Week
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July 10, 2002
Inside the Register
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Catholic relief organization brings hope to El Salvador
CFCA helps some 5,000 needy Salvadoran children and seniors
By Alwen Bledsoe
Bright
reds and bold blues and greens gleam everywhere in El Salvador, a self-conscious
testament to hope and joy. Jovial feasts of tamales, mangoes and sweet
corn soup are, some say, a living symbol of what the world should be —
peaceful, equal and rich in relationship.
Little would immediately betray that war, poverty and natural disaster have seared the soul of this country. But more than half the population lives below the poverty line, and families with five, six or even nine children and grandchildren crowd into houses haphazardly built of sheet metal, mud and sticks. Perhaps most devastating are the still-seething wounds inflicted by a 12-year civil war, and the grief and terror left in the wake of the "disappeared" — thousands kidnapped by a murderous government and now presumed dead. But there are no bodies, no graves, and no justice to heal the nightmares, rage and disillusionment of many. In the midst of this turmoil, Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) is one voice of hope crying into the wilderness.
CFCA, a Catholic lay organization based out of Kansas City, Kan., provides aid to over 227,000 children and elderly in 25 countries through matching them with sponsors who pay $20/month to provide clothing, food, medication and education. Around 5,000 sponsored children and aging live in El Salvador.
CFCA and other aid organizations face what can look like an insurmountable task in El Salvador. Though the civil war ended in 1992, a 1993 amnesty law exonerated all guilty of war crimes. Some of the most famous government-sponsored crimes were the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, shot while saying Mass in 1980, and the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter on the campus of the Jesuit-run University of Central America. An estimated 75,000 died in the war, infamous for its brutal human rights abuses. The UN Truth Commission found that the military, rightwing death squads and the government, backed by millions in U.S. military aid, committed the vast majority of the war's human rights violations.
Alma Murcia, a social worker for CFCA, remembers sleeping underneath her bed afraid that bullets would come through windows and walls. Her uncle, she said, was "disappeared" by the government.
"He disappeared and never reappeared," she said. "That's an open wound you can't live with peacefully. There are so many people still trying to find out from the army where the bodies of people are. My grandmother was kind of insane after that disappearance."
Another family she works with through CFCA lost seven family members to "disappearances," she added.
"There are so many people that still are afraid to go out into the country or to fight for their rights," Murcia said.
The former guerillas now hold seats in the government, and elections generally considered free and fair brought Francisco Flores to the presidency in 1999 to head the new constitutional, multiparty democracy. Still, the government is hampered by inefficiency, corruption and police brutality, and some of the poorest say they are worse off now than they were before the civil war.
The U.S. State Department estimates that the country was set back five to seven years by the January and February 2001 earthquakes that killed over 1,100, left 1.2 million homeless and caused $1.3 billion in damage. Its 2002 report on El Salvador notes that 55 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
But to many families, CFCA is the difference between hunger and nutrition, nakedness and clothing, lack of knowledge and education. Along with providing food and clothing for children, CFCA requires that all sponsored children attend school and also educates parents in parenting skills, nutrition and hygiene, said San Salvador CFCA mission coordinator Luis Carlos Orellana.
Esmerelda Uribe Montalvan lives in a community of small tin shacks and garbage-lined dirt roads called Buenos Aires in San Salvador. Her two girls are both sponsored through CFCA.
"It's a big help," she said. "It came just in time."
Her husband, she explained, had fallen sick and lost his job as a truck driver. They didn't have food or money, and one of her daughters was wearing torn shoes to school, Uribe added.
"We thank God for all the supplies they are sending," she said.
Uribe sells fresh-squeezed juice and traditional Salvadoran food on the streets to make money for her family. Many unable to find work in the formal job market carve out their own way on the country's informal job market — selling fruit, toys, second-hand U.S. clothes or washing the windshields of cars stopped in traffic.
Uribe describes a plague of troubles: lack of transportation, lack of jobs, unsanitary water. Like many she also talks about thieves who roam the countryside and steal with impunity. But she smiles, laughs and chats with exuberance.
"I'm happy all the time," she said.
And Oti Guardado, jailed in 1984 for her connections to Alfonso Acevedo, a catechist murdered by the government, added: "We've suffered so much, what else can happen? Sometimes you don't know where you find the faith and strength to keep going."
For Nora Margarita Martinez that faith and strength come largely through knowing that her five girls, some sponsored by CFCA, are receiving an education that has the potential to rescue them from Las Cañas, a community with a polluted river that locals say leaves children and adults with skin infections. Running water comes through only one small pump, and pigs, goats and chickens sleep next to humans on concrete and dirt floors.
"They will graduate from high school and college," Margarita said. "I want another life for my children, for them to get out of these conditions."
Her five children attend Maria Auxiliadora headed by Salesian Sister Ana Vilma Pino. The all-girls school seeks to break the cycle of young girls marrying or getting pregnant as early as 14 or 15 because they have no job prospects and believe a man will save them from poverty, Sister Vilma said. Distance learning programs allow single mothers to get a high school education, and vocational programs give them skills like sewing and cosmetology, she added. Next year, 48 girls will graduate from high school. Of those, 10 are CFCA-sponsored children, the nun said.
"Education is the only way. There's no other way," she said. "Things don't change you inside, only education does."
Before Archbishop Romero was killed, he said: "I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise in the Salvadoran people."
His vision of justice and Christian love seemed to thrive in the words of Maria Maribel Aguilar de Segovia as she thanked CFCA for the house they built her family after their tin shack collapsed during the earthquake.
"Another way to show gratitude is in how you use what you have," she said. "We are determined to use this house for our children. We want the best for them. We want education for them. In this place they will grow up healthy, and in this place we will get them ready to be good people, servants to others, to help others as we have received help from others, because we hope to see the future that we talk about when God brings his kingdom here, and his kingdom for not only a few families, but for the families of the entire world when everyone will have peace, joy, friends and safety."
For more information on CFCA, sponsorship, or missions awareness trips, call 1-800-875-6564, e-mail mail@cfcausa.org or visit the Web at www.cfcausa.org. For more information on volunteering at or donating to Maria Auxiliadora School, write Sister Vilma at pinoanavilma@yahoo.com.