Mural in Arcatao About Migration.

Dear Friends of MASCP,

Crossing borders and migration is more than ever a part of our brothers and sisters' lives in our sister city of Arcatao and in all of El Salvador. MASCP together with our June 2023 delegates continue to work on the very important life and death issue of migration as well as the human rights abuses of Salvadoran President Bukele.

Migration, A Central Issue: MASCP Dialogue with Representative Mark Pocan

Congressman Mark Pocan with MASCP member Barbara Alvarado and Delegates Sara Hagen and Abi Degner.

On August 24 Barb Alvarado, Abi Degner, and Sara Hagen met with Congressman Mark Pocan* at his office in Madison. Abi and Sara shared their experience from the trip to Arcatao in June, including how our Sister City has been affected by the ongoing "state of exception" suspending Salvadorans' constitutional rights.

 

President Nayib Bukele's regime has incarcerated over 70,000 people without access to due process and in terrible conditions. Fear of arrest is contributing to increased migration out of El Salvador toward the United States or neighboring countries. Many who sell everything they have and risk the journey to the U.S. border are then deported back to El Salvador with nothing.

 

Our group discussed the hope for improved immigration policy for those seeking asylum in the U.S. Abi and Sara shared the good news from our scholarship recipients in Arcatao and warm greetings from Arcatao’s Town Council. They also told Representative Pocan that the people of Arcatao were very grateful for the writing and circulating of a Congressional “Dear Colleague” letter that asked for the freedom of the Salvadoran Water Protectors known as the Santa Marta 5.

 

Congressman Pocan expressed his concern about what is happening at the border and told the group about his recent visit to the Southern border of the U.S. He asked us to continue to be in close contact with his office.

 

*Congressman Mark Pocan visited our Sister City of Arcatao in 1998 and has supported our Sistering Project since that time.

Migration, Human Rights,

and the State of Exception: A Dialogue with our Partners, CRIPDES

Our partners from CRIPDES (The Association for the Development of El Salvador) will hold a conversation about migration, the human rights situation in El Salvador, and organizing across borders. There will be simultaneous interpretation from Spanish to English and English to Spanish and time for questions for all those attending. This is part of the National Gathering of U.S. El Salvador Sister Cities. All are invited to attend part or the entire session. Click here to see the Agenda.

 

 

 

 
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90% of University Scholarship

Students from Arcatao Area Program

Stay in El Salvador!

“Why pay for the university studies of young Salvadorans who could end up migrating away from El Salvador?” The June 2023 MASCP delegation posed this question to Ramón Franco, Director of DHP(Human Development Scholarship Program) when we visited Arcatao.

 

“There are powerful forces pulling young people northward”, Franco told us. “A University degree is one anchor that can give a young person a chance to find a professional job and stay in El Salvador.” Franco continued “Of the 85 students who have been through our program since the beginning in 2001, more than 90% have stayed in El Salvador and are employed, not necessarily in their fields but at least in professional jobs.”

(L to R starting top) Joan Laurion, Daniel Quintanilla, Sara Hagen, Abi Degner, Margret Arundson, Eunice Gibson, Leticia Nataly Martinez, Patrick Fleming.

During our recent visit, we had the great pleasure of meeting Leticia Nataly Martinez, the most recent student to receive scholarship funds from MASCP. She's 19 years old and in her second year of a degree in physical education, sports, and recreation at the University of El Salvador in San Salvador. Leticia told us that she wants to become a PE teacher, hopefully in Arcatao so she can teach and continue working in her community.

 

Together we have been able to contribute to the professional futures of young students from the Arcatao area since 2001. Young people from this Scholarship Program who STAY in El Salvador are helping to build a just and thriving society there. Please consider donating to the “Sue and Art Lloyd Youth Development Fund” which supports the Human Development Scholarship Program as well as other youth initiatives in the Arcatao area.

Support the Sue and Art Lloyd Youth Development Fund
P.O. Box 132 Madison, WI 53701

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