Measurement: Human Essence & Values

At the Heart of Our Work Is the Belief in the Dignity, Empowerment and Respect of Each Person

Salvadoran Enterprises for Women (SEW) finds its inspiration and driving force in two interlocked realities of our times. The first is the place held by poor women of the so-called developing world in the global economic system. They and their children are the ones who consistently suffer the consequences of increasing impoverishment and carry its burdens in daily living.

The second impulse for Salvadoran Enterprises for Women is an oppressive international economic disorder wherein wealth and opportunity increasingly move from the poor of the world to the privileged. This phenomenon is often described as the continuous transfer of resources from the poor South to the rich North — understood not so much in strictly geographical as in sociological terms. The poor South and the rich North often exist side by side in our cities and certainly in the United States.

As a consequence, Salvadoran Enterprises for Women attempts to provide solutions to these unjust situations. We strive to reverse the direction of poverty-to-wealth in the world by allocating monies from the developed world to El Salvador, which is in need of development. We concentrate our efforts on assisting the initiatives of historically marginalized and neglected groups of women.

Our efforts are grounded in the moral imperatives that the poor of the earth hold its future; that given the opportunity, the poor will create a new economic order; that the role and historic opportunity of privileged people in this world is to facilitate as unselfishly as possible the liberation and development of the underprivileged, especially underprivileged women.

Undergirding the vision of SEW stands the strong conviction that the human person, especially the marginalized, holds a preferential place in the story of human kind. This is a tenet of Catholic Social Teaching and well articulated in Liberation Theology. For Salvadoran Enterprises for Women, several corollaries flow from this principle:

• empowerment and self-determination of heretofore neglected persons are our goals;
• justice, dignity and community building are appropriate means and ends for our work;
• solidarity and collaboration with Salvadoran women describe our modus operandi; and
• conscientization is an important tool in working with our Salvadoran counterparts, specifically facilitating the process by which traditionally impoverished women raise their consciousness regarding the forces that tend to imprison them.

Finally, Salvadoran Enterprises for Women understands these means and ends as forming a spirituality grounded in the rich concept of accompaniment. That is, we see our role as walking with (i.e., accompanying) our Salvadoran sisters whom we consider to be at the center of history. This location we choose for ourselves places that center of gravity outside of Salvadoran Enterprises for Women and more toward the women we wish to serve. We believe that everything in our faith tradition points to people such as these as holding a privileged place in God's sight.