Measurement: Stories

In Addition to Numbers, Stories Like These Bring the Human Face to Our Work

From Ashes to Resurrection

2006 was my seventeenth summer in El Salvador. As a board member of Salvadoran Enterprises for Women, it was my privilege to visit Pajaro Flor, a sewing and embroidery cooperative in the municipality called Suchitoto. The group is part of the larger Concertación de Mujeres de Suchitoto.

During El Salvador's civil war (1979-1992), I visited some of the devastated villages in this municipality. It was sheer joy to reconnect many years later with these women who survived the war-torn years. Now, thanks in part to Salvadoran Enterprises for Women, they have their own casa (house) where they work and sell crafts and meet to discuss women's equality issues. The sewing group has eight women who come on different days to use the sewing machines. They do the embroidery at home as they tend to their children and other tasks of the household. Most travel by bus on a now paved road. Those coming from Copapayo admitted that the road is bad, the journey is difficult but do-able.

Pajaro Flor's coordinator, Ana Maria, lost her husband during the war. She has no desire for any of her two sons or four daughters to depart for supposedly greener pastures in the U.S. She has heard of the dangers and fatal accidents in several cases; she does not want to lose her children on the perilous journey. She is most grateful to have an income due to SEW's investment in the cooperative. Ana Maria said that it is the economic crisis that forces people to go elsewhere to earn money. People often sell what they have to make the trip to the U.S. and end up losing everything, even their lives.

The scorched earth that I observed on previous visits from the war efforts may still be evident, but from these ashes, the spirit of the women has emerged whole and holy. These women are not victims. They are victorious in their long, patient struggle to move forward. Adelante! I rejoice in their resurrection.