EL SALVADOR

EL SALVADOR
From left, clockwise: a woman
practices In the tortilla workshop;
newly literate adults
thirst for reading material;
overcoming gender roles in
the workshops.
and barns.
They developed a set of productive
workshops, where men, women and
children (when they were not in school)
worked together. These produced furniture,
clothing, shoes, hats, hammocks,
metal utensils (bowls, pitchers, buckets)
and other items. The refugees were
learning genuine skills, both occupational
and social.
One emblem of change was the tortilla
workshop. Here women made tortillas
as an occupation, a job. In addition
to creating a new social respect for this
skill, the workshop freed the great majority
of women in the camp from this task,
allowing them to participate in non-traditional
work and new social and leadership
roles.
Some refugees functioned as teachers,
sanitary workers, social workers and
child-care workers. These latter would
organize the children in the morning to
make sure faces and hands were clean
and teeth brushed, and they would look
for kids who were not in the classes
where they belonged
No one was paid for their work—work
provided meaning in people’s lives, and
the products were distributed according
to need. When donations arrived—corn,
vegetables, pigs, household goods—they
were carefully measured and divided
56 ReVista SPRING 2016