El Salvador
The HELP International Program in El Salvador is our longest running program in Latin America. It began during the summer of 2000 and has run consecutively every summer for four years. Volunteers in El Salvador have been involved in projects ranging from orphanage work, rebuilding homes in rural villages, and teaching English to college aged students in San Salvador.
Following are some highlights from each summer:
2000 - Volunteers established the El Salvador program for the first time and started working with OEF, a partnership that has lasted for four years and grown to be one of the most importnat partnerships with local organizations for HELP International.
2001 - After two devastating earthquakes, volunteers spent much of the summer on reconstruction efforts, building 14 new homes with families in three villages. English classes were started for the first time as hundreds of students filled the classrooms and hallways at a local religious institute. Hundreds of children are vaccinated in a huge campaign aided by HELP International volunteers and local government health officials.
2002 - Square Foot Gardening and our Basic Business Classes enter the reportoire of volunteer classes being taught to families, allowing volunteers to strengthen relationships for the second or third year in some villages and expand operations to several new communities. Several volunteers spearhead and obtain funding for a massive anti-parasite/diarrhea campaign for mothers and small children along the coastal plains of El Salvador.
2003 - Hundreds of microentrepreneurs are trained in basic business concepts. English classes are now being offered in five different venues around San Salvador. Work begins with CISNA, a home/school/center for street kids.
Future plans in El Salvador include expanding our relationship with CISNA, continuing our Square Foot Gardening trainings, expanding our basic business and English classes, and developing programs with greater impact for local orphanages.
Our programs in El Salvador have been extremely successful in helping students understand the impact they can have on poverty and on the lives of others. This is reflected in the comments of Brooks Dame, HELP International Country Director to El Salvador in 2002:
"I look back on all the things we’ve accomplished and I am proud of our work. Then I think about all the things we have yet to accomplish. There are still many lives to touch and many people to help. This small country of El Salvador is called El Rincon Magico, which translates to the Magic Little Place (roughly). I think there is magic here. There is magic in the people and the culture, but there is also something almost magical with the projects we are able to be a part of. Work has never seemed so fun and interesting. I guess there is a difference in between weeding your mom’s garden and teaching someone to grow their own garden to nourish their young children. Now that's what I call magic."
Bill Betz, who has volunteered with HELP International for two years and continued helping the people of El Salvador on his own said the following of his experience with HELP in El Salvador:
"The memories of this past year's experiences have not left me, nor do I believe they could leave any one. Seeing such poverty and witnessing first hand the struggle of valiant men and women doing their best to bless the physical lives of their brothers and sisters is a picture that cannot be erased easily from ones mind and heart."