resources.

The work of the Permaculture Institute of El Salvador is educational and the education they provide is highly practical. Starting point is to help people to understand the reasons for the problems they face. Then to see that there is something that they can do about those problems, especially if they work together with other members of their community.

They operate on three levels to secure this wider involvement, working with farming families on the development of ecological communities, ecological development at municipal level, and the empowerment of women.

To learn more about this fascinating topic and the work of the Institute, visit their website or come back to this blog over the next few days and read more!
On Senda Verde, where you can find many more good articles on Permaculture, you can also find more about Bill Mollison.
I found the graphic on Permaculture at Green World Trust, but thanks need to go to Graham Burnett at spiralseeds.

Agriculture in El Salvador

2010-04-05T16:09:00.000+03:00

Wherever you look in El Salvador, you can see a volcano. The landscape shows the huge forces still at work shaping this land. This means that many areas are steeply sloping and very rocky. Erosion has caused these slopes to be depleted of soil. Near the coast there is level ground, but these are flood plains and so liable to flooding and erosion of fertile soil.

The Center for Appropriate Technology of El Salvador rates 40% of the country´s land area as unsuitable for cultivation. Yet it is these marginal areas which subsistence farmers are forced to farm in successive land reforms. They rely on unsustainable farming practices which lead to a vicious circle of ongoing soil degradation.
Historically the pressure on available land has come from agricultural use, growing export cash crops. In the last decade the new pressures come from urbanization and industrialization. Some of the most fertile plains in the country are now being developed for housing and for garment factories.

Bananas for export

The government’s neglect of the agricultural sector has left farmers practicing the destructive agricultural farming practices that they learned during the 1950’s. Many of them are still using the slash and burn method, destroying all vegetation, and are also liberally applying toxic weed killers and pesticides. The majority of farmers are illiterate and unable to read the health warnings printed with these toxic chemicals. As a result, they take no protective measures and wash their spraying equipment in the local rivers that supply their communities with water.
In the "Green Revolution" of the 1950´s, multinational corporations introduced hybrid seeds for the staple crops of maize and beans. These promised higher yields, but demanded high levels of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers came to rely on seeds which do not reproduce themselves and which involve the additional cost of buying fresh seed every season.
This in turn has led to the loss of local varieties of seed and so the farmer is locked into a system which demands more agrochemicals at ever increasing costs. On average on each acre of land a farmer has to spend $318 on synthetic agricultural inputs - $240 on chemical fertilizer, $50 on paraquat herbicide and $28 on insecticide.

Coffee beans for export

Eventually, the farmer is forced to abandon the land, which has become infertile through excessive chemical applications and to start this destructive method elsewhere. Often the costs force him to abandon farming altogether and he joins the migration to the cities.
The houses in farming communities usually have a mud floor, walls made of sticks, adobe clay and plastic sheeting. Roofs are of corrugated iron or adobe tiles. These houses do provide shelter against regular tropical rainstorms but will not stand up to the extremes of weather which climate change is bringing.
Only 25% of the rural population has clean drinking water. 15% have to rely on a neighbor’s tap or a public tap. 25% draw their water from wells and 15% from rivers, wells and springs.

Water from her own well

These statistics are a cause for even greater concern, given the relative lack of good sanitation. When the Latin American Technical University analyzed the drinking water of 9 communities they were shocked to find that all but one had water which was contaminated with fecal bacteria up to 240% above acceptable levels. Over half of the communities the Permaculture Institute of El Salvador work with have unsanitary pit latrines; many families have no toilet facilities at all.
Contaminated water supplies and poor sanitation facilities mean high levels of preventable illnesses. In El Salvador, 12,000 children a year die from gastro-intestinal causes and every week a child dies from agrochemical poisons in their water supply. 45% of infant deaths are caused by water contamination.

Over the next few weeks, the Gulf of Hope will introduce the work of the Permaculture Institute of El Salvador and how they are helping the farming communities of El Salvador.

Why Would You Support the Gulf of Hope?

2010-04-02T16:46:00.001+03:00

Trawling the internet for interesting stories about El Salvador, I ran across a blog on Charity Scams. It made me realize that most of our readers do not know us personally. To them, this blog is nothing but a collection of words and pictures, and an invitation to donate to our Cause. We know that there are plenty of causes looking for your help, so how can we convince you that we deserve your trust?
In everyone’s heart there is a desire to help their fellow man. The fact is that the general media is saturated with cases of starving children and poor families. Most Causes will tell you just how much your donation will help and what your money will provide.

The media is filled with pictures of poverty

Scams revealed in the past few years have shown that the money collected in many supposed charity events actually went for the personal pleasure of the scammers rather than for the supposed recipients. This gives all charities a bad name and, actually, many work hard to ensure that donated dollars go exactly where they should.
Often charities advertise through various media channels, such as television, magazines, and the Internet.
The Gulf of Hope has not been operating very long, and we are only now thinking of registration as a Charity. The Gulf of Hope cannot be found on any register at the Better Business Bureau yet, and other then a presence on this blog, Twitter and Facebook, there is no way you can check us out. However, you can always send us an email. If you have any questions regarding the work we do with the children of La Union, the way we are spending donations, or how much we are spending on administration, please ask us. We promise to reply to any question or comment within a couple of days.

We are the people that planted the seed

For right now, Omar and I work for free. We have an income independent of the Gulf of Hope, and do not need any supplementation. Any money transfers as well as any support personnel in El Salvador are currently getting paid by us: our attorney and the lady providing the school supplies are working almost for free. We also took a pledge that we will continue our work with and for the children even if we would not get any more outside donations.
As for donations, we will post on the blog what we are doing with the moneys. Right now, we are collecting money for the registration process. Once we are back from El Salvador, we will have a better idea of what will come next. We are hoping to set up monthly doctor visits and a permanent English language teacher.
There also is an open invitation to our supporters to come with us to El Salvador and to see for themselves what we are all about.

Some of "our" children in La Union

We hope that our openness will get us your trust. At the end of the day, this is not for us, but for the children of La Union, who deserve the chance for a better tomorrow.

Publicity

2010-03-31T17:00:00.001+03:00

The Abu Dhabi Week published an article on our hair-erasing event. Check it out!

Our Hair-Erasing Fundraiser

2010-03-25T17:15:00.007+03:00

Getting ready, still curly on top

4pm today, with a reporter and photographer from the Abu Dhabi Week in attendance, we set to it: first, I chopped off Omar's hair, then he did mine.

As our visitors were in a bit of a rush, we only used the electric shears. However, after they left, we settled into the bathroom with shaving cream and a razor. Both of us now are boldly bald!

Personally, I think Omar looks pretty cool with no hair

When I told her about this deal, my Grandma wanted to know what I would look like. I think I look like a soccer ball, what do you think?

I hope this shows how serious we are about the GoH

We are hoping to raise $2000 or more to help with the registration of the Gulf of Hope as a full fledged Charity in El Salvador.

The event will be covered next week in the Abu Dhabi Week, and we will get some coverage later in April from the Gulf News.

Our joint hair loss

We are still hoping to raise more money. If you would like to contribute, but do not know how, please get in touch. Our email is gulfofhope@gmail.com.

Surfing El Salvador

2010-03-24T15:48:00.001+03:00

El Salvador's effort to fix its old reputation as a land of guerrillas and gangsters and rebuild its image as a tourist-friendly country is being helped along by a swelling wave of surf tourism.

The best waves around El Salvador

Similar to tourism trends seen in Costa Rica in the ‘90s and Nicaragua in the ‘00s, El Salvador is experiencing a surge of coastal development fueled by surfers searching for undiscovered waves.
Like the pioneers in the Old West pushing into uncharted territory, surfers are usually the first to blaze new trails up Central America's coastline, for other tourists and families to follow once word is sent back that it's OK to come.
The only problem is that those who have already ventured into El Salvador don't want word to get out about the excellent surfing conditions and uncrowded waves here.
“The surf here is outstanding. This place has got it all – I couldn't ask for anything else,” said Mike McCabe, a long-time surfer from California who recently made his second surfing trip to El Cuco, on the eastern Pacific shore of El Salvador (the country's Pacific coastline runs east to west, rather than north to south).
El Salvador's Tourism Minister José Napoleón Duarte says the new El Salvador is “betting on a future of tourism” and that surfing figures to be a key ingredient in that success.

Perfect beach: nobody but us

“Along with our cultural and mountain attractions, we are betting on sun and sand as important elements to develop tourism. And on the beach, surfing is king,” Minister Duarte told The Nica Times in a phone interview from San Salvador.
Duarte refers to El Salvador's small size as a “country of 45 minutes,” where most destinations are less than an hour's drive from the airport. The close proximity of world-class surfing spots to the country's international airport is another major benefit to El Salvador, he said.

Las Tunas beach

According to surfers, the strongest waves in El Salvador – all of which have right-hand breaks – occur during the months of March to November. The waves from December to February are reportedly better for beginners and long-boarders.
Bob Rotherham, owner of the Punta Roca surf hotel in La Libertad, 35 minutes south of San Salvador, says El Salvador isn't being discovered as a surf spot, rather rediscovered after a 20-year hiatus due to war and civil unrest.
Rotherham moved to El Salvador from Miami in 1972 and still refers to the late ‘70s as the “golden years” for El Salvador's surf scene.
“El Salvador was appearing in surf magazines as early as 1969, and we had an invasion of surfers here back in 1978, before the war. Then came the ‘80s and everyone disappeared,” Rotherham said.
Though the war ended almost two decades ago, it's taken a while to convince tourists that it's now safe to go back in the water. But now the fear is gone.
The veteran surfer and father of El Salvador's national champion surfer Jimmy Rotherham said surfing is unquestionably providing a strong boost to the country's nascent tourism sector.

Open to the Pacific Ocean, this beach has waves too fierce to take the kids for a swim

Though El Salvador gets about 1.4 million tourists each year, most of them are Salvadorans living abroad or business folk visiting San Salvador for a convention.
Rotherham, however, estimates that many of the other people who visit El Salvador strictly for tourism are surfers.
And the good news is that percentage is growing, and helping to develop the local economies in popular surf towns such as Playa Sunzal, to the west of La Libertad.
Unlike El Salvador's business tourism sector in the capital, surfing tourism “creates a cash-flow that usually stays close to the local community,” Rotherham said, noting that his community of La Libertad now has new bars, restaurants and a boardwalk in response to increased tourism.
El Salvador's surf scene will receive another important boost in August, when the country hosts the Latin American Surf Championship.

For the full length original article by Tim Rogers, go to Nica Times or check out Tim Rogers, Nica Times Staff, trogers@ticotimes.net

Crime in El Salvador

2010-03-22T14:38:00.000+03:00

On the Central America Forum, La Foca wrote:

" ... The gangs here are organized and have informants who are paid to report to shot callers. They can look tattooed, or they can look like the everyday man, so you never know who is in a gang. Most of them have a rough, campesino look though. You can sort of pick those out, because they stare at you with an intense look that lets you know who they are. I've passed a few and that is about all they do. Since I have nothing to do with gangs, I'm safe though. They mostly use extortion these days, or robberies for people not involved in gangs; or they murder other gang members. And they are very dangerous. I'm told there are places like Soyapango that you just don't go to, because they pretty well own the city and it is dangerous.

Soyapango is amongst the places where you better do not go on your own

Mostly what you deal with here are the thieves. The smart people don't drive with windows down, because that guy that washes your windows may reach in quickly and put a knife to your neck and demand money. Recently, an old woman in a Ford Escape who had her window slightly down was grabbed this way, but she had pepper spray and sprayed him and drove off. He was arrested, taken to the hospital and put in jail.

The usual rule here applies...don't walk out after 9 p.m. If you go anywhere, drive straight to your destination after dark.

There is talk about bringing back the death squads but Funes is against it. I'm told that when the death squads were rampant, there were no gang extortions, because they rounded them all up and imprisoned them. You just didn't see them in the streets. President Funes has brought the FBI here to deal with this problem. What he is not doing, that was done under Saca is to round up the people who force young kids into gangs and give them ten years. Also, a bill that increased the term for youth under a certain age that commits violent crimes like murder from 7 years to 10 years was not passed.
I've been told that it is safer sometimes inside the city of San Salvador than in the outlying areas, because of the huge police presence. You do see armed guards everywhere, with what looks like AK47s. At the mall, they are all around the perimeter. On every block you see armed guards protecting properties. I'm told these guys make an average of $200 a month. When you pass them they are friendly. I walk my dog every day past many of them along with my husband and they are polite, laughing at the dog, and always greet us, which seems odd in some sense, because most guards in the states are distant and removed.
..."
Outside the airport in San Salvador - tourists stand out and provide easy pickings for thieves

When traveling anywhere in the world, one has to be careful these days. That does not only apply to El Salvador: there are places in my home town in Germany where I would not like to be seen after dark. Every where you go these days, there will be places where you are not safe because you are the wrong color, speak with the wrong accent, do not follow the right religion, or are of the 'wrong' sex.
So, when traveling in El Salvador, stick to the rules: do not show around all the things you have: cameras, ipods, cell phones, etc, should be carefully guarded. Do not wear expensive jewellery. Do not go out on your own after dark. Do not show the cash you carry. Most shops will not mind you disappearing into a quiet corner to remove cash you carry in a secret place.
Gas stations and other shops will have watchmen with big guns. This is something one needs to get accustomed to, and sometimes I worry about these guys and the way they carry these big guns. I wonder how much damage they could do to innocent bystanders in case of some emergency. But they get paid to be there, and watch over you.
One thing I was worried about the first time we went to El Salvador were people that asked outright for money. It seems to be perfectly okay to tell them that you will not hand over any cash. Obviously, if there are any weapons involved, think again. But the occasional 'hey, can you give me twenty bucks, my mother is sick and I need to buy medicine' is best answered with 'I am sorry, I don't have money on me. I will pray for your mother and hope she gets better soon.'
Be careful, be vigilant, be prepared when you go. But most of all, do not forget to enjoy the country, the people, the food, the atmosphere. El Salvador is well worth a visit, no matter what they say in the news!

Fresh sea food at the beach - best ever!

Pictures came from here, here and here.

A Special Fundraiser

2010-03-21T07:34:00.000+03:00

The Gulf of Hope needs to be registered as a Charity. This will bring us and our sponsors many benefits. It will also mean that we are all official and above-board. This registration costs money. So far, all our funds have gone to enrol six little girls in a proper school for 2010. For now, the coffers are empty. Our solution: Omar and I decided to do a fundraiser. For a long while, we thought about what we could do, and finally came upon the idea that we will both shave our heads. With this, we are making a bold (and bald) statement - we are serious about the Gulf of Hope. We hope that our lack of locks will start communication with new people: people who will become interested in what we do, and who might decide to contribute in future.

The event will take place in late March, just before we go to the States. To make it easier with contributions, I signed us up on Chipin. Chipin will collect donations for us, track them, and provide updates as we go.

As you can see, we are hoping to raise $3000. We investigated registration in the US, the UK and Germany, as we have roots and supporters in all these countries. However, registration requires residency in these countries, and we no longer live there ourselves. Therefore, we started to explore options for registration as a Charity in El Salvador. Right now, our attorney in La Union has estimated that this will cost about $2000. The remainder will go into our savings. None will be squandered! When we go to La Union in April, we should be able to sign the necessary papers ... whatever we raise will support this venture.

THE DATE HAS BEEN SET!

Next Thursday March 25th, 4pm, Omar and I are expecting the guys and gals from The Abu Dhabi Week who will be witnessing the big hair letting, and then report on the event. Hopefully, this will help us getting the word out about what we do. And keep a look out for the Gulf News who will be doing a special on us during the third week of April!

Why should we care about El Salvador?

2010-03-18T13:31:00.000+03:00

March 8, 2010, President Obama welcomes Mauricio Funes, the president of El Salvador, in what is his first meeting with a Central American head of state at the White House.
The Center for Democracy in the Americas has reported on the development of the Funes administration from the time we monitored the elections which brought him and his party, the FMLN, to power through his inauguration to the early successes of his term.
Linda Garrett, El Salvador consultant to the Huffington Post, has written an analysis of the issues likely to arise in this meeting and why it important - if not remarkable - that they are meeting at all.
Why should we care about El Salvador?
Thirty years ago this month Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by a right-wing hit man with a bullet through his heart as he celebrated Mass.

His murder shocked the world. El Salvador spiraled into the chaos of a long civil war, with Washington supporting succeeding conservative governments and the military against the leftist guerrilla coalition, the FMLN, in one of the final confrontations of the Cold War.
Now, following twenty years of conservative administrations the FMLN is the party in power and its candidate, Mauricio Funes - a former journalist, not a member of the party - is the democratically elected president of the country.
And today President Mauricio Funes will meet with President Obama, the first Central American leader to be received in this White House.

The two have much in common: both are young, smart, center-left pragmatic leaders who have assumed power in the midst of severe economic downturn. Both face challenges from the right and left as they attempt to build post-ideological consensus for domestic and foreign policy programs and strategies. They also have a shared interest in helping El Salvador address issues like security and fostering economic growth.
To the surprise of many, El Salvador under the leadership of this center-left president and a party representing a former guerrilla army is becoming the most reliable Central American ally of Washington.
But whereas the Bush Administration could count on former Salvadoran governments to send troops to Iraq and in essence, as one analyst said, "to act as the lapdog of the State Department," President Funes is attempting to build a balanced, independent foreign policy.
During his first eight months in office the president and his foreign minister Hugo Martinez have normalized diplomatic relations with Cuba, Vietnam and Libya while simultaneously making clear that he looks to Brazilian president Lula de Silva and to Barack Obama as his models for governance, not Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez.
As the Salvadorans pursue an open, non-aligned diplomatic strategy, realities on the ground in the U.S. and in El Salvador require the presidents to forge a close, mutually beneficial relationship. Among the issues of concern that will surely be on the agenda when the two presidents meet is immigration.

An estimated 2.5 million Salvadorans live in the United States and the remittances they send home - over $3 billion last year - keep the country afloat.
Of those 2.5 million, 240,000 benefited from the TPS (Temporary Protection Status) granted in 2001 after Hurricane Mitch. Leaders of the Salvadoran community argue that these hardworking taxpaying immigrants should be given legal residency status. And though immigration reform seems unlikely this year, Salvadorans hope the TPS can be extended in order to legalize the status of more Salvadorans.
This is not just an immigration issue, but also a security issue.
Some 20,000 Salvadorans are deported from the U.S. every year. Some of the deportees have criminal records or are alleged gang members, and are dumped off planes at Comalapa Airport with nothing but bus fare and no hope for honest employment; many have never lived in the country and have no family, nothing except gang connections. And this has repercussions for the U.S.
El Salvador is considered one of the most violent countries in the hemisphere - with an estimated 17,000 known gang members on the streets and 10,000 in prison. According to a recent survey by the mainstream newspaper La Prensa Grafica, nearly 1/3 of all residents of the capital have been affected by criminal activity during the past three months.

Though gang activity represents only part of the problem - organized crime has infiltrated government institutions - the situation is so serious that President Funes has ordered the military to participate in joint operations with the National Civil Police.
Despite criticism from human rights organizations, and Funes' understandable reluctance to order his troops to patrol the streets given the history of abuses by the military, the president had few options. The violence could derail his social agenda and destabilize already debilitated government institutions.
The bottom line is that increasing violence in El Salvador provides additional opportunity for drug and human trafficking, money laundering and other illicit activities that filter north.
Central America is the south to north funnel for cocaine and heroin traffic and thus a security priority for the U.S. The FBI, ATF and DEA are all on the ground in-country and El Salvador hosts the DEA's "Cooperative Security" monitoring station for the region. But more assistance is needed including funding and technical training for the under-equipped and poorly paid police force.
Beyond security, the two nations are also intertwined financially. El Salvador has been on the dollar economy since 2001 and is vulnerable to fluctuations in the U.S. financial system. The crisis in the north also means fewer jobs for immigrants and a reduction in the crucial remittances returned home.
President Funes inherited an enormous financial deficit but he and his economic cabinet have skillfully earned the confidence of international financial institutions and of much of the domestic business sector, though some investors say they need greater legal reassurance that their investments will be protected.
From immigration to security to economics, the two presidents clearly share great interests and opportunities, but at a higher level, what is most remarkable is that they are meeting at all.
We share a complex, sometimes excruciatingly painful history. Many Salvadorans suffered as a consequence of U.S. policy in the 1980's and some in Washington may be uneasy with the new Salvadoran government. But as the Obama administration recognizes the importance of developing consequential relationships with the southern hemisphere, El Salvador can be a key ally.
So why should we - and President Obama - care about El Salvador? One Salvadoran analyst put it this way: "Our impoverishment and/or extinction can destabilize the entire region and this can affect you, Mr. President...For this reason we come to request your aid while we are still living."

Linda Garrett

The pic of Obama and Funes can be found here.
The pic of Oscar Romero can be found here.
The immigration-section pic came from here.
The photo of the gang members being arrested was copied from here.

UNICEF - Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse - Archbishop Desmond Tutu launches book on children and transitional justice

2010-03-16T13:00:00.001+03:00

UNICEF - Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse - Archbishop Desmond Tutu launches book on children and transitional justice

Posted using ShareThis

The systematic use and abuse of children in conflicts across the world has continued, unabated, over the past 20 years, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said today. Grave violations which persist against girls and boys include murder, rape, assault, sexual slavery and forced recruitment.

Speaking at the launch of the UNICEF-Harvard University publication, Children and Transitional Justice: Truth-Telling, Accountability and Reconciliation, the Nobel Laureate said that “the seemingly endless cycle of violence and conflict, turning children into instruments of war, must be stopped”.

While prosecution is essential to improve accountability for such crimes, the Archbishop said that any successful transition from war to peace must ensure that children have a place – and a voice – in helping to build a peaceful and stable future. The vision and ambition therefore of transitional justice is to enable societies that have been torn apart by conflict and violence to recover and to empower individuals – victims, witnesses and perpetrators – to recount their experiences and agree on a measure of justice to guide their future.

“The death and suffering of children in times of conflict and instability make it clear that the world has failed to prioritize the rights and well-being of children,” said Archbishop Tutu. “Transitional justice processes are a chance to set things right, and their success or failure depends to a large degree on how they involve children.”

Children and Transitional Justice: Truth-Telling, Accountability and Reconciliation analyses practical experiences to determine how the range of international courts, truth commissions and traditional processes can be applied, both to improve accountability for crimes perpetrated against children and to protect the rights of children involved. It explores safe and meaningful child participation in different circumstances.

The book also makes clear that for a truth commission to have a lasting impact, people need to see the tangible difference in their lives after its work has finished. Education, vocational training and school reconstruction were all noted by children as ways to make up for lost years.

Authored by experts in international law and human rights, Children and Transitional Justice: Truth-telling, Accountability and Reconciliation includes legal analysis and case studies of children’s involvement in the truth commissions of South Africa, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and of efforts to use judicial prosecutions and judicial processes to achieve accountability for crimes committed by the LRA in Uganda, as well as a review of new techniques employing genetic tracing for accountability and family reunification of disappeared children in Argentina and El Salvador. Children and Transitional Justice - Truth-telling, Accountability and Reconciliation makes clear that children must be taken seriously in post conflict transition.

Click here for the video of the Archbishop's speech at the book launch.
For picture credit, click here, here and here.

LATIN AMERICA: Abortion - Still Illegal, Still Killing, Despite Growing Awareness

2010-03-15T10:34:00.000+03:00

LATIN AMERICA: Abortion - Still Illegal, Still Killing, Despite Growing Awareness
By Estrella Gutiérrez

CARACAS, Mar 10, 2010 (IPS) - Although most of the governments in Latin America today are described as progressive, abortion is only legal in one country, while in five countries it is banned under all circumstances, even when the mother's life is at risk.
Brazilian women protest Catholic Church's stance on abortion

But draconian laws against abortion that allow very few, or no, exceptions have failed to prevent the average abortion rate in the region from reaching 31 per 1,000 women, two more than the global average, and higher than any other region.

Such laws have simply forced the practice underground, making unsafe abortions the second leading cause of maternal mortality in the region.

"Machismo plays a key role. Our societies are so patriarchal that it just isn't that difficult to deny that right," Uruguayan sociologist Moriana Hernández told IPS. "If there was social awareness about equality, it would be much more costly for progressive governments to deny rights linked to gender equality.

"It's easy to negotiate over the bodies of women because of that patriarchal influence," said Hernández, who heads CLADEM's (Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women) campaign for non-sexist and non-discriminatory education.

So abortion has become a bargaining chip between government leaders and conservative sectors, even though everyone knows that abortions are commonly practiced in the region.

There are more than four million illegal abortions a year in the region, linked to over 4,000 avoidable deaths. And in some countries, like Argentina, there are nearly as many abortions as births.

In the view of Hernández and other analysts, setbacks to or the lack of progress with respect to women's right to choice are the result of a fundamentalist offensive by the Catholic Church to keep Latin America a land free of abortions - legal ones, at least.

"The Church has always been on the watch against abortion, but now it has become an issue that irritates it beyond all measure - and not only abortion but also sex education, when actually there are no new, or radical, proposals being set forth," said Hernández.

Over the last decade, Latin America has shifted to the left. At the start of 2010, there were 11 countries with governments seen as progressive: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela; five with administrations considered rightwing or centre-right: Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru; and two with centrist governments: Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

But at the same time, a total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape or a threat to the mother's life, was adopted in Nicaragua in 2006; in Uruguay a presidential veto overruled the legalisation of abortion in 2008; and in the Dominican Republic, the right to life from the moment of conception was enshrined in the constitution in 2009.

In fact, the best news on the right to choice came from two countries governed by the right: in Colombia, the Constitutional Court legalised "therapeutic" abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal malformation or for the life of the mother in 2006, and in Mexico, first trimester abortion on demand was legalised a year later in the capital city - albeit by the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution's (PRD) majority in the local assembly

However, the five Constitutional Court magistrates who voted in favour of the verdict in Colombia were immediately excommunicated by the Church.

And the law making abortion legal in Mexico City triggered a "furious backlash" by the Church, which has prompted 17 of Mexico's 32 states to adopt even stricter anti-abortion laws, said Hernández.

Argentine anthropologist Rita Segato, a researcher at the University of Brasilia, attributes the Church's fervor to reasons other than the defence of life. "If it really cared, the Catholic hierarchy would be fighting on other fronts with the same vehemence, defending life," she argued.

"Its concern at this point is to mark the permanence of its influence" over states in the region, and thus it is caught up in a kind of competition for authority with the feminist movement in Latin America, she said in an interview.

"I'm still the boss here and I make sure that my ideological profile is reflected in the laws, and I am going to win," is the message from the Church leadership, according to the anthropologist.

The renewed push for even tighter restrictions on abortion "is a war of influences," she said.

In Segato's opinion, because the laws criminalising abortion have a purpose other than the stated one, they end up being ineffective in their supposed aim. "Catholics, non-Catholics, evangelicals - women from all these groups are having abortions every day, because they don't feel it is a criminal or ethical offence," she said.

Hernández said the Church is especially nervous because of the growing and increasingly visible awareness in the region on the importance of the right to choice, "which was unthinkable 10 or even five years ago.

"It has always been a key aim on the feminist agenda, but for years a popular movement aware of its importance was lacking. It was a neglected issue," she said.

The activist sees the negotiation over women's bodies in the criminalisation of abortion as linked to the problem of gender violence in the region, which is "huge" despite the fact that the Americas has the only continent-wide treaty on violence against women (the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women) and that every country has laws, in some cases even highly advanced, to fight domestic violence.

"A society that accepts men's violence against women cannot be asked to oppose a woman's being blocked from deciding on her pregnancy, another issue involving her body," the veteran feminist activist reflected.

The fury with which that violence has been expressed and the renewed offensive against any steps towards making abortion legal have picked up as challenges to "patriarchal power" gather strength, said Hernández.

For that reason, it is important to take a deeper look, "because there haven't only been setbacks.

"There are ups and downs, as shown by the case of Mexico, and there is a risk of oversimplification if we only measure progress by what governments do, without looking deeper, at political and social developments and the action of different movements and interest groups," she said.

"We have never before seen such a broad debate on the right to abortion, and it is growing day by day," said Hernández. She added that one result of thise is the combativeness shown by women in the region on the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean, celebrated every Sept. 28 since 1990.

Hernández cited Uruguay as an example of the complex nuances of the issue. In November 2008, socialist Tabaré Vázquez of the leftwing Broad Front coalition, whose five year term as president ended Mar. 1, vetoed the legalisation of abortion, one aspect of a broader law on reproductive health, which had been approved thanks to his own ruling coalition's majority in Congress.

But a focus only on the veto itself ignores other important elements, like the facts that a majority of senators and deputies approved the decriminalisation of abortion; at least 63 percent of Uruguayans are in favour of legalisation, according to opinion polls; and the country's trade unions, traditionally a very male-dominated area, staunchly supported the law.

There were practical advances as well: the final version of the law maintained the requirement that doctors and health centres must provide information on safe methods to terminate a pregnancy, even if they cannot themselves practice or offer them; and any woman with abortion-related complications must be given medical treatment without questions and without being reported to the authorities.

When progressive presidents like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Argentina's Cristina Fernández, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega or Ecuador's Rafael Correa seek to ingratiate themselves with the Church and other conservative groups by taking a hard line stance on abortion, they generate contradictions with their own political and social support bases that will become unmanageable for themselves or their successors in the long run, said Hernández.

"Latin American societies are ripe for the decriminalisation of abortion. That is an unquestionable fact," she stated. However, it is an issue "on which no one is going to budge without being forced to do so, and this also depends on creating a critical mass of men in favour of women's right to decide."

What the laws say

Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic ban abortions under any circumstances, with no explicit legal exceptions, even in the case of a risk to the mother's life.

But in Honduras, although the penal code provides for no exceptions, the Code of Medical Ethics allows termination of a pregnancy if the woman's life is in danger.

Cuba is the only country in the region where abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy is legal, as it has been since 1965. And the abortion rate is less than 21 per 1,000 women of reproductive age, 10 points lower than the regional average.

In Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Venezuela, abortion is allowed to save the pregnant woman's life. Argentina also makes an exception in the case of women with mental disabilities, while in Venezuela, women who undergo abortions to preserve their honour or that of a spouse or other relative are subject to more lenient penalties.

In Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala and Uruguay, abortion is also permitted in cases of rape or incest, and Uruguay allows for another exception as well: economic hardship.

Colombia, Mexico and Panama also allow abortion in cases of fetal deformities.

Market Medicine: Health Care in El Salvador

2010-03-14T10:03:00.000+03:00

James Dunlap has been living in San Salvador, the capitol of El Salvador, since 2005. In an article on Market Medicine, he talks about his experiences with doctors and pharmacies, and I was reminded of our first trip to La Union, when I was taken seriously ill and had to seek out a doctor.
Along the street that leads from the Maison to the market, there is a stretch of a few blocks where you can find a pharmacy on almost every corner and sometimes in-between. These are not the shiny Walgreens and CVS deals I knew from Houston, but more like the apothecaries of Germany: you go in to get advice as well as over-the-counter medicine; there is no grocery on offer, just things to make you better.

Out of the blue, my stomach had decided to dislike me in a very nasty way. I had been feverish for more than 24 hours, and was feeling very weak. On the second day of this, we walked to one of the pharmacies that had a doctor’s surgery attached. There was just one other patient before me, so there was not a long wait before the doctor called us inside.
He seriously listened to my husband explain the situation in Spanish, before turning to me. He had had a year or so in a hospital in Houston as part of his training, so he was able to communicate directly with me in English. Gravely, he informed me that as I had no medical insurance that was valid in his country, he would have to charge me his full cost. I was too sick to argue or even to ask him how much that would be: all I wanted was a handful of pills that would make me better!
The doctor was very thorough. We were with him for over an hour: more time than any doctor had taken with me in a long time! He asked me to go to the lab for some tests to investigate the cause of my sickness, but prescribed some pain killers, some antibiotics, and some salve for the many bug bites I had. When we were finishing, he gave us his cell phone number in case I needed to see him urgently. It only would take a phone call, day or night, and he would come to the house.
His bill came to $10. That was his full price for an hour of work. The five packs of different medicine set me back a further $55. I was given distinct instructions what to take when (one of the packs worked best when taken at exactly 6pm) and we left rather happily. Happily, because a similar visit in Houston would have wasted an hour of my time sitting in a crowded waiting room as the doctor’s surgeries all tend to over-book as many people never show up for their appointment. I would have seen a receptionist, a nurse, an office manager, and someone who does the billing. I would have spent maybe 5 or 10 minutes with a doctor. My co-pay would have been $20. Medication would have set me back about $10 each packet if and only if the brand was supported by my insurance carrier.
A busy waiting room at a doctor's surgery in the US
In the United States, the current debate over healthcare reform is really no debate at all. Both sides of the argument accept the fundamental principle of government intervention. Today, few can recall a time when healthcare was not considered an entitlement. Americans caught up in this racket would do well to look south to El Salvador. It has been a half-century since medical care in the United States could be described as a business. In El Salvador that is exactly what it is, a business. There, the customer (patient) meets the service providers (doctors, labs, hospitals, pharmacies) at that voluntary, mutually beneficial place known as the market price.
The typical doctor’s offices in El Salvador are two rooms in buildings that are physically attached to small private hospitals or pharmacies: a reception/waiting area and another space that serves as both office and examining room. Only two people are involved, the doctor and his receptionist. No nurses, no staff, no large group practices, and no offices jammed with secretaries and insurance filers. The receptionist out front makes your appointments, takes your payment, and writes your receipt. The physician’s role is to provide service, receive your payment, and hand you the proper receipts. All the doctors we have come across have their personal cell phone numbers printed on their business cards.
Labs and pharmacies show careful attention to customer service. The lab we were directed to is not in a medical complex, but in a small commercial office building. It is open on Saturdays. The receptionist at the counter reads the doctor’s lab order, looks up the prices, rings up the total, and presents the bill.
In El Salvador numerous pharmacies, national chains and independent stores alike, compete in a vigorous marketplace that places high value on customer service. Pharmacies routinely post the prices of popular medications, the majority of which are available without any prescription. You can phone in and they will deliver to you. As always, customer service comes first.
On our next visit to La Union, we are planning to organize a doctor for an open clinic in the area where most of the children live. This will be free to the children and their parents, as the Gulf of Hope will pay for the doctor and any necessary medications. For many of the children, this will be their first experience of a real doctor.
These children and their parents will benefit from a free clinic provided by the Gulf of Hope

The difference a year makes

2010-03-10T15:23:00.008+03:00

Omar showcasing our first edition t-shirts

It is amazing when we look back now, to see how far the Gulf of Hope has come.
It only has been a year since we thought about sharing with others our ideas for helping the children of La Union through providing for their education. It is not quite a year yet that we came up with the name.
A year ago, we sponsored Iris and realised how easy it is to get a child into private education in El Salvador. For the first time, we provided clothes and basic school supplies to a group of about 30 kids that live along the old railroad tracks.
Since then, we had to leave Houston and move to the UAE. But that did not stop us from thinking about the GoH and 'our kids'.

This mission statement is repeated on our business cards

We started to talk to friends and family about helping to sponsor more children, and in 2010, we have six little girls enrolled in private school. We are still providing basic school supplies to the other 30 kids. We have this blog. We have a presence on Twitter and Facebook.
Later this month, we will get our story into local papers here in the UAE, and are hoping to get into papers in El Salvador and elsewhere as well.
At the end of March, we are going to do a special fundraiser as we need about $2000 to pay for the paperwork to get us registered as an official Charity in El Salvador. This story, too, will be covered in a local (UAE) paper. And to celebrate the occasion, we had a first set of t-shirts printed.

Pleased with progress and full of new plans

Along the way, there were people that helped us, encouraged us, and inspired us to progress. Those that supported us with donations are listed on this blog. We also want to thank Fraser who is our go-to man for all things internet, and a pro when it comes to blogging. Then there is Bugui, who will be doing some graphic design work for us. Our thanks go to Raul and Themis in La Union, and all the others we have met along the way who have shown us new directions and opened doors that we did not even know existed!

For 2010 and into the next GoH year, we have plenty more plans.

When we go and visit El Salvador in April, we want to talk to the headmasters of the public schools in La Union to see how we can help with providing language tuition, a library and a computer lab to positively impact more of the children. We are hoping to talk to the Mayor and others to see how they can help us on location. We will talk to the kids we already have at private school to see how they get on. If we can organise it, we will plan a fundraiser in La Union. Plenty, plenty of things to do!
Once we are officially registered as a Charity, we will be able to approach companies for help with our plans. We will be able to open bank accounts that will not cost us anything to run. We will have official accounts that our donors can access to see where the monies go.

So: we have come a long way, but there still is more to do. And with your help, we will achieve what we set out to do!

Deaths Rise from Diarrhea and Dengue Fever in El Salvador

2010-03-09T16:16:00.001+03:00

Sanitarian authorities of El Salvador informed that six children under one year died during the first two months of 2010 due to diarrheal diseases.
The increase of the deaths for that cause plus the dengue fever outbreak in that country puts doctors on high alert.
Dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are acute febrile diseases which occur in the tropics, can be life-threatening, and are caused by four closely related virus serotypes. It is also known as breakbone fever. Unlike malaria, dengue is just as prevalent in the urban districts of its range as in rural areas. Each serotype is sufficiently different that there is no cross-protection and epidemics caused by multiple serotypes (hyperendemicity) can occur. Dengue is transmitted to humans by types of mosquito that feed during the day.

The WHO says some 2.5 billion people, two fifths of the world's population, are now at risk from dengue and estimates that there may be 50 million cases of dengue infection worldwide every year. The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries.
840 people have been reported with dengue fever so far and the majority has been children under one year. Eduardo Suarez, infectious diseases specialist and member of a team who assesses the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, assures that what is essential in this moment is to avoid gastrointestinal affections and to stop the spread of dengue fever.
According to Suarez the increase of diarrheic diseases in children is related to the lack of immunization in 50.000 children against rotavirus because of the vaccine insufficiency in the first semester of 2009.
Rotavirus is a disease which causes both vomiting and diarrhea in children.
He also said that 1.737 cases of dengue fever have been detected in the country in the current year, 41 of them are hemorrhagic type.

Click here for picture credit.

The Power of the Written Word

2010-03-08T17:38:00.000+03:00

The traditional definition of “literacy” is the ability to read and write. In a more modern context, the word means reading and writing at a level adequate for written communication and generally a level that enables one to successfully function at certain levels of a society if that society is one in which literacy plays a role in providing access to power.
Therefore, the standards for what level constitutes "literacy" vary among societies. Other skills such as computer skills or basic numeracy may also be included, as there are many people who cannot read letters but can read numbers, and even learn to use a computer (in a limited way) while remaining unable to read text.
The United Nations defines illiteracy as the inability to read and write a simple sentence in any language. Figures of 1998 show that 16% of the world population is illiterate (by the UN definition).
Levels of illiteracy vary across the world, but are more prevalent in developing countries. East Asia and Latin America have illiteracy rates in the 10 to 15% region while developed countries have illiteracy rates of a few percent.
On average, nearly one in three children does not complete 5 years of primary education, the minimum required for acquiring basic literacy.

It is very difficult to imagine what it is like to be illiterate in a world of words and computers. The closest we have come to personally experience something similar was when we went to Seoul, Korea, last year and all the signs were in Korean. We could not understand the writing. We had to point at pictures of food in a restaurant instead of ordering off the menu. But what if we had stayed there longer?
What would it mean if I could not read or write? Could not communicate with my world through the written language? What does it mean to not have this ability?
I get up in the morning, get ready in the bath, cook breakfast, kiss my husband good-bye and take a taxi to work – which relies on written communication. So, I could not do the job I do. But: What job could I do? None that requires schooling. I could not be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. I could not be a hair dresser, as I would have to be able to read the mixing instructions for the perms and hair colors. I could not be a baker as I could not read the instructions on any new recipes. I could not be a waitress unless I had really good memory to remember all orders and at least managed to write down the bills. I could do menial labor jobs, jobs that require no written instructions. Jobs that do not pay much and do not come with any benefits.
But it does not end here.
On a personal level, literacy opens doors of opportunity and understanding that no other skill can provide. The ability to read, write, and understand allows a level of communication that can make a huge difference in every life. Reading is necessary to understand a binding contract or a legal process.

If I cannot read or write, I have to accept what other people tell me. I have no way of checking out what was said. My opinion is therefore not my own, but based around hear-say.
While there are clinics that cater to poor people, I will be scared to go there: the first thing I get asked is to write down my name, address, birth date, symptoms and history of illness. I struggle with that. And as I don't want people to find out that I struggle, I don't even bother! When a health crisis occurs, I go to the emergency room, but it already might be too late. Costs for treatment increase as an illness progresses. In some cases, an illness could have been prevented by prompt medical care.
Probably worst of all, illiteracy has got a kind of "genetic" effect: My children are more likely to be illiterate than those of people who aren't. If I am skilled at hiding my illiteracy, my children may think that they can also get through life without learning how to read. As much as I try to tell them that education is important, they don't believe me. They are more likely to drop out of school. This means that they end up like me and nothing improves.

• Over 780 million adults in the world are illiterate.
• 64% of the world's illiterate are women.
• Nearly 60 per cent of the estimated 113 million children who do not attend primary school worldwide are girls.

Think about it. Look around you and imagine a world where you could not read or write and how this would impact you. And then you see why we at the Gulf of Hope focus so much on education.

Illiteracy affects most aspects of a person's life.

Illiteracy traps a person in a narrow life.

Photo credits

How to Survive an Earthquake

2010-03-07T09:17:00.000+03:00

As much as El Salvador is blessed by beauty and ravaged by violence and poverty, it also suffers by the hand of nature: volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis – it seems that any natural disaster can strike here.

There usually is ample enough warning of hurricanes and tsunamis, but this is not the case for earthquakes. There is a particular sense of helplessness that can accompany earthquakes, especially because there is no established scientific method of predicting them. The best defense is planning and preparation.
So what do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night, and all around you the walls and furniture move, pictures are falling from the walls, the ceiling is tumbling down?
Firstly, if you are indoors, do not run outside. Experts agree that it is safer to stay inside.
But this is where the agreement seems to stop.
A few days ago, I received an email from a friend that offers some advice on this matter; advice, that totally goes against what most of us have learned at school: to drop, cover and hold on. Instead, it talks about the Triangle of Life, promoted by Doug Copp (see also for picture credit). Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is the "triangle of life". The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured.

Somehow, this information seemed to make sense to me, but before posting it onto the blog, I wanted to do some more research and found that this is a method that divides the experts.
The American Red Cross points out that Mr Copp is plain wrong and that his advice is based on an experiment carried out in Turkey where the building codes are not as stringent as in the US.
Further reading shows that UN security experts sent out a triangle-of-life Power Point presentation to staff in Latin America who are still shaken by the more than 100 U.N. workers killed in the organization’s Port-au-Prince headquarters, including the head of the mission there. Drop-and-cover may be the way to react in the U.S. and the developed world, but people in the developing world still need as many reliable ways to stay alive as they can get their hands on.
The lesson: know your environment. Be prepared. Do your research.
ONE SIZE FITS ALL is not the answer.

Human Trafficking

2010-03-02T19:43:00.000+03:00

Both murders of women, called femicide, and human trafficking of women are on the rise in El Salvador and throughout Mesoamerica, and are claiming more lives everyday--from the urban slums of El Salvador to middle-class neighborhoods in the United States.
In 2005, 314 cases of femicide were reported, while 286 women were killed in only the first eight months of 2006. The majority of this violence was committed against women between the ages of 20-29, with some victims as young as 10 years old and others in their late 30s. Most distressingly, the femicides are often so violent it is difficult to identify the victim.
Violence in El Salvador is of concern internationally because of its power to push people to migrate. Many Salvadoran women have indicated that their decision to leave El Salvador was influenced by a desire to escape from violent neighborhoods and conditions.
Yet ironically, on the road North, an increasing number of violent and abusive scenarios await most migrant women. A large percentage of these women are vulnerable because they know nothing about crossing borders and do not have family waiting for them in the US. Many of these women fall victim to the malicious whims of human traffickers. Human traffickers smuggle women for domestic labor, money, or sexual exploitation. They use the promise of work and money for the immigrant’s family to lure desperate women and gain their trust, later abusing that trust by trapping these women in slave labor conditions or brothels.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that some women who plan to come to the US without documentation start taking birth control up to two months before they travel because rape is almost a certainty on the roads that lead to the border. They have heard the stories from others who have crossed the border, have lost siblings and friends to the journey, and yet they still choose to go.

Over 100,000 US children are forcefully engaged in prostitution or pornography each year.

The trafficking of human beings is the second most lucrative crime in the world.

Every year at least 12 million children are estimated to be trafficked around the world.

It is estimated that two children are sold every minute.

Love146 has a vision:

The abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Nothing less.

Photo credit

Change the World - One Child at a Time

2010-02-28T09:36:00.000+03:00

Without help, the children that live along the disused railroad track in La Union will be lost forever...

They face terrible odds. They are hungry, have very little to wear and no shoes on their feet to protect them from the trash all around them.

Along with their families, they live in shelters that do little to protect them from the rain and the heat of the Salvadorean climate. They struggle each day for a little food and own next to nothing. And on an income of less than $5 a day, these families could not possibly escape.

Without intervention, the children will eventually end up like their parents, uneducated and working themselves to exhaustion for pennies a day, swallowed by poverty and hopelessness.

There are children everywhere facing the same grim reality. You've heard about them before, living in desperation and heartbreak. You've wondered how you can help.

We have. This is why we started the Gulf of Hope, a charity that aims to support these children with the means to attend school and thus lay the foundation for a better future. Without education, there are no jobs. Without jobs, there is no crime-free way out of the cycle of poverty.

There are many things we could be doing.

This April, when we visit La Union, we are planning to speak to the Mayor and the Headmaster at school to see whether we can sponsor English teachers and maybe even a computer lab. We are going to talk about afterschool care, sports and other activities that would keep these children off the streets and involved in positive, beneficial activities. So many things we could be doing ...

We cannot do this alone.

New clothes thanks to a kind donor in Houston

There is only so much time and money we have of our own that we can contribute to the Gulf of Hope. We rely on the help of people like you. We rely on donations of money and clothes. We then channel these to our various projects. Please consider helping us. With your help, we can begin to change the world - one child at a time!

Update on New Legislation

2010-02-27T09:31:00.001+03:00

The President of the Republic of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, vetoed a reform to the Juvenile Justice Law which would have increased prison sentences for young people aged 16 and 17 from seven to 15 years for serious offences.

Living through the Civil War

2010-02-26T19:11:00.005+03:00

Juan Rojas was born in Sonsonate, El Salvador, in 1958. After he studied engineering and started his first job, he got involved in the trade unions. This political involvement during the civil war endangered his life. He describes his exile to Mexico and later Australia in a very interesting podcast on Sustainable World Radio.

Juan Rojas talks about life in El Salvador during the Civil War and the impact of permaculture on Central America

While in Australia, Juan got interested in Permaculture and studied under Bill Mollison, the founder of permaculture. He returned to El Salvador after the peace accord of 1992 to help rebuild the country, utilizing his skills with permaculture design. He teaches permaculture courses throughout Central America.

In the podcast Juan Rojas also speaks about his work in the Campesino a Campesino (Farmer to Farmer) movement and the impact that Permaculture is having in Central America.

Connect to the podcast here.

The Push and Pull of the Gangs

2010-02-21T12:30:00.001+03:00

Children dream. Ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they tell you: doctors, lawyers, astronauts, singers, actors ... they want to be popular and make loads of money. This is the same the world over, and when you ask the little girls that the Gulf of Hope are currently sponsoring, you have a future nurse, a model, a secretary, an actress, a scientist and a beautician.
With the sponsorship of the Gulf of Hope and the support of their families, these girls stand a good chance of achieving their dreams. We are working together to keep these girls safe and equipping them with the tools they need to make positive choices for their lives later on.
The threat of youth gangs is ever increasing. So far, La Union has not been affected as bad as other areas of El Salvador.
There are different schools of thought on why youths join gangs. There certainly are both pulls and pushes. Pulls pertain to the attractiveness of the gang. Gang membership can enhance prestige or status among friends, especially girls, and provide opportunities to be with them. Gangs provide other attractive opportunities such as the chance for excitement by selling drugs and making money. Thus, many youth see themselves as making a rational choice in deciding to join a gang: They see personal advantages to gang membership.

Social, economic, and cultural forces push many adolescents in the direction of gangs. Protection from other gangs and perceived general well-being are key factors. Some researchers contend that the "underclass" status of minority youth serves to push them into gangs. Feeling marginal, adolescents join gangs for social relationships that give them a sense of identity. For some youth, gangs provide a way of solving social adjustment problems, particularly the trials and tribulations of adolescence. In some communities, youth are intensively recruited or coerced into gangs. They seemingly have no choice. A few are virtually born into gangs as a result of neighborhood traditions and their parents' earlier (and perhaps continuing) gang participation or involvement in criminal activity.
For many, the gang becomes family with ties that are stronger than blood or water.
In a recent move, El Salvador lawmakers are cracking down on minors who commit serious crimes, hoping to curb gang violence that has turned El Salvador into one of Latin America's deadliest countries.

Legislators unanimously voted to increase the maximum prison sentence for young offenders from seven to 15 years. The law applies to offenders between the ages of 16 and 18.
However, this does not sever the ties to the gang: According to the LA Times, Gang members pay guards to smuggle in cellphones, which members use to consult and communicate with other members in Guatemala, Honduras and the US. Several 'hits' have been planned this way.
Gang membership and gang violence are of major concern to El Salvador, her government and people. The new president is trying to find a solution to this problem, so far without success.
Picture Source

For a better tomorrow

2010-02-20T14:00:00.000+03:00

The earthquake that hit Haiti on the 12th of January 2010 with a catastrophic force of 7.0Mw lasted 35 seconds. Just over half a minute. Most people can easily hold their breath that long. 35 seconds. About 200,000 people lost their lives.
A similar earthquake hit San Francisco in 1989, with a force of 6.9Mw. Only 63 people were killed.
In November of 2009, hurricane Ida swished over El Salvador, bringing torrential rains that swept away people and houses, and destroyed crops in areas that were barely making it as it were.
I stayed in our house in Houston when hurricaine Ike hit. We lost power and the fences came down which was a real big hassle and I felt very exposed. But we and our families were safe, the house took no damage, and a few days later, we all could return to work.
I remember the pictures we all saw after Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Why do some natural events turn into such devastatingly major disasters with such a high loss of life? What did the people of Haiti or El Salvador do to suffer so much?
Like Haiti, El Salvador is incredible vulnerable to natural disasters. People live in constant fear of another hurricane like Mitch, Stan or Ida, or another earthquake, like the ones that hit in 2001.

It is the poorest who lose everything due to their poorly constructed homes that are built in the riskiest places. Their crops are planted on slopes without provision of suitable run off in heavy rain conditions.
Planning for disasters and prevention can make high-risk areas less vulnerable.
The most holistic and sustainable way to support these communities is not through disaster relief alone, but in combination with "gestion de riesgo" or "risk management." Risk management is a concept that is well known in El Salvador, and is taught in popular education workshops across the country. One way of managing risk is through prevention such as building sturdier homes out of cement and not aluminum sheets or adobe. Or organizing the communities to demand that their government fixes the roads, builds the damns and works to do everything necessary to prevent that these natural disasters will have such horrific consequences.
See the Share Foundation for more information.

The US and the Gangs of El Salvador

2010-02-20T13:22:00.003+03:00

The Mara Salvatrutcha, MS-13, was set up in the 1980s by Salvadorean immigrants in LA's Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the Unites States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s. Mara refers to the word for gang in Spanish slang; it is suggested that Salvatrucha refers to the Salvadorean guerrillas, the source of much of the gang's early manpower.
Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadorean immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans. For this reason, the gang initially allowed only Salvadoreans to join, but later admitted other Central Americans as members.
Criminal activities of the MS-13 include drug smuggling and sales, arms trafficking, auto theft, carjacking, home invasion, assault, aggravated assault, assault on law enforcement officials, drive-by shootings, contract killing and murder.
Since 1998, the US have deported over 12,000 gang members with criminal records from the United States. Many are prison-hardened former gang members in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities who were sent back to El Salvador as illegal immigrants.
Deported gang members have little choice but to rejoin a gang, as they arrive with no money, no support group, no job prospects and knowing little Spanish. Typically, they have spent most of their lives in the States. They are dumped in a foreign culture and immediately face discrimination: Employers see their gang tattoos and close their doors. You can die of hunger. So you look for any network you can find. In a country where gangs copy the whole L.A. gang culture, the way they talk, the clothes they wear and the absolute ruthlessness, they easily find a new 'family'.
Often, the new arrivals are gaining leadership roles because they are generally the most violent in the ranks.
In 2004, Operation Super Firm Hand, a controversial anti-gang campaign gave El Salvador's police sweeping arrest powers to combat the increasingly sadistic violence. The campaign was praised by the population who suddenly felt safer again, but many academics and human rights advocates were deeply critical, saying the campaign was merely repressive and failed to attack the root social causes — family disintegration, joblessness and a legacy of violence after decades of civil war that ended with a 1992 peace accord. Super Firm Hand has not eliminated gang members, critics say, just sent most of them into hiding.
President Funes, who came into power during 2009, has been looking towards the US who have made inroads in the fight against gangs and gang-related violence. He has asked for help from the FBI and similar organisations who are now working with him in attacking the issues.

What's for Dinner?

2010-02-16T17:42:00.004+03:00

The cuisine of El Salvador is quite particular among those of Central America. It is very much a blend of Spanish and indigenous influences. There are things that you easily can recognise, like chicken soup, and weird and wonderful things like pupusas and fried palm flowers.

I love breakfast in El Salvador. For me, it is frijoles and platanos fritos the whole way. Mind you, if I am good, I also take the eggs and tortillas.

As El Salvador has a long stretch of Pacific coast, there is a multitude of seafoods. Fresh fish. Mussles. Lobster. Shrimp. Fried, grilled, in soup.

With rice, vegetables, tortillas. In the evenings, we like to go to a pupuseria. Outside La Union is a small town called Conchagua, that is well known for its pupusas. If we stay in La Union, we might go for Salvadorean Chicken Sandwiches.

I like desserts, and there is no shortage of all sorts of cakes and cookies and sweet things.

Food is pretty wholesome. The soups are very flavorful - I had a soup where I could pick out the different flavors of the vegetables that made it. Pretty awesome!

Progress has reached even La Union and there is now at least one Burger King. There also is a Chinese restaurant, a pizza place, and some other fastfood outlets. For a real treat, try Pollo Campero for the best chicken around.

We are going to La Union in April, and I can't wait for my favorite foods!

No Equal Opportunities

2010-02-15T19:00:00.000+03:00

Off the top of your head, name any item that El Salvador exports. Go on, quick - and don't name 'gangs' or 'illegals'.
Did you realise that El Salvador exports a lot of clothing? You should check your wardrobe, and you might find a few t-shirts, sports kits, jeans and such like, that were manufactured in and exported from El Salvador.
Close to the airport in San Salvador, you will find the factories. Several expensive name brands make use of the cheap labor in the area.
But if you have a Salvadoran export, chances are high it was processed by slaves. That's because many of the 67,000 female workers who process exports in El Salvador are subjected to verbal and physical abuse, sexual harassment, and forced labor. By allowing the abuse of export workers, El Salvador is exporting exploitation along with the stuff you eat, drink, and wear.

In El Salvador, and especially in the export industry, Trade Unions are all but outright banned. Women are routinely discriminated against, paid less than their male counterparts (according to official figures about 88%), and underrepresented in higher-wage jobs. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, export processors have so little ability to negotiate their contract or their work, that they are tantamount to being forced labor. Add to that abuse and sexual harassment, and it's easy to see why the women who work in export processing in El Salvador may feel trapped in their jobs.
When we talk about modern-day slavery and consumer goods, we often talk about how slaves and exploited workers grow, sew, and assemble our products. But they also export them, quality check them, drive them to distribution centers, and stock them on shelves. It's important to remember that exploitation can occur at any step of the chain. That's one of the reasons it is so important for companies to have transparent supply chains.
Check out change.org for comments and a call to action on the topic of modern day slavery.
There are people in El Salvador who are wanting to change the situation, who are pushing for the establishment of trade unions and worker representation. One such person, Victoriano Abel Vega, the general secretary of SITRAMSA (Sindicato de trabajadores y Empleados Municipales de la Alacaldía de Santa Ana), was murdered on January 15 2010, on his way to San Salvador where he was due to attend a meeting with several other trade unionists in preparation for a complaints procedure regarding the unfair dismissal of several employees of the municipality of Santa Ana. He had been sent death threats in connection with his role as a trade union leader and his condemnation of the dismissals.
This is the kind of world that the children of La Union are growing into. As young as they are, they know hardship already. Many of them at least occasionally work for money or food. The Gulf of Hope is building on contracts with the parents and guardians of these children, insisting on prioritising education and learning so that these children will one day have opportunities for better qualifications, better jobs, and a future that is not just 'hand to mouth'.
Picture source

Number of Illegal Immigrants Declines in the US

2010-02-14T16:42:00.003+03:00

Now that 2010 is a couple of months old, all sorts of official statistics are being released covering 2009.
The Department of Homeland Security have issued figures that show that in 2009, the numbers of 'unauthorized immigrants' have decreased (see here). According to their demographics, the biggest declining populations were from Mexico and El Salvador.
Two potential reasons are being listed: the decline of the US economy on one side, and an increase of arrests at the US-Mexican border on the other.
If you have been following this blog, you will have read about the impact of illegal immigration on families in El Salvador. You will also have read about the decline of work for day laborers and the impact of this on the financial situation of those that remain in El Salvador. And if you really thought about this, these statistics are by no means surprising: there is no point entering the US illegally if there is no work. So, yes, given the economic situation in the US, the number of unauthorised immigrants should have declined in 2009.
I have no data on the increase of arrests at the border. From my work in oil and gas, however, I know that if someone wants to enter a country illegally (or commit an act of violence), they will succeed no matter what.

Prayer for El Salvador

2010-02-13T12:51:00.003+03:00

The Gulf of Hope is non-denominational. However, that does not say anything about our personal beliefs.

The Moody Mission are inviting people to take part in a 100-day prayer for El Salvador.

There also is the prayer for peace, every first Sunday of each month, at 6:30pm.

If interested, check them out and join them.