El Centro: Oratorio

To find El Centro -- a countryside community outside the remote village of Oratorio, in Cabanas, El Salvador --our 4-wheel drive truck bounced along dirt roads and through one substantial river. Our guide was Ciro Roil Gonzalez, a subsistence farmer like his neighbors, who serves as president of ADESCO-CEN, the association for community development organized by the people of El Centro. Senor Gonzalez proudly walked us up a hill to see a building in progress and told us the story of their school.

The dream of building a school started when health educators from OEF (Organization for Empowering and Educating Women, an NGO) started visiting them in 1993 and helped them organize an ADESCO (Asociacion de Desarrollo Comunitario). Although most community members are illiterate, they made educating their children their first priority by starting an outdoor school. OEF trained two mothers to be teachers for children from 3 years to 3rd grade. Other mothers organized to bring the students food everyday.

In 1998, the Ministry of Health donated plastic furniture, a propane gas stove, and enough rice and beans for a daily meal, but they still held classes without a classroom, books, or paper.

Their project of building a school started when one neighbor donated a hilltop. The local government then agreed that if the community prepared the property, the government could bulldoze a dirt road and run electric wire to it. The neighbors divided themselves into 6 volunteer crews working Monday through Saturday. So far they have carried all the cement, sand, and bricks up hill on their backs because there is no road. Now the classroom walls stand finished, but work had stopped until they can raise the money to buy metal roofing and concrete for the floor. Saving money for materials is very difficult for people whose average income is $300 per year.

The Funds donated by International Partners (to pay for their roof, floors, and door) were received with great gratitude. Thanks to you, they will move their children into the school this month.