1. Reina de la Paz Parish

Parish Council Exchange:  We met with the parish councils of two sectors; council members introduced themselves and spoke briefly of the ministry they represented.  Ted shared letter from Chris Keogh, Transfiguration Parish Council President and a Mass card from the Parish Council with each sector. 

Ministry to the Sick and St. Vincent de Paul: We visited with their ministry to the sick in Santos II sector of the parish.  About 23 people make up this ministry.  Some of them bring communion and others visit the sick and find out about their problems and needs.  The group makes pigs’ feet soup (each member brings a different ingredient) and sells it door to door to raise funds to assist the sick with medicines and other needs.  One of them read aloud the booklet prepared by Marianne Larsh of our St Vincent de Paul Society describing the society and its work.  When we advised them of the gift from our parish, one by one they broke down and cried. 
    
Visit to Collegio Mangini:  !3 of our high school scholarship students attend this high school in the neighboring parish.  The school was founded by Fr. Adrian, a local diocesan priest,  with help from St Bonaventure’s Parish  in Concord, California, where he served for a brief time.  Fr. Mangini, for whom the school is named, is a priest in that parish.  The school is meant to provide a safe learning environment for young people from the area.  Fr. Adrian said he is very happy with our scholarship students whom he says have a good support system from the parish; the parish scholarship program, in its regular meetings with students and families, also helps encourage family support of the young people.  These students are well behaved and show a real interest in their studies.  Eight will be graduating this year, the first graduation class for the school.  He is hoping for government support to expand his facility so he can add a third technical track in health care (current technical tracks are accounting and secretarial).  He said education is fundamental; without it families and people cannot progress; with it, their future can be different.  While gangs are not operating in the school, kids are pursued outside.  The school works hard to educate the kids on these issues.  Collaboration of parents is also important in this regard.
    
Political, Economic and Social Realities:  Yesenia gave a power point presentation on this topic. The government has changed hands for first time in 20 years; the new government is “leftist.” However, the City of San Salvador just elected a mayor from the “right” after having had a “leftist” mayor. The new government began in June with a mixed cabinet.  Many problems were discovered from the previous 20 years, such as ghost employees.  There is polarization in the assembly and it is difficult to get things passed; the right has a majority.  While political power has shifted to the left, economic power remains in the hands of the right.  The international economic crisis has had an impact.  In 2009 50 – 55,000 jobs will be lost; there is a 10% reduction in “remesas” (funds sent back from family members working in US).  In the social arena, 2009 had been the most violent ever with 13-16 homicides a day, up 28% from previous year. Extortions used to be limited to gangs, but now others and organized crime are involved. Much of this activity is conducted by people in jail; extortion money is deposited in accounts outside the country.  Public transport is a major target of extortion; drivers who do not pay get killed.  Deportations from US are running about 100-120 a day and are a major factor in rise of extortion and gangs.  Meetings at churches, etc generally end at 7 PM.  Robberies of cars, houses and even churches are common.  Areas near churches are particularly problematic as places for sale of drugs, etc as they are places of public gathering.  Soyapango is one of the most violent areas in the country.  Our scholarship program has meetings of parents and children to support parental role in helping children deal with realities of gang pressure, etc..  This is a very important aspect of the program.
     
Parish scholarships: These will remain at $120 with the provision that they can go to $140 in particular cases.  We currently have 26 returning in the parish program. They would like to expand to 30 with first choices being to add two to seventh and eighth grades to bring them to five each. 
     
High School Scholarships: Plan is to continue with five new high school students from the parish and five from SJW.  High school scholarships will remain at the same amount of $335.  We discussed their using scholarship funds up to the scholarship amount for discretionary purposes in addition to the fixed costs projected at the beginning of the year; examples would be special needs that come up during the year including things like a pair of shoes for sports. 
     
  Medical assistance to scholarship students:  During the visit it became apparent that several of the students have severe medical problems and that medication costs are very difficult or impossible for the families.  One of these students is in our high school program and is an outstanding student; his medication costs are $80 per month.   Another is a 13 year old girl with Lupis.   A third is a girl in fourth grade at St. Joseph the Worker who will be completing her diagnosis later in October.  We discussed initiating a program of assistance for extreme cases such as these.  It will be administered and overseen by the twinning committee, but will be separate from the scholarship program.  Funds will not be given to families, but the committee will make the purchase of medications.  This program is being initiated with a grant of $500 from one of our parishioners.  We will request a proposal from them for how they will manage this program.

College scholarships:  Fr. Jesus presented the idea of the possibility of college scholarships.  The idea was further reinforced in an excellent meeting we had with three graduates of our high school scholarship program.  One of them, Kevin Arnoldo Calderon,  is currently studying law; the other two, Jenny Carolina Calderon and Jeffrey Antonio Lovos Alas, are working part time or full time and both have hopes of going to college.  Jenny wants to be a systems engineer, Jeffrey, a journalist.  We also spoke with Antonio, a student who was formerly in our high school program but who had to drop out because he needed to work as he had no family financial support for basic needs.  He would like to begin university as well; has been admitted, but will only be able to go if he can find a job.  We spoke with another student, Mariana Andrea Bolanas, who attends UCA, and is doing extremely well, but finding it difficult to continue without some help.  She said she can pay food at school and transportation ($60 per month) and books ($100 for the year)  In her case, tuition is $73 per month plus a 2x/year matriculation charge of 2x tuition or $146.  We also spoke with Fr. Adrian, the principal of the high school which many of our scholarship students attend.  Of graduates from  his school, 60% go to college full time.  Another 30% try/plan to work and go to school.  He said that is almost always a prescription for failure.   He also noted, and it was confirmed by everyone, that a high school diploma is almost worthless in El Salvador.  The only jobs available are manual labor, or work in stores or food establishments, even with the technical degrees which students earn in high school in accounting and secretarial work.  We attempted to ascertain what a college scholarship might cost and came up with a low end figure of about $1200.  The committee will put together a proposal and forward it to us.
     
Study center: Part of the new parish office structure completed by Fr. Francisco, includes a large room dedicated to Transfiguration and used as a study/homework center.  This was proposed at out visit two years ago and was completed early 2009. It includes four computers, all hooked up to the internet, a laptop and a projector and a library of reference books. Yesenia made use of this equipment in her presentation on political, economic and social realities in El Salvador today.  It is staffed four days a week from 3 – 5 PM by two young adults experienced with computers.  They volunteer their time.  In addition members of the committee volunteer one day a week; all student internet use is supervised.  The committee seems optimistic about the program and sees it as valuable.  If these kids went to a commercial internet place it would cost more, be dangerous, and not be supervised.