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Newsletter - Fall 2011 Click above for PDF Version The 2012 Builders Delegation to El Charcón Our Sister City Project is inviting people to join an exciting delegation to El Charcón. This new adventure involves a Builder’s Delegation slated to travel to El Charcón February 4-11, 2012. We will work alongside the residents of El Charcón as they renovate their casa comunal. In fact, the Builders Delegation will mark the first event planned for the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Binghamton- El Charcón Sister City Project, created the same year the casa comunal was first erected. << The casa comunal seen from the street. What is the casa comunal? It is the heart of the community, a place where residents of all ages come together to make decisions about their village and to celebrate important events. It also serves as a library and a gathering place for monthly community assemblies. When different groups, like the Youth Committee, the Water Project Committee, or the Women’s Committee want to meet and plan, they do so here. Unfortunately, El Charcón’s casa comunal no longer meets the community’s needs. The village has grown from 10 families to 150 since 1992. The casa comunal no longer holds everyone, especially if the entire community wants to attend meetings. Additionally, the roof is in great need of repair. The supporting planks are beginning to erode due to age, humidity, and insects. The metal roofing that covers the planks is rusted and cracked. The community needs to fix the roof so that it can stand up to the fierce storms of the rainy season. Also, the current roof is very low and needs to be raised. This should result in a cooler building making for a more comfortable meeting space. Without outside help, the community could never attempt this repair and improvement. Community members will contribute their labor. The mayor of La Libertad has agreed to pay for the services of the mason who will design and implement the project. If we can pay for the materials, the community will finally be able to renovate their casa comunal. <<A community assembly in the casa communal Join our Builders Delegation and take part in bringing our 20^th Anniversary Celebration to the heart of El Charcón. With this Builders Delegation we will strengthen the ties of friendship and solidarity between the Greater Binghamton area and El Charcón while offering tangible help as the community repairs this important meeting space. Delegation members will pay their own travel and lodging (at a reasonable cost). Knowledge of Spanish is nice, but not required. We invite you to join us for an invaluable and unforgettable experience. If you are interested in learning more, call 798-0787 or 785-0869. The new Junta Directiva gets sworn in at the casa communal >> El Charcón Inaugurates Its New Bridge For those who do not know: El Charcón has a new foot bridge across the Comasagua River that runs the length of the community. Under the aegis of Bridges to Prosperity (B2P), it was built with manual labor by community residents and foreign volunteers in the last months of 2010. What follows is an excerpt from the report sent to us by Alex Early about the January 22, 2011 inauguration of the new suspension bridge in El Charcón. Note: Jan Morrill and Alex Early are the co-coordinators of our US-El Salvador Sister Cities work in El Salvador. Alex was not free to attend the inauguration ceremony, so Jan represented us that day. I wanted to send you all pictures from the inauguration celebration of the bridge. Jan attended the event on the 22^nd.… On the whole the event was a success, the only negative being that the Mayor used the event to campaign for himself… But Jan was really impressed that the community made the event into a daylong celebration. There were speeches by people like the mayor of Puerto de La Libertad, Cruz Gonzalez (President of the El Charcón governing board, and coordinator of the bridge building project), Tula from CRIPDES Sur, Netta Ophir from Bridges to Prosperity, and Jan, who read your letter [of congratulations to the community]. Then a few of the scholarship students presented plaque-pictures to Jan, Netta and the mayor. There were some other trophies given out from a local soccer championship that El Charcón won, and one of the members of the Junta Directiva played a song on his guitar. After the main event there was also a bicycle race and soccer game. The new bridge, completed Special Thanks It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge the generosity of the organizations and individuals who helped us raise the $5,000 that our sister city organization contributed toward the cost of the new bridge in El Charcón. The very first gift was a $1,000 grant from the DeBella Fund of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Hillcrest. Over the next several months the Rotary Clubs of Colesville, Hillcrest, Whitney Point, Norwich, Binghamton (Noon) and Ithaca (Breakfast Club) donated a total of $2,601. Finally, private donations accounted for the remaining $1,399. A plaque on the bridge recognizes the support offered by Rotary District 7170, St. Francis of Assisi Church, and the many generous friends who helped us meet our commitment. Thank you, thank you, thank you! << Crossing the swollen Río Comasagua before the new bridge was built This project was accomplished by the Community of El Charcón with the support of Mayor Carlos Farabundo Molina , the Municipal Government, Bridges to Prosperity and Sister Cities. This project was accomplished by the Community of El Charcon with the support of Mayor Carlos Farabundo Molina, the Municipal Government, Bridges to Prosperity and Sister Cities. >> BECSCP Soon to Celebrate Its 20^th Anniversary 2012 marks the 20^th Anniversary of our sister city project. Over these twenty years we have watched El Charcón grow from 10 refugee families squatting on public land just off the Pacific coast, hoping to escape the violence of a brutal civil war, to a well-organized community of 150 families with title to their land, potable water, electricity and an elementary school. It has been a great pleasure, and a privilege, to accompany the community in this journey. The Builders Delegation will kick off our anniversary year by bringing the celebration to El Charcón itself. Whether you can wield a hammer or not, please consider joining us for this February visit to the community. We guarantee that it will be a lot of fun, unlike anything you’ve ever done before. Our friends in El Charcón are hard workers, but no one does a celebration better than they. Then, on the 10^th of May we hope you’ll join us for our States-side celebration, right here in Binghamton, at the Unitarian Universalist Church (Riverside Dr.). More about that nearer the time. If planning parties is your thing, we’d love your ideas! For either the February delegation or the celebration in May, contact Suzanne at 798-0787 or suzanneg@stny.rr.com. Our 2011 Benefit Sale Our July 9^th rummage sale took place at Holy Spirit Church (Clinton St., Binghamton). Once again it was a joint venture organized by Greater Binghamton’s three sister city organizations (Borovichi , La Teste , and ourselves) together with the Friendship Force. Our warm thanks to Holy Spirit Church for donating the use of their spacious bingo hall, and to Joanna Bartos for making all the necessary arrangements. Our thanks as well to Beatriz Guzmán and Carolyn Gilligan for helping us price things, to Erin Walsh, Joe Wolfer, Dave Beers and Ross Geoghegan for getting our stuff to the church, and to Nick Hilton, Donna Every, Joe Marckx, and the many Central American students from BCC who spent the entire day helping with the sale. And, lest we forget, warm thanks to everyone who donated items to the 2011 benefit sale! This annual event is a critical source of income for us. (The July sale netted us $700.) We expect to do it again. So please keep us in mind if you are cleaning out your attic, downsizing, moving, (or know people who are), or don’t know what to do with those gifts you were given but might not want to keep. Contact Suzanne (798-0787) or suzanneg@stny.rr.com if you: 1) have items to donate (we collect donations over the year), 2) are willing to help us price items (nearer the time of the sale), or 3) think you might be willing to help with the event itself (carting, setting up, selling). Once we know the date, we’ll get back to you to see if you can help. In the meantime, here’s a reflection by Josué Mendoza, one of the many delightful Central American students who helped out at the 2011 Benefit Sale. Josué, from El Salvador, is currently studying quality control and industrial technology in the SEED program at BCC. It is a real honor for me to be able to represent my country, El Salvador, adding my voice to the many who appreciate the hard work and invaluable help contributed by Americans, like the Binghamton – El Charcón Sister City Project, in promoting the economic and social development of El Salvador. It was an honor and a pleasure to get to know this group when I was doing community service at a fundraising event. At first I thought of it just as helping the organizations involved, hoping to help make the event a success for them. But while I was there I noticed the Salvadoran flag. It attracted my attention. When I inquired why the flag was there, I learned from the person in charge of that part of the benefit sale that they were raising funds for a project in El Charcón. When I heard this, I was filled with gratitude at the thought that there are groups like this working on behalf of my people who are in such need. That day I worked with added enthusiasm, though really it was a mixture of emotions knowing that organizations like this one bring smiles to the faces of our children and hope to future generations. I am very grateful to everyone involved in making this kind of work possible and I urge you to continue your support which to us means development and hope. Nick Hilton, Donna Every, Josué Mendoza and Meilín Acuña >> El Charcón Elects a New Junta Directiva (Excerpts of July 11^th e-mail from Alex Early, our in-country liaison with El Charcón. The junta directiva is the elected body that represents the community in dealings with the municipality, government ministries, and organizations like ourselves.) I owe you all some photos from Sunday’s election of the new junta directiva of El Charcón. ... The election assembly went very well. In addition to about 100 community members, people from the mayor’s office, the CRIDPES Sur team and I participated in the meeting. I took advantage of the big gathering to finally present the community with the plaque and key to the city that the mayor of Binghamton gave us last October. … I apologize because I didn’t think to have someone take pictures of my presentation of the plaque and key but I will take pictures once they put them up in the casa comunal. The community is clearly very supportive of the current directiva. When voting time came around people started shouting, "todos, todos!" because they wanted to re-elect the whole directiva. In the end the vice-president, former scholarship student Nurian, stepped down because she has too many work commitments. Other than that, the board is pretty much the same, with Cruz still as president. Some changes: scholarship student Mirna Lara García was elected to the post of vice-president and scholarship student Rubi Yaneth Torres was elected as pro-tesorera, (back up treasurer). The directiva is a good mix of women and men, youth and older leaders. Attached [is a picture] of the new junta directiva being sworn in by a representative from the mayor’s office. As you can see it was pretty crowded in the assembly and a lot of people couldn’t fully participate because they couldn’t fit in the building, so it is definitely necessary to expand the building. Take care, Alex Mission Statement The Binghamton – El Charcón Sister City Project works with CRIPDES, a Salvadoran grassroots organization, to offer educational, financial and political support to our sister city, El Charcón, as well as other rural communities in El Salvador. As part of a national network of U.S. – El Salvador Sister Cities, and the broader movement for social and economic justice, we work to enable people to improve their lives. A Few Other Images <<This year’s scholarship students from El Charcón Newsletter PDFs Our newsletters are also available below in PDF form. Click any of the links below to download a newsletter in that format. 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