Introduction to El Salvador
El Salvador is a country about the size of Wales, with a population of approximately 6.5 million inhabitants.
Since the Spanish conquest in the early 1600s, but particularly since its independence in the early nineteenth century and the development of export agriculture, it has experienced a turbulent history, the chief feature of which has been the struggle for land ownership. The nineteenth-century saw the violent concentration of agricultural land in the hands of a minority of oligarchic families. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the country has suffered from extreme poverty and the marginalisation of the vast majority of its rural population. The torture and murder of individuals protesting social injustice in the 1970s, as well as the use of fierce repression by successive military governments, led to El Salvador descending into civil war. Between 1980 to 1992, the civil war resulted in the loss of over 75,000 lives (with 85% killed by state-sponsored forces: Report on the Commission for Truth in El Salvador) and produced over a million refugees. While some gains were made, the issue of land ownership was never properly resolved.
The region that we work in is a coastal region of El Salvador called the Bajo Lempa. We have music centres in four communities: La Papalota, El Zamorán, Nueva Esperanza, and Amando López, but teach children and young people from many more of the Bajo Lempa communities, including Romero, San Marcos Lempa, El Marillo and La Canoa. In all, the project covers roughly 20km (12.5 miles) along the length of the lower Lempa River to the delta.
Since the Spanish conquest in the early 1600s, but particularly since its independence in the early nineteenth century and the development of export agriculture, it has experienced a turbulent history, the chief feature of which has been the struggle for land ownership. The nineteenth-century saw the violent concentration of agricultural land in the hands of a minority of oligarchic families. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the country has suffered from extreme poverty and the marginalisation of the vast majority of its rural population. The torture and murder of individuals protesting social injustice in the 1970s, as well as the use of fierce repression by successive military governments, led to El Salvador descending into civil war. Between 1980 to 1992, the civil war resulted in the loss of over 75,000 lives (with 85% killed by state-sponsored forces: Report on the Commission for Truth in El Salvador) and produced over a million refugees. While some gains were made, the issue of land ownership was never properly resolved.
The region that we work in is a coastal region of El Salvador called the Bajo Lempa. We have music centres in four communities: La Papalota, El Zamorán, Nueva Esperanza, and Amando López, but teach children and young people from many more of the Bajo Lempa communities, including Romero, San Marcos Lempa, El Marillo and La Canoa. In all, the project covers roughly 20km (12.5 miles) along the length of the lower Lempa River to the delta.
As the war began to draw to a close in 1991, a significant number of refugees began returning and the Bajo Lempa region was populated for the most part by communities of people who’d been living in exile as refugees in Honduras and Nicaragua.
These new communities had little-to-nothing—just the clothes on their backs, some basic tools such as machetes, and some basic materials (plastic sheets and wooden boards) that they carried with them to build shelters. They had to struggle with the military who tried to prevent them from returning and also the huge landowners who didn’t want to give up even a small part of their vast estates for people to live and eke out a living. Some of these communities, though, did have the support of international solidarity groups which helped them become established.
These new communities had little-to-nothing—just the clothes on their backs, some basic tools such as machetes, and some basic materials (plastic sheets and wooden boards) that they carried with them to build shelters. They had to struggle with the military who tried to prevent them from returning and also the huge landowners who didn’t want to give up even a small part of their vast estates for people to live and eke out a living. Some of these communities, though, did have the support of international solidarity groups which helped them become established.
The children who’d returned from exile, including those who’d been born in the refugee camps, now had to come to terms with both the trauma of the violence they’d witnessed as well as the dislocation they’d experienced and building a new home in the Bajo Lempa. The majority of these children worked with the adults in the fields and with the animals and some attended the field schools that’d been set up by the women of the communities.
This was the situation that Katherine Rogers witnessed in 1996-7, prompting her to found Music for Hope.
This was the situation that Katherine Rogers witnessed in 1996-7, prompting her to found Music for Hope.
More recently, the ongoing underlying problem of social marginalisation of a large percentage of the population still hasn’t been adequately addressed. However, this situation has been aggravated by the endemic gang violence that has developed since the end of the civil war. The Salvadoran governments since 1992 have repeatedly tried to resolve this issue but their focus on repression rather than long-term alternatives has had a much more serious impact on all Salvadoran youths, regardless of whether they’re involved with the gangs.
It is in this complicated social and political situation that Music for Hope now operates within the Bajo Lempa region, aiming to not only help young people overcome the trauma of violence and displacement, but to also try and provide a safe, neutral space in the communities for young people to learn new skills through music.
It is in this complicated social and political situation that Music for Hope now operates within the Bajo Lempa region, aiming to not only help young people overcome the trauma of violence and displacement, but to also try and provide a safe, neutral space in the communities for young people to learn new skills through music.
