Permaculture in El Salvador Update

Dear friends,

I’ve been asked by the leaders of the Farmer-to-Farmer Permaculture Movement in El Salvador to write to all those who have supported their work over the past decade or so, and to let you know about some recent organisational changes. 

Those of you who’ve had the chance to spend time on the Demonstration Site in Suchitoto or who’ve been following the Movement's progress via Facebook will know about their most recent successes:

• The Movement is currently organised in local Permaculture Associations  -   AEPS in Suchitoto, APET in Torola and ASEINKA Cacaopera.  These are now legally constituted organisations, recognised by the Salvadoran government which have a combined membership of almost 100 qualified Permaculture community leaders.
• There is growing recognition that the Farmer-to-Farmer Permaculture methodology has real impact in changing attitudes and farming practices and that there is much to be learnt from its Movement.
• There is a great deal of interest from other districts to train their community leaders and join the Movement, and a number of Salvadoran NGOs are also beginning to adopt Permaculture within their own work.
• Members of the Permaculture Associations were chosen by their communities to study Permaculture and to share their knowledge with the rest of the community.  Today 47 communities in these 3 districts are participating in the Movement.
• Each member has a demonstration Permaculture plot and supports an ever growing group of families to use Permaculture for growing a diverse range of healthy food and taking care of their environment
• Each Association is finding ways to become financially self sufficient - collectively growing and selling seeds, compost and organic vegetables.
• Association members are teaching in their local schools and helping the students to grow organic food for school meals and share what they’re learning at home too.
• Each Association plays a key role in influencing local strategies and development plans; working with others to build alliances and inter-agency co-operation.
• The Movement is gaining wide respect both nationally and internationally from the social movement,  and from Government and international institutions. It teaches Permaculture to other NGOs - both to their agronomists and agricultural technicians as well as the farmers they support. They have been have teaching in Honduras and Guatemala and were recently invited to Germany in recognition of this work.
• The Movement is having success in attracting young people - who now make up around 40% of its membership - and is working with multi-agency initiatives to counter the influence of gang culture.
• Women are taking leading positions in the Movement and are some of its most active members. Combating machista culture is taken very seriously by everyone.

Until December last year, the Permaculture Institute of El Salvador (IPES), of which I was the Director for more than 10 years, had been dedicating its work to developing this Movement: building its capacity, teaching its leaders, training its team of teachers and helping it find funding. Sadly, this approach has not been supported by the small group men (and 1 woman) who founded IPES in 2002.  They have recently made it clear that they don’t share the same vision of building a broad movement capable of contributing to social change and are challenging the right of this Movement to teach and promote Permaculture. At the end of last year, these differences in vision and strategy led the founders of IPES to remove all the members who had been elected in recent years and to dismiss myself as Director and Reina Mejia as Coordinator. Inevitably this has caused a rift and has led to the resignation of the team of volunteers and workers,  as well as a number of founding members.

For this reason the Permaculture Associations have asked me to inform you that IPES no longer has the support of the communities in Suchitoto, Torola and Cacaopera with whom it has worked over the past 15 years. The Associations no longer have any link with IPES.

From my experience of social organisations, this kind of rift is not uncommon and, however painful at the time, is usually a sign of healthy growth and maturation. It’s not unusual for the founders of an organisation or movement to feel displaced and resentful as new people come forward to take the lead. We all feel sad that those individuals who dedicated their energy so many years ago can’t celebrate with us the wonderful broadening and flowering of the Movement they helped to start, but we hope that in time they will come to accept the change and work with us again.

Meanwhile, the new local Permaculture Associations are starting out their independent life with few resources other than the commitment and skills of their members and are asking if anyone is in a position to help. Members of the Movement are all subsistence farmers with no financial resources of their own and all working voluntarily. Specifically their immediate needs are:

• Help to set up websites and social media and ongoing support to keep them updated
• Help to recruit international volunteers 
• Support to identify sources of funding and to write funding proposals
• Translation of documents
• Around $100 per month to pay for Internet access and phones
• Around $200 per month for travel costs to attend meetings
• $4,000 to buy a cheap second hand pick-up truck
• $2,000 to sponsor someone to attend the International Permaculture Convergence in the UK this August.

Please let me know if you can help in any way or if you have any questions.  If you want to contact the Movement directly, their email is: movimientopermacultural.es@gmail.com 

Please pass this email on to anyone you think might be interested.

On behalf of the Movement, I’d like to thank you all for the contributions you’ve made in the past and encourage you to keep in touch and to join me in supporting them in whatever way you can.

All the best,

Karen Inwood