Our Shared Struggle: Shaping a More Just Future through Grassroots Solidarity Organizing in El Salvador and the US

media release: Our Shared Struggle: Shaping a More Just Future through Grassroots Solidarity Organizing in El Salvador and the US

Join US-El Salvador Sister Cities (USESSC) and CRIPDES (a Salvadoran community-based organization) for a presentation and workshop focusing on community organizing strategies to face shared struggles in El Salvador and the US.

This workshop is in person on the UW-Madison campus in Ingraham Hall room 206.

The Workshop is designed to highlight community organizing techniques that respond directly to issues affecting both the US and El Salvador. The workshop will cover three key issues:

• Responding to an increase in authoritarianism and militarization in both the US and El Salvador. What tools might we use on a community level to respond to these challenges? What techniques are already in place in each country that the other might be able to learn from?
• Discussing the threat of climate change both to communities in El Salvador and the US. The University and Wisconsin community can learn a lot from our Salvadoran representatives given El Salvador’s long history of climate defense movements, including Anti-Mining campaigns and water defenders. Today, Salvadorans face climate change head on in the form of increased flooding and temperature changes that threaten crops and livelihood.
• Discussing the issue of migration. Migration is inherently tied to our previous themes of authoritarianism and climate change, because these very issues lead many Salvadoran youth to seek a better life in the US. Migration poses an important point for collaboration, because it impacts the US and El Salvador in distinct ways as sending and receiving countries respectively.

The event will include interactive, participatory methods rooted in popular education, a model that emphasizes community-based, bottom-up learning. This method, deeply ingrained in Salvadoran activism, aims to empower participants to address oppression through collective action. Participants will learn practical tools from both Salvadoran and US activists to address these issues.

Important Reminders

• This event is limited to 25 participants. If tickets are sold out, please email outreach@iris.wisc.edu and you will be added to a waitlist.
• This workshop is in person on the UW-Madison campus in Ingraham Hall room 206.

This event is co-sponsored by Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Program, Havens Wright Center for Social Justice, Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies (LACIS), Madison Arcatao Sister City Project, and Wisconsin International Studies Major Association (WISMA).