Network of Communities for Cooperation and Solidarity The Network is made up of more than 25 grassroots community organizations that meet monthly to analyze the current social, economic and political reality both in El Salvador and internationally. These organizations come together for reflection and to organize advocacy campaign and strategies focused on: economic justice, water rights, civil rights and others. For example, they analyzed new legislation which makes it a felony to participate in demonstrations that are deemed to create “public disorder”. They mobilized against the construction of the Chaparral dam and for the right to potable drinking water as a public service and not merchandise for profit.
The CIS is currently the coordinating institution for the Sinti Techan Network for Economic Justice and actively participates in the Campaign “Water is Ours” aimed at guaranteeing water as a basic human right. The CIS has 4 grassroots organizers that work in conjunction with the director.
Monseñor Romero Community In March 2008, the Romero Community in Tonacatepeque approached CIS for support of their basic human rights as they were threatened with displacement and denied access to water and electricity. The CIS has accompanied the community in their struggle for land rights, providing accompaniment to their hard work and determination by assisting in lobbying, legal actions, and constant follow up with the Human Rights Commission of the Legislative Assembly, the Salvadoran Institute for Agrarian Reform (ISTA), the Government’s Social Fund for Housing, and the former Mayor of Tonacatepeque and his Municipal Council. Thanks to donations from San Francisco University, Dominican University, St. Patrick’s Church and individuals, the CIS was able to provide tin and plastic for emergency shelter, school supplies, uniforms, shoes, and tennis shoes to 63 students living in the Monseñor Romero community and rebuild the home of a single mother who lost everything in a fire due to the former Mayor’s denial of water to the community.
And just in the moment when we felt overwhelmed, the CIS appeared - the dew that spreads across the countryside and vallies ... the dew that joins together and transforms into a stream, feeding and changing into a river of hope … and it’s true that the CIS is the dew of the Monseñor Romero Community in Tonacatapeque and of many other communities in our little El Salvador.
Raúl Acevedo Paz,
Monseñor Romero Community
|
