Post by Tim Hollins - (third post in a series) 1 2 3 4 5

Tim Hollins is a long standing supporter of GSN and has been active in promoting solidarity in the UK with Central America. In the following series of articles, Tim gives an account of 15 years of grass roots solidarity with the former refugee community of Nueva Esperanza, El Salvador. It is not intended as a “model” for others to follow, but merely as a record of some of the successes and difficulties that have been encountered in this period, and some reflections on what makes solidarity effective and some of the traps that lie in wait...

Is it a Revolution?

Well, it’s not the crushing euphoric  triumph that the FMLN used to dream of during the 80s, on the lines of Cuba and Nicaragua. The extreme right – ARENA – continue to hold political power, despite the space opening up for the FMLN to make serious inroads into power as a political party. In some ways the social change is more deep rooted than in Nicaragua, since it does not rely on governmental power, but rather grass roots organisations and communities.

It is never easy to struggle 'against the tide', and for each step forward there is half a step backwards. Nevertheless the vision (some would say unrealisable) of a just society  remains intact. Their belief that by organising their own lives as best they can they are stronger than by bowing down to the forces of globalisation – all this means that in some way, there is revolutionary change happening in El Salvador. They say things like “we built a water system so we have clean water – that’s a revolution – we have a school, a clinic, above all we have land to farm – that’s a revolution”.

Practical Solidarity

Back to the funding of education. The school expanded dramatically (with buildings funded by Canada and Puerto Rico) and now has over 300 local children – half from other local communities. We continued over the period of the 90s to attract new monthly donors, some friends of friends, some who had visited the community. The monthly total crept up from £50 to £150, on to £200 and finally settled at around £300 per month.

There were several advantages of this system of monthly regular standing order donations. Firstly for the community it was a regular and predictable source of funding for education – enabling planning and prioritizing on their part. We felt it was inappropriate to require or suggest certain activities – purchase of materials, payment of wages etc. believing firmly that they needed to have the freedom to invest according to their educational priorities as they saw them. All we did insist on was a regular update / set of accounts showing how the monies sent had been invested.

This too was not without problems. Whilst putting the onus on the school and the community to make democratic decisions, there were at times internal conflicts – should they raise community wages (approx £40 per month in the 90s) or purchase equipment? A couple of times we were asked by email what we felt was the best use of the funding.

We felt unable (and in truth unwilling) to get involved in these decisions, since it would have meant siding with one side of the argument and against the other. In the end agreements were reached within the community, and the school always made it through to the next year, all the while making a significant contribution to tackling illiteracy – by preventing it’s start in school years. With very high academic standards, the school was soon turning out a number of graduates able to enter state university (funded by solidarity grants from Germany, Spain and elsewhere). By 1999 the community had fundraised for, built, staffed and had registered an “Instituto” (6th Form College), so that young people from the whole of the zone of the Bajo Lempa could study “bachillerato” (A-level equivalent). 

It is worth noting at this point that there is a policy adhered to to this day that every child attends school for free – there is no charge for attending. Despite this there can be problems for some families, who feel that a child working for some small income is more important than continuing education. A recently established hardship fund (again using funds donated from international groups) allows small grants to be given to the poorest families to buy shoes, clothes, pencils, etc. Some of our funding was used to help the teacher (by now in their 20s) to train at the University at weekends. After 6 or 7 years of part-time study during the late 90s, all 10 of them graduated. They had been promised state salaries as soon as they were qualified from World Bank funding.

However this took several years of argument to appear. In 2003, one of the former refugees, Deysi, was appointed head teacher, and others were awarded state salaries – the goal of self sufficiency was at hand. As with all stages of the process, this was not an easy achievement – at every stage the Ministry of Education has sought to denigrate the efforts of campesino educators (not just in Nueva Esperanza, nor even the zone of the Bajo Lempa, but indeed throughout the country). The “mainstream” state assumption is that firstly this kind of popular education is backward, since campesinos are by definition culturally & educationally backward (why bother educating stupid semi-humans?) and also subversive, since they’re clearly a bunch of heathen communists brainwashing children into becoming godless followers of Che Guevara.

The reality (as we have seen) is that so called 'popular' education (i.e. stemming from the people’s needs, rather than imposed from the needs of the landowning class) is incredibly successful (academically and socially), in an area where in previous generations illiteracy and virtual slavery in a feudal economic system were the norm.