The Founding of a Scholarship Committee

In October 1998 Tony Gasbarro finished his assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer in La Montañona, Chalatenango. During his two years of service he saw first hand that many children in his community and many other communities were not remaining in school mainly because of the lack of financial resources. When he returned to his home in Alaska he decided to establish a scholarship fund to enable children to at least finish high school.

With the help of Project Salvador an NGO that has been working in El Salvador since 1984, a Project Salvador Scholarship Fund was established in 1999 to allow donors to make tax-deductible contributions to help needy children in El Salvador continue their education. Presently the Scholarship Fund is supporting 263 students. Some of these students live in San Pedro Nonualco.

In 2005 Dr. Rolando Barillas, a “sampedrano¨ and Aaron Redman a Peace Corps volunteer decided to form a scholarship committee in San Pedro to help raise more funds to help poor students in San Pedro. This committee consists mostly of people from San Pedro and is dedicated to providing scholarships to the children in the San Pedro area.

"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained."
James A. Garfield

Our Story: A Brief History of San Pedro Nonualco

In the 11th and 12th century AD a group of indians calling themselves Nonualcos (place of the well-spoken) settled in the area. During colonial times coco was harvested and exported from the surrounding region. The first written record of San Pedro appears in 1740 as a small largely indigenous town. In 1833 led by Anastasio Aquino the Nonualcans revolted against the newly independent El Salvadorian government, captured and burned several major cities but were soon defeated by the army ending, marking the first of many civil insurrections to come. Construction on the central cathedral (the facade of which is part of the header above) began on the 1880s and continued off and on for many decades. In 1912 San Pedro achieved its present status as a municipality. The civil war that ravaged El Salvador during the 80s did not have too large of a presence in San Pedro Nonualco, although several small street battles were fought there. In 2001 separated by exactly one month two large earthquakes (~7.6) struck with epicenters only a dozen miles from San Pedro. Constructed locally out of mud brick over 99% of homes in the municipality were completely destroyed and for months people's houses consisted of no more then a tarp strung between several trees. Thanks to massive reconstruction aid from the US and elsewhere San Pedro has been almost completely rebuilt and has largely recovered from the devastation. Approximately 10,000 people currently reside in the Municipality of San Pedro Nonualco with 60% of those living in the villages surrounding the town. Agriculture remains the largest employer although there are also a range of cottage industries present particularly carpentry. In addition to the traditional corn and beans the region was a major coffee production zone but with the long-term fall in prices over the last couple decades its cultivation is being abandoned. Instead San Pedranos have taken up fruit cultivation, particularly oranges of which over 12 million are harvested every year and sent all over the country.

El Salvador: The Facts

The following is taken from the UNDP with USA stats in red for comparison

Human Development Index: 101 -- 8
GDP (PPP*) $5,041 -- $39,676
Population 6.8 million -- 294.5 million
Population per km2: 340 (highest among non-island nations in the new world)-- 32 per km2
Urbanization 59% -- 80.5%
Net Secondary Enrollment: 48% -- 90%

A World Bank document had this to report

Poverty (<$2 a day) 37.2%
Extreme Poverty (<$1 a day) 15.4%
Rural Poverty- 49.8% poor 24.5% extreme poor
A person with a high school diploma earns 26% more then a person who only got through primary school
A mere 20% of poor enroll in high school (compared to 36% non-poor) and only 16% of those graduate!!
52.9% of 16-18 year olds not in school (regardless of poverty) in rural areas site financially related reasons for not attending (too expensive, has to work outside or inside the house)

*PPP purchasing power parity: the value of goods and services (in the US) that the actual amount of money could purchase in this particular country . Since goods and services are cheaper in El Salvador the GDP (PPP) is significantly higher then the actual dollar amount. Poverty is also measured according to PPP so someone actually earning $2 a day in El Salvador wouldn't even make the cut.

Sources: United Nations Development Program website www.undp.org stats are for 2004
World Bank Report: El Salvador Poverty Assessment: Strengthening Social Policy December 29, 2005 available here stats are from 2002-2003