Team El Salvador is currently accepting applications for its Summer internship opportunities during June and August of 2016!
Summary of Past Team El Salvador Projects
2014
In January of 2014, Team El Salvador 8 traveled to the Lower Lempa Region of southeastern El Salvador; a multidisciplinary team consisting of 13 enthusiastic and committed participants: 9 MIIS graduate students, 2 Middlebury undergraduates, 1 CSUMB graduate student and the faculty director. The team worked on four major projects:
1) A. The PLAS Project: To help improve the functionality and implementation of the Local Sustainable Resource Utilization Plan for our partner NGO and its constituent communities, so as to harmonize the local plan with national environmental legislation.
B. The related project done by the CSUMB hidrologist; to create a map of extraction sites for each community within the PLAS area; perform a quantitative analysis between extraction and non-extraction sites and establish a framework for the analysis of extraction sites.
2) The Microcredit Project: to strengthen the administrative system of the NGO’s microcredit program under a new profit-based organization, in order to improve its programmatic sustainability and ensure adequate profit margins for both the organization and its associated producers, primarily for the production of basic grains and bean; a preliminary iteration of a cost structure for these sectors was seen as an essential first step.
3) The Public Space Project: to assess community perception and utilization of spaces and structures, so as to answer the questions “what makes for a strong, healthy, cohesive community?” (looking at sources of livelihood, stimulation of social and generational interactions, enhanced community identity).
4) A Photojournalism project, to capture in visual and narrative forms the history, experience and people of the Lower Lempa Region. Special highlights include the very engaging and often moving interviews done by the team with members of our host families, community leaders, the NGO board, the director of the youth run radio and other long time colleagues on the ground.
Further, there were excursions to magnificent volcanoes, a beautiful surfing beach, and a heart-rending historical conflict area of the civil war. In addition, there were meetings with Ministry and Embassy officials and an evening reception hosted by the country head of the Peace Corps in El Salvador with the US Ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte, and the former Global Director of the Peace Corps, Aaron Williams.
In January 2015, TES added an additional work site. One group of students worked and lived within a small rural fishing community to address environmental and economic concerns surrounding the damaging practice of blast fishing.
Recruitment and Requirements: