ANNUAL MEETING 2018

As a friend of FUNDAHMER living in the U.S., we invite YOU to join the FACES board of directors, along with familiar faces from El Salvador for this year’s virtual “Annual Meeting” to hear more about El Salvador and what FACES has accomplished this past year.

Tuesday June 12, 2018

5:30 pm (P), 6:30 pm (M), 7:30 pm (C), 8:30 pm (E)

Public Meeting will be no more than 1 hour, so we’ll stick to a tight agenda (link), but board members will be happy to respond to questions as time permits or outside the meeting.

WHO?  Supporters of FUNDAHMER in the U.S. (Sister Community members, School+ University leaders, former volunteers and delegation participants)…ALL ARE WELCOME!

WHAT? Learn about FACES’ mission and working relationship with FUNDAHMER, hear about current and future projects in El Salvador, ask questions and share ideas, hear more about how to get involved.

WHERE?  Anywhere!

HOW?      Video conference (please contact us for the link: faithinactiones@gmail.com)

RSVP: HERE

QUESTIONS? faithinactiones@gmail.com

ABOUT FACES: In July 2013, a group of volunteers in the US joined together in order to find ways of supporting the good work being done in El Salvador by FUNDAHMER and other similar Salvadoran NGOs. On October 10, 2014, FACES (Fe en Acción con El Salvador / Faith in Action with El Salvador) was established as an official tax-exempt, non-profit organization (501(c)3) in order to support important projects in El Salvador from the U.S..

FACES Board of Directors: Laurel Marshall (chair), Mary Lou Bozza (vice chair), Glenn Darilek (treasurer),Christine Wanzeck (co-secretary), Owen Needham (co-secretary), David Applegate, Dan Ponsetto, Eva Mergner

Incoming: Angel Cruz, Colleen Blanton; Advisors: Anita Ortiz Luna, Armando Márquez Ochoa

In late January our board members came from all over the U.S. to meet in Chicago for FACES second ever in-person retreat and meeting, the first being FACES’ founding meeting in El Salvador in 2013. Much of the weekend was spent in an extremely fruitful strategic planning session. We restructured the board into a more efficient and task-oriented committee structure, set clear responsibilities and accountability measures, and set an overall action plan for 2018 moving forward. This process offered us a valuable opportunity to collaboratively and creatively think about the work of FACES and how each of us might be best able to contribute to this work. The result of this restructuring will be to make FACES even more effective in supporting our partners in El Salvador.

Perhaps equally valuable to this structural work was the opportunity for the members of the FACES board to connect and reconnect with each other. In doing so we were reminded of each of our commitments and strivings to be in solidarity with the oppressed people of El Salvador. Each of us have a different path that led us to El Salvador, that led us away from it, and that leads us back to it. Each of us have different experiences and memories that keep El Salvador and the people we met there in our hearts. Of those of us that were gathered in Chicago that weekend, some of us had been good friends for years, some of us had never met, some of us had met periodically over the years. We had time to talk about our time in El Salvador, to remember friends and hold them in our minds. In hearing each other’s stories and experiences and recounting our own histories of our relationship with El Salvador, we are able to get some sense of our interconnectedness within a wider story of solidarity and struggle. There’s really no understating the inspirational and motivational value of that sort of experience.

With that in mind I would like to offer thanks to all supporters of FACES for being part of this story of solidarity.

Lord keep the Spirit in us.

Annual Meeting ReCap:

Our annual meeting was a success! Thank you to all who participated or set aside the time to be a part of our evening.

On August 2, 2017 we hosted an online meeting and invited participants to discuss: our mission, our current projects, how we function as a 501c3 and how we can further accompany FUNDAHMER in their endevors. The participants included FACES board members, representatives of FUNDAHMER and loyal supporters of FUNDAHMER. Additionally, we were joined by individuals interested in accompanying our work in El Salvador.

Due to an unexpected surge in attendance, we had a few technical glitches. Despite this, we shared with many supporters of FACES and FUNDAHMER, gained vital feedback, and answered important questions.

Our Chair, Laurel Marshall and Co-chair, Mary Lou Bozza were online to facilitate the following event.

-Armando Marquez Ochoa of FUNDAHMER gave our opening words and we were ecstatic to have Jose, Anita, and Maria Elena of FUNDAHMER join us as well.

-Mary Lou gave a beautiful explanation of the Mission and History of FACES

-Laurel explained the projects that FACES supports and our funding process

-Questions were taken and those of FUNDAHMER were delighted to reconnect and speak with many of their long time supporters.

-Armando shared a final message for the Annual FACES Meeting

• Excerpt: “WE THANK all of you that, in this stage of your life, have shared with us, during months and years, your enthusiasm, your creativity, your commitment, and your human and spiritual values. You have been a powerful stimulus for the work FUNDAHMER does and our reason for being. We believe that we have to continue this experience and promote it to other people. ”

-We closed the space with the song Basta Ya

• “On behalf of the Christian Based Community of San Salvador, El Salvador, it is our pleasure to be here with you. Today we are enjoying a youth retreat and would like to share with you a song dedicated to our martyrs, Padre Octavio Ortiz Luna and four young people who were killed on January 20, 1979. Today we would like to present this song to you all which is dedicated to him and the 4 young people.”

Bellow you can find:

• Armando’s opening words
  • Armandos Welcome
  • Opening video: Gloria al Divino Salvador
• The presentation that Mary Lou gave regarding our Mission and History as an organization.
• The projects that Laurel discussed, which can also be found on our website under the label “Projects”
• Armando’s words about why FACES is useful for FUNDAHMER and what FUNDAHMER’s priorities are for the future
  • Armando’s Final Words
• The link to Basta Ya and Translation
  • Basta Ya
  • Basta Ya video translation

Many thanks to Christine Wanzeck for her excellent written translations and to Eva Mergner who continuously translated for our members of FUNDAHMER during the meeting.

Thank you to all who participated in our event! If you were unable to attend please enjoy the transcriptions of what occurred and join us in our future work.

Paz,

The FACES team

International Women’s Day is a way of recognizing the importance of women in our society. Through accompaniment, FACES works to empower the women of El Salvador, to support them as they create autonomy within their own communities. Throughout the world women are vital leaders and important pieces to working economies, their abilities to lead and listen are assets to everyone around them. Recognizing the power, worth, and irreplaceability of women is a step towards the equality that we strive for.

The women that we have the privilege of working with in the communities of El Salvador have organized and built their neighborhoods from the ground up. Their experiences during the Salvadoran Civil War required them to coordinate and strategize, this led to phenomenal leadership abilities that are still used today.

Women of Flor de Maíz learning how to screen print their own t-shirts.

By supporting projects like the Women of Torola Project and the Flor de Maíz Cooperation, FACES is able to accompany local Salvadoran women as they lead their communities and improve their quality of life. The women of Torola in Morazán, work in partnership with their sister community in Madison, Wisconsin to improve leadership skills and become the case workers and agents of change in their community. The Flor de Maíz Cooperation allows the women of Agua Blanca in Morazán, to be more autonomous; they make, bake and sell artisan goods. The Cooperation makes hand crafts and sweet breads which bring extra income into their

End Result of the Flor de Maíz 2015 women’s end of the year retreat

households. Although the income is important, Flor de Maíz allows a safe space for the women as well as a way to enhance cohesion, self-esteem, and group identity.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is – Be Bold For Change. The women of El Salvador face great challenges every day, yet, their daily boldness allows them to move their entire communities forward. By standing in solidarity with the women of Torola and the Flor de Maíz Cooperation, FACES can Be Bold For Change. We can continue to uplift and support the Salvadoran Mujeres to help create a more just society.

This year, by the generosity of your donations, FACES has supported 5 small projects with our partner organization, Fundación Hermano Mercedes Ruíz (FUNDAHMER), in El Salvador:

1. San Salvador Scholarships: 4 students from San Salvador have been able to continue their studies, all at the university level.
2. Oven for “Flor de Maiz”: The women’s collective “Flor de Maíz” out in Morazán is starting the community’s first bakery, and we had the chance to help them out with an oven! Flor de Maíz one of the women’s groups FUNDAHMER accompanies, and has more than five years of experience working towards their own empowerment and participation in the local economy.
3. Emergency Grain Fund for Morazán: Because of the droughts this year and last, small farmers in the eastern part of the country have not been able to produce enough corn and beans to feed their families. This year, FUNDAHMER purchased and distributed 100 pounds of corn and 25 pounds of beans per family in multiple communities to help them get through the year to the next harvest.
4. Campesino School 2015: FUNDAHMER has been getting ready start a second cycle of Campesino School in 2016. As part of their preparation this year, they have repaired water infrastructure, planted and harvested a first sustainable corn crop, opened vehicle entrance to the land, and started generating interest among young people in the area.
5. Activities around the Beatification of Monseñor Romero: For the long-awaited beatification of Monseñor Romero this past May, FUNDAHMER was able to facilitate reflections about his life and what his beatification means in the communities. They also made it possible for community members from Morazán and La Libertad come into the city for the overnight, grassroots vigil and beatification the following day.

We’ll be receiving final reports with pictures and more details from FUNDAHMER soon!

FUNDAHMER has shared its priorities for 2016 with us, many of which involve following up with these efforts. For more information about upcoming projects or to donate, go HERE!

FUNDAHMER’s tour in the US is off to a great start! After visiting four high schools in California and Arizona, José and Laurel are wrapping up their visit to the West Coast with two community conversations in Portland, Oregon, organized by FACES’ board president, Amanda, and the local Salvadoran community. For an update on the first week of the tour, check out Jose and Laurel’s report on FUNDAHMER’s blog here.

We are also excited to annouce FUNDAHMER’s tour fundraising campaign, to support current financial needs in El Salvador. Donations can be accepted at any stop along the tour or HERE, through Indiegogo, an online crowdsourcing and fundraising platform. Our goal for the online campaign is $10,000, and any amount helps! If you cannot donate, we invite you to share this link with members of your community who may be interested. All funds directly support three specific initiatives:

Immature cornstalks, dry as a result of this year’s drought

1. Emergency grain fund – This year, there was a 35-day drought during the months of July and August, during the first crop of corn. The first crop of corn is usually the most plentiful and is important to small subsistence farmers, who depend upon a good harvest to pay back agricultural loans and feed themselves and their families during the year. Almost the entire first crop in Morazán was lost during the drought, and we are raising funds to try to send a couple emergency food packages to communities over the course of the next year. $25 buys a quintal of corn (100 pounds… the prices are already double the norm!), and $168.75 could cover three emergency food packages (corn and beans) for a family over the coming year.

Students from the first year of Campesino School with their harvest of organic, creole corn!

2. Campesino School – After FUNDAHMER’s pilot run of Campesino School this year, we are hoping to move the effort out to Morazán, to involve more young women and cut down on the food and transportation costs! This means we will need to construct some basic infrastructure on the land out in Morazán and work with our agriculture promotors in the area, Agustín and Nohemí, to make a farm plan and begin working the land. We hope to build an open-air structure for making organic fertilizer and storing barrels of fermenting microorganisms, a small water basin or tank for washing, cooking, and watering crops, as well as a storage room or a small house for storing tools, seed, and didactic materials. Eventually, we hope to develop the land into a community agricultural center, but those are our short-term goals for 2015. For more information on Campesino School, feel free to email FUNDAHMER or check out some blog posts from this year’s experience here.

Photos from Flor de Maíz, the women’s group in Morazán

3. Women’s economic initiatives – FUNDAHMER currently works with three intergenerational women´s groups in Morazán and La Libertad that are constructing “economies of solidarity” in their communities by forming artisan collectives to meet local needs. The women of Flor de Maíz weave handbags out of yarn and the fibers of the mezcal plant, used traditionally to make hammocks and sacks. The women in Las Mesas make shampoo and run a small store and grain mill in their community, and the women in Sacacoyo make artisanal sweets, pickles, and powdered drink mixes. They also make cards our of flowers, leaves, banana tree bark, and corn husks! We are looking for about $500 or $600 to make an artisanal oven for bread-making for Flor de Maíz in Morazán, as well as support for the women to access craft fairs and markets in El Salvador.

Finally, check out a great interview with José published in a populist, grassroots newspaper in Portland here!

FUNDAHMER, one of our partners in El Salvador, is looking for a long term volunteer to accompany immersion delegations and sister community relationships! This is a great opportunity to support FUNDAHMER in its intercultural solidarity work and gain experience in local nonprofit development efforts. Spanish language skills are necessary, and FUNDAHMER is looking for a two-year commitment.

Help us spread the word, and contact the current Delegations Coordinator, Amelia, at FUNDAHMER (cebes@fundahmer.org.sv) for more information!

Check out the posting on Idealist.org HERE!

FACES is excited to announce that our board member Laurel Marshall will be doing a speaking tour of the United States with Jose Gomez – programming director at a FACES partner organization in El Salvador, La Fundación Hermano Mercedes Ruíz. Laurel and Jose will be visiting numerous cities and towns across the United States. They will be discussing their personal experiences and the current social and economic reality in El Salvador.

Check out the tentative itinerary to see if there’s a stop near you, and please contact us if you are interested in learning more!