El Canton Las Minas, Chalatenango, El Salvador
Las Minas is a small mountain village an hour and a half outside of the El Salvador’s capital of San Salvador. The children here are motivated about learning, but the school lacks the necessary supplies to offer them a better education. For example, there are only two (barely functioning) computers in the entire school so that a class of twenty students must wait and take turns to use it. More over, about 40 percent of these kids wear old and torn shoes to school while another 30 thirty percent go bare foot. The camps have given the boys and girls of Las Minas a great experience for the last six years as they learn soccer, poetry, peace, and the power of their voices. We have been running summer camps en El Canton Las Minas since 2006.
Faced with a community history of violence during the civil war and the current daily threat of gang violence, it is important that students are purposefully taught for a peaceful existence. The week-long summer camp in Las Minas provides an opportunity to integrate peace education into the school and community through soccer, poetry, and educational workshops.
The purpose of this project is to help the school of “El Canton Las Minas” in Chalatenango, which is north of San Salvador. The town of El Canton Las Minas was one of the most affected areas during the war. The majority of its inhabitants are country people dedicated to agriculture and are still working with the most rudimentary implements.
Our summer camps in El Canton Las Minas take place during July.