Chalatenango, CCR Update, March 2007

History

The Association of Communities for the Development of Chalatenango-CCR was founded in June of 1987 during the armed conflict in El Salvador, as an answer to the need to repopulate the communities of the North-eastern part of Chalatenango that had been destroyed by the armed conflict.  Thanks to the work of the CCR the people who were exiled in the refugee camp in Mesa Grande Honduras, refugee camps inside the country and in other countries were able to repopulate the communities devastated by the war.  With the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992, the CCR reoriented its work to organize and facilitate the reconstruction of the communities, and advocate that the Peace Accords be met and the process of democratization of the country move forward.  Today the CCR works with 100 communities in 22 of the 33 municipalities of Chalatenango, promoting community organization and development through popularly elected community boards, legal representatives of their communities.

March 15th

Current CCR Board

In October of last year the current board of the CCR was elected, composed of representatives to the 100 member communities.  The new CCR board is made up of eleven people:

José Isabel Membreño-President, from Ignacio Ellacuría

María Esperanza Ortega-Vice-President from Arcatao

Rubio “Anibal” Franco-Treasurer, from Guarjila

Blanca Miriam Ayala-Secretary, from Los Ramírez

Esteban Cruz Cruz-Sistering Representative, Carasque

German Ayala-Regional Representative, from Hacienda Vieja

Miriam Alas-Secretary of Healthcare, from Ignacio Ellacuria

Rosa Dubón-Secretary of Youth, from Guarjila

Nelson Orellana-Secretary of Popular Education, from San José Las Flores

Eva Lemus-Secretary of Women, from El Alto

Carlos Monjes -Representative of ALGES, war wounded, from Guarjila

 

Struggle against the threat of mining companies

The CCR has been one of the leaders in the struggle against mining companies’ incursion into the department of Chalatenango.  Currently the CCR is facilitating a series of local ordinances through the mayor’s offices in the region that would establish local environmental protection standards and require citizen referendums whenever these standards might be endangered.  These ordinances would be especially effective given that they would be written by micro-regions, and could not be changed without the consent of all the municipal governments in the region.  The communities of the CCR hope these environmental ordinances will be a tool to fight the mining threat to their rivers, streams, forests, and lands.

At the end of 2006 the CCR held an assembly with 250 leaders in the Sumpul River to discuss the legal means local communities can use to defend themselves against the mining companies.  Nevertheless, all the communities of the CCR continue to manifest that the struggle against the mining companies, regardless of whether they have legal support or not, must be won through popular resistance and the strength of the organized communities.  Currently the CCR continues to lead the struggle against the mining companies, in coordination with Local Development Committees (CODEN, composed of local government and community leaders), through the regional and national tables of social organizations and communities against mining, and constantly in their daily work in the communities threatened by mining.  Yesterday the communities of Chalatenango responded to the call from neighbouring Cabañas for support in protesting the mining company in Cabañas as they struggle against the Pacific Rim Mining Company, who yesterday tried to move machinary onto a proposed mining sight, against the communities will.

 

Political Formation Schools

The CCR, with the support of the Swedish Technical Cooperation and the Parish of Arcatao has been carrying out political formation schools with new leaders in three different regions of Chalatenango-La Laguna/Carrizal, Nombre de Jesús, and San José Las Flores.  The school meets once every month and focuses on current issues and history such as the impacts of CAFTA, poverty, mining exploitation, the water situation in the country, democracy and citizen participation, the history of the social movement, the history of the CCR, human rights, learning about municipal government, etc.

With the political formation schools the CCR has been able to expand its organizing base and follow up that work by supporting new community boards and ADESCOs (Community Development Associations, the legal name for community boards) where new leaders have been trained through the schools.  The political formation schools have sparked a series of diagnostic sessions with the communities participating in the schools, to define the problems that the communities are confronting and thus begin identifying possible common solutions to those problems.  As a result of the political formation school, the communities of the CCR are able to maintain a high level of social and political awareness, which in term impulses their organizing structures in their struggles against mining, the problems of the Northern Highway which will cut through their communities and be funded by the US government, the hydroelectric dams designed under Plan Pueblo Panama as part of a larger integration of markets, resources, and politics in Central America to facilitate free trade economic policies, etc.

 

Organization and Work with the ADESCOs

As part of its ongoing work, the CCR continues to work with the community boards towards their legal recognition as ADESCOs, and has recently been able to legalize five new community boards.  Likewise, the CCR has facilitated the election process of new community boards in different communities, to support popular participation and transparency in the election process.  The establishment of legally recognized ADESCOs assures popular participation in the problems facing the community, and expands citizen participation beyond just voting for a political party, to building alternatives through a social movement.

 

Sistering

Over the course of the last couple months the CCR communities have received visits from various sister cities, including delegations from MOFGA, Bangor, Canada, Arlington, New Jersey, and the sister city of the community of El Higeral.  This month the CCR is reopening the spaces of regional sistering meetings with community sistering representatives from all the communities with sistering relationships, to be able to better share information, coordination, and articulation of initiatives and advocacy.  The CCR hopes to thus strengthen the work of sistering in Chalatenango and with their sister cities.

 

Health

The Secretary of Healthcare organized a broad assembly with more than sixty health care promoters in the community of Guarjila last month.  Through broad assemblies the Secretary coordinates the work of the promoters, including facilitating scholarships for medical students from the communities and continuation of a series of workshops on natural medicine in 16 communities, which are specifically focused on the elaboration and use of natural medicines most easily accessible to the general population.

 

ALGES (Association of War Wounded of El Salvador)

The work of ALGES is generally focused around four categories: organizational work, the struggle for the rights of the war wounded, fundraising and relations, and the struggle for reinsertion into civil society and physical rehabilitation of the war wounded.  Currently, ALGES works with war wounded committees in twelve communities of Chalatenango, which coordinate with their regional representative who is part of the CCR board, who in turn coordinates with ALGES at the national level.  ALGES also has its own weekly radio program, “Al Tope” (to the limit, the slogan during the 1989 FMLN offensive on San Salvador), transmitted over radio Sonora in El Salvador.

 

Popular Education

The nearly 80 popular education teachers in Chalatenango held a gathering in the Sumpul River recently to reflect on popular education 15 years after the war.  Popular education teachers spoke specifically about the EDUCO program which the Government has implemented and under which most of the popular education teachers are contracted, which they worry is one step closer to privatization of the education system in El Salvador, especially in rural areas.  EDUCO decentralizes the hiring process and administration of resources in rural schools, leaving these tasks in the hands of community leaders organized into ACEs (Community Education Associations).  In this way the Ministry of Education absolves itself of responsibility for providing schools with certain resources and teachers, but at the same time is able to demand certain commitments of each school and ACE as stipulation for national funding.

 

Women’s Organizing 

The Secretary of Women is currently coordinating with forty three community committees of women, and each committee has a regional representative that promotes the organizational objectives of the committees.  Each committee works towards the resolution of the necessities of women in their community, such as the end to discrimination against women, support for small economic initiatives, and creating income opportunities for women in the communities.  With the support of Oxfam the CCR has been executing a project to train women from the communities in administration and marketing, with a micro-credit element for women’s small business.  The women’s committees are also dreaming of opening a computer training center, to be able to take advantage of this tool in their organizing work.

 

Youth

The Secretary of Youth is restructuring the youth committees in the different regions where the CCR works to be able to better coordinate with youth organizing in the communities.  Currently the Secretary is carrying out a pilot project in three communities that have a large number of youth who have stopped attending school or have difficulties within their communities.  The project includes the communities of Ignacio Ellacuría, Guarjila, and San Antonio de Los Ranchos, with the objective of working with more than forty youth in openly discussing social conflicts between youth, immigration, and the situation which faces youth today.  This project attempts to confront the tendency and cultural influence of gangs amongst the youth, and hopes to open spaces to dialogue about these issues.

 

Strategic Planning

The CCR is also carrying out a strategic planning process, together with CRIPDES and Sister Cities. In a series of discussions with leaders in Chalatenango the CCR has facilitated a broad conversation about the role and vision of the CCR in the years to come.

 

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