CIS Grassroots Organizer and SEW Empowerment Team Member

María Mercedes Arias de Inocente
November 30, 1963 – April 17, 2010

Mercedes, CIS grassroots promoter in Comasagua, passed away on Saturday, April 17th, 2010. On Monday, April 12th she suffered a heart attack and on Thursday, April 15th a stroke and brain hemorrhage that left irreparable damage. She leaves behind her husband Salvador Incocente and three children: Andrea, 20; Emerson, 17; and Ileana, 11.

Mercedes was a woman of high integrity and few words, hard working, strong, and dedicated to justice for the poor, education of youth and women's empowerment. Although her children were robbed of more quantity of time with her, the quality of time she spent with them included a foundation of values of human dignity and her example that will stay with them for life.

Mercedes' Legacy

Mercedes' work with the CIS focused on grassroots organizing in Comasagua. She mobilized villages in Comasagua for social activities against mining in El Salvador, for the right to water, and many other social issues that affect the majority of Salvadorans. Mercedes coordinated the CIS scholarship program in Comasagua which this year include 6 high school students sponsored by Resurrection Parish in Solon, Ohio and CIS in San Antonio, Iscanal, and San Luis Los Ranchos in Comasagua. In addition, Mercedes spoke with Father Jeff Stephan of St. Ann Parish in Missouri during the 30 year anniversary delegation of Archbishop Romero (March 2010) and secured three university scholarships for 2 youth in San Antonio and a young women in Romero Community. Mercedes helped guide and accompany many CIS delegations, including coordination with Rainbow of Hope for Children of Canada, Somos Hermanos, and others.

Mercedes prioritized work with women and building their capacities and participation in community development. She coordinated with four women's enterprises- a bakery, a natural medicine and beauty product workshop, an indigo dye workshop in San Antonio and San Luis Los Ranchos, Comasagua and a sewing workshop in the municipality of San Francisco Chinameca, all sponsored by Salvadoran Enterprises for Women (SEW). Mercedes accompanied the construction of the school in La Loma and the follow up with the Ministry of Education to get legal recognition of the school and a teacher assigned. Mercedes helped organize a week long health fair in Comasagua for PeaceHealth in 2009. Additionally, Mercedes served as City Council Member in Comasagua 2006-2009 and also briefly served as coordinator of the FMLN party in Comasagua.

Her "worker bee" networking and the respect for her work was demonstrated by the more than 250 people that came to her wake and funeral, from all the surrounding cantons she worked in: La Loma, La Lima, San Antonio, San Luis Los Ranchos, Arcoiris Community, and the Venezuela Community, among others. The Mayor, City Council, 6 Legislative Deputies, and the Director of the Ministry of Education in the Department of La Libertad were among the many present to pay their respects. Some community members walked 4 hours to get to the Comasagua Park where Mercedes was laid out.

Because of Mercedes dedication to justice, we also want to mention the deficiencies of El Salvador's health care system pointed out by her illness. Mercedes went to the clinic three times in the previous week complaining of headaches and was never attended to by the doctor. Although she was attended to by the best doctors in the country when she arrived at Hospital Rosales, adequate equipment is lacking. Hospital workers informed us that the electrocardiogram machine at the hospital had been "borrowed" by a physician and returned without the chip needed to work; a CAT scan was done only after she suffered facial paralysis and after 3 days of complaining of excruciating headaches. After entering into a coma, she was on a hand pump respirator, in which medical students have to hand pump for 12 hours straight without getting up. While we don't believe the outcome would have been different in this case, it points out the lack of adequate medical attention for the poor majority in life and death situations, and the need to work for real changes in El Salvador's public health care system.

Mercedes Arias Memorial Fund

To remember Mercedes and continue her mission, work and commitment to social justice, the CIS has opened a Mercedes Arias Memorial Fund.

Donations to this Fund:

•  Will cover a fund for the family expenses ($1,200)
•  Will cover Andrea's (Mercedes daughter) continued education in Systems Engineering at the University of  El Salvador ($75 monthly through 2013 - $3,300)
•  Additional funds will go toward high school and/or university scholarships in Comasagua and/or to CIS Grassroots Organizing Fund, depending on the amount or commitments received.

Tax deductible contributions can be made in Mercedes name to:

Los Olivos CIS
PO BOX 76
WESTMONT, IL 60559

*Please make a note that your donation is for the Mercedes Arias Memorial Fund.