Introduction

Hello all! I wanted to start this blog to be able to keep in touch with everyone about my experiences this summer working with Centro Bartolome de las Casas in San Salvador, El Salvador. I was able to organize this internship through the University of Chicago's Human Rights Fellowship program. I knew I wanted to work with an organization doing gender-based violence prevention work and a colleague suggested looking into CBC. The organization is run by a small and brilliant team who I feel very lucky to be able to work with and learn from. They do a variety of community development programs assisting communities in overcoming the trauma of the very brutal war that took place from 1980-1992 (the US funded a lot of human rights abuses in this war).

One of the programs they run is called Escuela Equinoccio Masculinities Program. The program seeks to "recreate more equal and inclusive relationships between men and women characterized by environmental sustainability and reflection about what it means to be a man. The program addresses knowledge of the body and sexuality as well as the social repurcussions the traditional construction of masculinity, with great influence of machismo, has for both women and men." I'll be supporting this program as well, although I'm not yet sure about the details. I'm sure I'll be writing more about the war and about the programs at CBC.

The pictures here are from the historic inauguration on June 1st of the first left-leaning president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes of the FMLN. There's more info about El Salvador and the elections on the website for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, www.cispes.org.