Stories

We are happy to introduce you to Blanca Lisseth! She is in her second year of the Women’s Empowerment Project. She lives in a small one room home with her husband and four children. From there, Blanca Lisseth and her husband operate a family ice-cream business.

#WomenWednesdays

We’d like to introduce you today to Elsa Solís. Elsa is a second year participant in Programa Velasco’s Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP). She lives in a rented room with her teenage daughter, and from there she operates a business selling fresh fruit chopped up as snacks and producing typical Salvadoran foods such as empanadas and frozen jello-treats, which are very refreshing for El Salvador’s hot weather. After preparing for the day, Elsa sets out in the morning to sell her delicacies door-to-door in her neighborhood. Some of her best clients are the mechanics that work in auto-body shops throughout San Ramón.  

There is often a lot of confusion between microcredit and savings and lending groups. The terms seem as if they offer the same approach to providing very low-income individuals with access to credit. Yet there are some key differences about leadership and savings expectations. We are in the process of helping facilitate a savings and lending group with some of our Women’s Empowerment Project graduates. They have named their group the New Dawn Women’s Collective (logo pictured to the left).

We have referenced how influential and foundational early childhood development is in a person’s life. Childhood is a time when our brains are most apt to learn and develop. If a child’s environment is nurturing and supportive, a child can achieve great strides in language acquisition, social-emotional skills and problem-solving abilities. This period in life is also when adverse or traumatic experiences severely impact physical health later in life. For these reasons and others, childhood is a crucial time for society to ensure children and families have access to high quality development and education programs. Another value-added is that financially speaking, such programs and interventions are one of the best investments society can make. 

Last week we talked about the state of early education through high-school in El Salvador. This week, we are bringing you a guest post from Michelle Leach at the non-profit Bridging International Communities (BIC) to bring some insight into university education. BIC has worked since 2005 in rural communities in El Salvador, and is helping to bring a different perspective on life in El Salvador to the Programa Velasco blog.

From the moment I started thinking about childcare in El Salvador, I knew I wanted my son Camilo to go to Centro Hogar in San Ramón. I had been living in El Salvador for nearly a decade and my wanderings always managed to overlap with the work of ANADES and their child development centers.

Historically, El Salvador has not invested in providing early education to children below the age of 7. As part of the Education for All goals agreed upon at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000, El Salvador pledged to achieve a variety of goals related to expanding coverage and educational quality for all children by 2015. Assessing the situation in 2016, there is still a long way to go.

This past Wednesday, we started our weekly yoga class for the 5 and 6 year-old students! To say the least, they had a blast. But why do we choose to build yoga lessons into the curriculum rather than another physical exercise? 

We are currently running a special campaign to help provide medical check-ups for women and children in El Salvador. For just $15, you can sponsor one child or one woman to receive a check-up, prevention education, and access to natural medicines. Consider making a donation here today!

Tomorrow, the center is hosting an Escuela Familiar, a monthly workshop for parents to learn more about their role as their child’s primary educator. Each month, the staff presents on a variety of topics related to early childhood development. For tomorrow’s workshop, the staff will discuss how they use a Montessori educational pedagogy and will help parents develop skills so they can reinforce what a child has already learned at school. 

Water is one of the most basic necessities we encounter in our daily lives. We need it to bathe, wash dishes, wash clothing, cook, and, of course, to drink. What happens when we only have limited access to this precious resource?

Chantal de Alcuaz is a member of Programa Velasco’s Board of Directors. She shares some thoughts below on why she participates on the board and why she believes in our work. 

When I visited El Salvador for a month in 2010 I was blown away by the faith and resistance I witnessed in the people, but also by the brutal legacy of decades of war and violence. I have been friends with Programa Velasco’s cofounder Annie Boyd since I met her on that visit and am honored to play some small role in solidarity and healing by serving on the Board of Directors of Programa Velasco.

For the last two weeks we’ve talked about some of the broad basics regarding our scholarship families’ social and economic situation. This week we’d like to discuss one particular aspect of life in El Salvador that affects nearly all Salvadorans: public transportation.

Last week we talked about some of the basic demographics of the families we support through Programa Velasco. In this post, we’ll focus on a few of the statistics we mentioned about families’ incomes and what a typical month of expenses looks like. Can you imagine living your life on $273.91 a month?

By the time a child living in poverty turns 4 years old, she/he will have heard 30 million fewer words than more affluent peers. This was the finding from research conducted over 20 years ago, yet is getting more attention through Dr. Dana Suskind, a University of Chicago pediatric surgeon who is trying to close the ‘word gap’ through her work with the Thirty Million Words project.

Have you ever wondered why so many families in El Salvador need Programa Velasco’s scholarship support?

At the end of June, the participants in the WEP went up into one of the hills surrounding San Salvador for a retreat.   We turned off our cell phones to tune into the peace and tranquility of the natural world. This retreat offered the women the opportunity to reflect individually and collectively on their inner-selves and their inter-personal relationships.