Location: Municipality of El Paisnal (San Salvador).
Local partner: CORDES
Justification: The map of poverty in El Salvador, describes the City of San Pablo Tacachico as a moderate poverty and Aguilares as a low poverty, which means that in both towns there are families with lack of income and inability to fulfil basic needs such as education, health, drinkable water, sanitation and housing, among others. These living conditions don't allow families to leave their status of high vulnerability, marginalization and social exclusion. Doing participatory assessments in communities, we find out about problems and needs that mostly affect women and youth. Among these problems we should mention the following:
- Weakness in the processes of youth organization and participation, which is associated with the poor training of young people, low awareness of their rights, inactivity of youth committees, small number of leaders, poor implementation of policies and local development strategies which involve young people with gender equity and the poor youth advocacy, low opportunities to develop creativity, limited participation in social, sporting and cultural activities among others.
- Little coordination between local governments and citizens, because local governments and institutions do not value the importance of the development of coordinated initiatives.
- Public management with poor concept of equality between men and women, which may be due public servants and councils to have low education and experience of local development with a gender focus, tittle experience in the installation of units with specialized staff that contributes to implement gender-sensitive actions.
- Minimal chances for young people to implement economic initiatives, due to the difficulty for accessing to funds, technical and material resources, plus low implementation of economic policies and programs aimed to them.
Targets:
- General: Contribute to Local Development and Participatory Democracy with Gender Equity in the northern area of the department of San Salvador.
- Specific: To strengthen capacity for participatory local development with a gender perspective in the municipality of El Paisnal.
Activities:
- Socialization of the project.
- Monthly meetings with boards of Community Associations, to discuss progress of project implementation, as well as analyse and take action together to the proper operation of the Community Association.
- Devising 11 operating community plans per annum. Development of 11 community operating plans by year, each beneficiary Community Association, will make its operating plan each year to identify the goals, activities and responsible for developing the plan.
- Review and update legal documents and books of the 11 associations.
- Development of three ordinary Assemblies for each Association in 20 months.
- The 11 community boards will participate in three town meetings and coordination spaces, organized by the local government.
- Development of two citizen interest forums with the participation of 11 community associations.
- Monitoring and evaluation.
- Monthly meetings with 11 youth committees to discuss the progress of project implementation.
- Development of 11 community operating plans per year.
- Training of 60 youths (50% women) in gender, citizenship and human rights. The training will be conducted by trainers employed according their speciality.
- The 11 youth committees will participate in three town meetings and coordination spaces, organized by the local government .
- Development of two citizen interest forums on topics related to youth.
- Formulation of a municipal policy for Youth with Gender Equity:
- Selection and identification of beneficiaries.
- Training for 15 young (10 women, 5 men) inbreeding cattle , pigs, poultry and organic agriculture.
- Purchasing materials and equipment.
- Implementation of 15 production units.
Target population: 440 people. Over 50% are women.
Project duration: 20 months
Budget: 99.421,79 €
Funding: TAU and Donostia- San Sebastian Town hall (Bask Country, Spain)
