On the most recent trip of our TVX Cerca a la Comunidad team, the destination was Santiago Texacuangos, specifically Santa María de la Esperanza, a beautiful community on the way to Lake Ilopango. There they headed to the Communal Development Center for United Communities (CEDESCO-CU), run by a group of organized people from the area.
They were welcomed by Mercedes Monge, director of the Center, who has worked on organizing her community to deal with different problems since 2009, such as the tropical storm that hit Santa María de la Esperanza that year and left many human and material losses. In that sense, finding projects that benefit the area and its people was the driving force behind this initiative.
“We found ourselves empty-handed, without organization, so we decided to join together and help other communities. We needed legal certainty and that motivated us to learn more regarding the law,” Mercedes Mongo, Director of Cedesco-Cu
RACDES has been a key element for the women of CEDESCO-CU, training them in topics such as the creation of home gardens, agro-ecological products and training in Human Rights and gender, as well as training in agro-economic policies, creating awareness of environmental, water and territorial struggles. It has also provided support by managing seeds and tanks to store water, due to the feces that exist in the community. These training workshops and projects have benefited the inhabitants economically.
Natural products are a big bet for the community. Thus, it is easy to see the push for home cultivation when entering the “Seed Sanctuary”, which they have managed to maintain for 5 years with the support of Tierra Viva. There you can see a collection of different types of corn and beans, as well as other types of seeds.
But they don’t just focus on growing seeds; the community is also known for its planting of medicinal plants of all kinds such as mint, sage, mala madre, insulin, amor de hombre, spearmint, ginger and turmeric. In addition, they make creams for burns and fungus, with amor de hombre and chichipince; mosquito repellents with lemon grass; shampoos with rosemary, aloe and moringa and soaps with coffee, aloe, lavender, cocoa, spearmint and mint.
Another project that they will soon begin will be the development of natural medicines for kidneys, stomach, headaches, nervous and digestive systems, sugar control and parasites, which will be useful and inexpensive to cure ailments that they may suffer from.
The impact of home-grown crops has reached community members, such as Jenny Rivera, who is part of CEDESCO-CU and has a nursery in her home called “The House of Plants.” This has helped her financially, both for her family’s consumption and for sale, which allows her to contribute to her household’s economy.
Another important project is the relaxation services and unconventional body massage treatments, using techniques from our ancestors, which are designed to free not only the body from negative burdens, but also the spirit.
To develop the massages they use different oils, such as rosemary and coffee, as well as stones from Izalco to remove negative energies, and colored rocks, where each one represents a chakra that has an important function that is located at points on the body.
You can also enter a sacred place called “El temazcal”, an igloo-shaped space with 13 volcanic stones from the Izalco area, representing the indigenous martyrs massacred in 1932. The stones are heated with 24 logs of firewood, performing a special ceremony.
CEDESCO-CU has shown that a small space can be the place for great things. A place designed for community use is not only a place of learning, but a place of experiences, which recovers the historical memory of our Salvadoran ancestors.
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