Walking With El Salvador

Sonia patted the bed. "Join me," she said, with a gesture because words were too hard. She knew. I knew. It would be our last time together, for a while. We snuggled up like little girls, whispering final secrets, feeling each other's warmth.  Sonia spoke softly, "There's so much more to do." She worried about the Sunday School children, her little store, the women's groups in Tonaca, the new health center at the church, all the children she watched out for on her pasaje, and el taller . El taller -   the workshop  is the short name everyone uses to refer to the Days for Girls Women's Project in Los Héroes. Sonia was the heart, the motivator, the trained educator, and the business manager for the project. Most importantly, she believed in the rights of girls and boys to have access to accurate education about their bodies and was committed to giving girls what they need to feel confident and prepared for menstruation. "We will keep your work goi...

During the third week of January, students began the 2025 academic year. After the kids were settled in school, the Los Héroes Women's Project got things organized and started producing this year's batch of   Days for Girls kits.    It didn't take long for school directors and community leaders to start sending invitations to Pastor Sonia, the Los Héroes Women's Project coordinator, to come and lead education sessions and distribute the menstruation kits to girls who need them. If girls don't have access to hygiene products, they cannot attend classes. Teachers and directors recognize this need. School staff are interested in learning about the kits themselves so they can promote their use. Over the past 9 years, it has been most common for teachers and community leaders to gather groups of women and girls, not men and boys, to participate in the menstruation education classes. Guys were never specifically excluded, but they were not typically included in the target...

Twenty-five years ago, our nurse practitioner did pelvic exams and pap smears for women in our Salvadoran sister community. She brought glass slides, used hairspray as fixative and somehow got those test results back to the women. She diagnosed many infections. We brought medications for that. It was a bold move for one of our first activities as sister churches together.  Girls in a remote community learning about their bodies, 2024 Helping women and girls to learn about their bodies, to listen to their bodies, to have agency over their bodies, and to have access to what they need to care for their bodies: this has been a  twenty-five year ministry of our churches working together. Twenty-five years of making  steady steps and bold moves  together. In many families, frank talks about sex, reproductive health and menstruation are open and honest. In other families, these conversations include misinformation or don't happen at all. Through the years of doing Missions ...

This is a story about women telling hard truths, women coming together to support each other, women working to improve the lives of women and girls in their communities.  Recently, an invitation from the leaders of Gender and Family Ministry of the Salvadoran Lutheran Church was sent out through a communication group of which I am a member. It caught my attention: The Salvadoran Lutheran Church, working with the Office of the Woman of the Lutheran World Federation, has initiated a consultation process about the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women CEDAW  ...  The purpose of the gathering is to bring together women leaders from their communities for a consultation on community contexts regarding gender policies and all forms of discrimination against women. Pastor Cecilia giving out vacunas contra la violencia during the Missions of Healing (2011 & 2012) I thought about Pastor Cecilia giving out "vaccinations against violence" to ...