The adventurous and socially aware Visual News, a collaborative online effort of Column Five Media, recently featured the Cooking Up Love eco-stove project for Valentine’s Day. In this article, beautifully written by Benjamin Starr, Managing Editor of Visual News, you can discover the “spark” that brought ENLACE’s eco-stoves into being.
Author: Michelle Bueno
Cooking Up Transformation
by Josh Fieldson
Josh served as a volunteer with ENLACE for two months in 2012Suffocating; That’s the only word I can use to describe Nina Chana’s kitchen. Like the majority of Salvadorans living in rural areas, Nina cooks inside, over an open fire. While this method of cooking seriously harms the health of Nina’s family and families alike, it has been the only method used for generations. ENLACE is helping families change this. ENLACE’s eco-stove project is creating a healthier future for Salvadorans living in rural areas through improved stoves that reduce respiratory infections by eliminating indoor smoke.This summer I spent two months with ENLACE in El Salvador. Out of all the many families and individuals I met, Nina Chana in La Bendicion, carved the most special memory in my heart. In La Bendicion, I accompanied a team from a US that was building eco-stoves. Nina Chana’s family had been identified by the local church and community as a family with a significant need. When we approached her home, it became apparent why. There was smoke billowing out of a small window, and when we entered, the room was dark due to the thick blanket of smoke that covered it wall to wall. It was hard to breathe in the midst of all that smoke and it hurt me to think how her family experiences that suffocating feeling every day. The tin roof covering her kitchen was black and I couldn’t help but think what color her lungs must be, and how her grandchildren’s coughs could be attributed to the process that it takes to provide them a small meal.
Indoor air pollution due to unsafe cooking methods kills more than 1 million children each year in developing countries. That’s more than HIV and malaria and second only to water-borne illness.
Nina’s eco-stove being built in the community of La BendicionFor the past 6 years I have been studying Community Health in Long Beach, California, and through my studies and service with ENLACE, have developed a heart for church and community health projects. Before traveling to El Salvador for the first time 5 years ago, health projects to me meant creating a strategic way to motivate people to get off their couch, eat healthier and quit smoking. And then I traveled to El Salvador and saw how ENLACE, through the Church, is helping communities develop sustainable solutions to poverty, like clean water systems, latrines, and eco-stoves; vital solutions that provide families an immediate opportunity to live a longer, healthier life. What a project like Nina Chana’s new eco-stove represents is more than just a healthier future for her family, it shows that the local church is moving and serving, and is the primary agent in the community’s transformation. Yes, her family’s new eco-stove will reduce respiratory infections (60% reduction), save them money on wood (66% less wood use), and decrease deforestation (El Salvador is one of the most deforested in the world), but more important are the relationships built between church and community through the project’s implementation. These relationships are key ingredients for cooking up real and sustainable community transformation.
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Every 16 Seconds Cookstove Smoke Claims a Life…
Northeast Christian Church in El Espino
Northeast Christian Church from Louisville, Kentucky, sent its first serving team to El Salvador to accompany the Tabernaculo Biblico Salem Church in El Espino. The nine-member team worked at the Miraflores Public School to help prepare the foundation for a perimeter wall which will make the property more secure and safe. The team also enjoyed spending time with community members during home visits and an even had time for an impromptu baseball game.
Water and Hope in San Jacinto
Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois sent their final serving team of 2012 to San Jacinto in the Santa Ana Region. The dedicated six-member team joined Zurisadai Church, helping with a water project and ministering to the people of the community as well. Team member Joy Bork said, “This experience really helped me see how the local church is the hope of the world. Through pairing together with ENLACE and Zurisadai, I was able to be a tangible representation of Christ’s hands and feet in the community of San Jacinto.”
Strong Relationships Pave the Way to Transformation
This summer, Nueva Jerusalen Church in San Jose el Naranjo welcomed SeaCoast Grace Church from Cypress, California for the 6th time. During these trips, this church partnership has collaborated on local church and community projects like a pastor’s home and school retaining wall, a clean water tank, home gardens, an improved road, and this year, latrines. The opportunity to work together on projects that strengthen community, attract new members to the local church, and improve health, is a life-highlight for many. Health improvement projects like the ones completed by this church partnership, tackle key health determinants by providing strong homes, preventing flooding, and reducing water and food borne illness, ultimately reducing infectious diseases, infant mortality, and improving overall health and productivity. You will hear in this video that in addition to the positive health improvements these projects provide, is more importantly the transformation of community that takes place through the personal relationships with Jesus Christ and between these church partners.
True community transformation takes place through relationships between church partners, church and community, and a relationship with Christ.
Josh Fieldson
El Salvador Trip July 2012 recap from SeaCoast Grace Church on Vimeo.
A Quest to Thrive: The Profile of Israel Meléndez
As Head of Finance at CREDATEC, ENLACE’s credit union and sister organization in El Salvador, Israel Meléndez, 30, is the first person to acknowledge that there is much more to his job than providing small business loans to hardworking, poor entrepreneurs. “My role,” says Israel, “is not only to offer loans, but also to offer friendship to clients and to be someone they can count on…What I love most is motivating and coaching entrepreneurs and having the satisfaction of seeing that, with God’s help and the support of CREDATEC, their businesses thrive.”
Dreaming big despite humble beginnings is something of a theme for Israel. He was born in a rural community to small-scale farmers and despite their poverty, he had big plans. He worked his way through High School as a janitor at an elementary school, often sleeping on the couch when his work schedule became overloaded. As a recent High School graduate, he landed a job with a local development organization as a credit officer where he learned how to work with small business owners by providing loans. While working there, Israel heard about CREDATEC and got excited about the fact that he could help people grow their businesses with loans and technical assistance but also minister to them spiritually. He joined the CREDATEC team in June 2006. Soon after he began an MBA in Finance.
According to Ron Bueno, ENLACE’s director, “One of Israel’s greatest strengths is his innovative approach to marketing and sales. He also listens carefully to clients in order to help them create a solid plan that will grow their businesses.”
Exponential Impact: Wendy Rodriguez
Beyond a Gift, Beyond a Loan: Lasting Regional Change
The success of micro-enterprise programs has become well-known in recent years. They’ve become a viable way to provide a way out of poverty for ambitous entreprenuers around the world. In El Salvador, after 12 years of successfully circulating over 1,200 loans at a 99% repayment rate, ENLACE continues to expand the impact of our Economic Development Programs.
By working within each community’s uniqe context, we’re able to train church and community leaders to identify local resources and markets so that they can generate economic opportunities at the individual, community and regional level. We can then work to link these economic initiatives to other critical issues in the community such as housing, health, and education. Click here for more information about the program after watching this brief overview of ENLACE’s Community Economic Development Program…
Eight Years and Counting in San Jose El Naranjo
A missions team from SeaCoast Grace Church (Cypress, California) returned to Nueva Jerusalen Church in San Jose El Naranjo for the 8th consecutive year. From July 22-26, the team, ENLACE staff, along with church and community members, worked together on the construction of 20 latrines which will improve the health of many families in the community.