wfn.org | PC(USA) group sniffs out a fishy business

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Note #6539 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

31-May-2001
01183

PC(USA) group sniffs out a fishy business

Salvadoran community bank's net profit is "a better life" for the poor

by Evan Silverstein

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - In the small village of San Luis La Herradura,
where amenities are scarce and opportunity seldom knocks, Sonia Orrego
dreams that the banking project she heads will one day brighten the economic
picture for her and her community.

"I dream to be able to have our children go to school," said Orrego,
president of the Santa Fe Group of San Luis La Herradura. "Our dream is to
work and to do what we're doing now and move forward in an economic way. For
us it's to work as a unified group, so that our families can have a better
life."

The Santa Fe Group includes one young man and women representing nine local
families. They pool their money in a "communal bank" to buy and sell fish,
save for potential future community projects and learn about economics.
Orrego and others involved with the group recently played host to about 15
members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Self-Development of People (SDOP)
program.

The Salvadoran entrepreneurs, aided by low-interest loans from
Christian-founded Alfalit International Inc., buy snapper, crab, lobster and
other seafood from a local pier and sell it to local markets.

"All the boats go out and fish, and they bring it to the pier, and we buy
the product from them and then we distribute it all through the region and
to San Salvador," Orrego said.

The bank sometimes lends money to members of the group, but not to the
general public. The money is saved in a commercial bank account. The group
hopes to save enough to buy at least one pickup truck to help with the
business. Orrego said it is also trying to develop an "association of
communal banks," so that participants will be "empowered to properly use the
money" they earn, while also learning about banking and savings.

"This is a communal bank of solidarity," Orrego said in Spanish to Julia Ann
Moffett, the PC(USA) coordinator for Central America/Caribbean. "We all take
care of one another. Each one of us has a quota that we need to put in the
pot every 15 days. If somebody for some reason or another can't do that, we
gather around and help that person. "

The tiny town of buildings covered with fading paint and narrow streets
crowded with cows and chickens was one of several areas visited by SDOP
representatives during a May 16-20 meeting of the National Committee of the
Self-Development of People in nearby San Salvador, El Salvador's capital
(see related story, note 6538).

SDOP, funded primarily by the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, gives
members and non-members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) opportunities to
establish partnerships with poor, oppressed and disadvantaged communities by
providing small grants to people who want to undertake self-help projects.

About 30 other people from SDOP traveled in two buses to separate sites
outside El Salvador. One group visited Alegria in Canton Montepeque, which
is still recovering from damage sustained during the country's bloody
12-year civil war, which ended in 1992. Communities and homes devastated by
powerful earthquakes earlier this year, including a village in San Vicente
in Guadalupe, were also on the group's itinerary.

"The first village was hard-hit by the earthquake, and depression hung in
the air. You could almost see it, it was so tangible," said the Rev. Dennie
A. Carcelli of Seattle, WA., a newly hired SDOP partnership advocate (see
related story, note 6537). "It was so difficult and so poor that it was
almost something out of an 18th century scene."

One group stopped in the community of Santa Ana, where they met in a
reformed church with members of a cooperative called Calvinista, according
to the Rev. Richard Gibson, a retired pastor from Seattle, WA, who attended
the meeting. The 35-person cooperative wants to teach local women to sew and
to buy land for vegetable farming, Gibson said. The co-op already offers
lessons for youth in music and English.

Gibson said the cooperative's seamstresses make dresses and uniforms for
schoolchildren. He said the members want to build a larger community center
that would also be the group's headquarters. He said he heard requests for
$200,000 to be used to buy land and eight electric sewing machines.

Of the community visits, Gibson said he was touched by the "crying need for
assistance, and (for) people to stand with them in their agony."

Committee members found the visits and stories of personal witness
wrenching, and expressed deep concern about the poverty and quake
devastation. They also voted to ask the SDOP's International Committee to
expedite funding proposals from six groups it encountered in El Salvador.

During the committee meeting members said the process could be hastened
because site visits were out of the way. Visits are part of the normal
review process for projects that submit funding proposals.

"It was a very powerful experience for me, emotionally of course and also
programmatically, in terms of the potential for SDOP's involvement as an
outreach ministry of the Presbyterian Church to an area that is very much in
need," said the Rev. William M. Youngblood, outgoing chair of SDOP's
National Committee and pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Warren, OH. "I
was struck by not only the magnitude of the need, but also the high spirits,
the optimism and the deep faith of the people with whom we visited."

The Santa Fe Group, whose name means "Holy faith," hosted the SDOP visitors
in a courtyard surrounded by homes occupied by some members, including
Orrego and her family. The women served soft drinks and talked about their
business, which came into being about five years ago, when members started
collecting and selling firewood. They switched to the seafood business
because of environmental laws banning deforestation.

Alfalit International, through its El Salvador affiliate ALFALISAL, has been
associated with the program virtually from the beginning. It provided
low-interest loans that have increased steadily from 1,000 colones ($114
U.S.) to 6,000 colones ($685). Alfalit is a non-profit, inter-denominational
Christian organization that promotes literacy, elementary education, health,
nutrition and community development in Latin America, Africa and Portugal.

"Thanks to Alfalit and all their help, we're here and we're going to move
forward," said Orrego, standing behind Rafael Torres, the group's lone male
member and its secretary. "They have a loan and it's been paid back, and
that's a way we can move forward with our work."

Each of the members work other jobs. Together, the women and Torres earn
enough to repay Alfalit and "to make the business go, and to also take money
for themselves," Orrego said. The group expects to add four new members
soon.

The Santa Fe Group, which gets no government assistance, needs credit at the
lowest interest rate possible to continue purchasing seafood, members said.
They hope eventually to own nine pickup trucks, but they would happily
settle for one. When the fishing boats don't come to the dock of San Luis La
Herradura, workers must rent vehicles to meet them at another site, which is
more than an hour away. Each trip costs the group 300 to 400 colones (about
$34 to $45).

"What we need is the solidarity from groups like you (SDOP) that can help us
with this," Orrego said. "And what we really need is to improve our economic
situation and move forward."

During the meeting in El Salvador, SDOP members also:

* Installed new National Committee officers: Toshio Akita of Hollister, CA,
replaced Youngblood as chair, and Marianne Cashatt of Fisherville, VA,
replaced Mary Ann Walt of Solon Springs, WI, as vice-chair.

* Suspended funding of projects in Ghana and Kenya, Africa, suspected of
fraud, and decided to collaborate with Presbyterian Women and the
Presbyterian Hunger Program to develop a better screening process for
proposals from those nations.

* Attended an Alfalit-sponsored reception for guests from Reformed,
Episcopal and Lutheran churches in El Salvador.

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