El Salvador
El Salvador is a country characterized by a history of beautiful traditions, powerful testimonies of resilience, ancient cultural heritage, and innovation. Unfortunately, it has also been affected by external interference, human rights violations, violence, and forced migration.
Churches, communities and movements in El Salvador are responding to this context in many ways, like the Reformed Calvinist Church of El Salvador/Iglesia Reformada Calvinista de El Salvador (IRCES) and the Joining Hands Network in El Salvador/Asociación Red Uniendo Manos El Salvador (ARUMES). IRCES, close partner of the PCUSA since the early 1980s, provides education to more than one hundred children in the city of Soyapango and provides college scholarships to students from rural areas. Their psychosocial support programs help communities respond to violence and natural disasters like earthquakes, droughts, tropical storms and flooding. The church also collaborates with other churches to support internally displaced people and migrants and prompted the launch of the Mesoamerican Migration and Mission Network in March 2024.
ARUMES, part of the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Global Solidarity Collaborative, works to address the roots of poverty and hunger through training local leadership and accompanying campaigns for social and environmental justice. They work with local, mostly rural communities to advocate for food sovereignty and security with agriculture without agrotoxins in the face of climate change. These efforts represent a comprehensive strategy to address the interwoven issues that impact daily life in local communities, as well as the country and region.
About our work
Joseph Russ
Joseph will minister with and support the Calvinist Reform Church in El Salvador and their education and development agency, Alfalit, while strengthening a network of partners working on migration issues in the Northern Triangle. Based on the experiences of migrants and local partners themselves, U.S. individuals, congregations, presbyteries and mid councils can join them in solidarity and advocate for policies that support migrants and prevent forced migration. Together, all of us can help people who want to stay in their homes stay, and welcome those who need to migrate.
The Northern Triangle of Central America refers to the three Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. These countries are unified not only by their geographic proximity but by the large numbers of people who migrate irregularly from this region to the United States, Mexico and Canada. Widespread poverty, violence, and corruption in the Northern Triangle contribute to migration to diaspora communities that were established in North America during the turbulent 20th Century. In particular, brutal civil wars in Guatemala (1960-1996) and El Salvador (1980-1992) led to a massive spike in migration, and as Central American communities grew in North America, this created networks of support for future migration.
Read more about Joseph's ministry on his profile page, which you can find here.
Partner churches
The Reformed Calvinist Church of El Salvador
Red Uniendo Manos El Salvador (RUMES)/Joining Hands El Salvador
Presbytery partnership