ADES Santa Marta launched an Advanced Leadership Development School with more than 20 young people from Victoria and Guacotecti in Cabañas and Suchitoto in Cuscatlán. All of the young people have participated in basic leadership processes before, but this workshop is specifically for developing a more advanced leadership level.

According to the facilitator of the process, Julio Zavala, the goal is for young people to become empowered leaders, making important decisions in their communities.

“We hope that the participants will acquire new techniques and methodologies so that they begin to develop other leaders that aren’t in this space. The whole idea is to replicate these processes,” said Julio.

Altogether there will be five Leadership School workshops, dubbed the “Second Level,” covering themes of environmental education, gender, sexual diversity, and political economy. During the opening workshop, the group discussed popular education, its roots and conceptions, and shared various methodologies on how to design educational activities.

Xiomara Funes, one of the participants of the workshop, comes from the small town of San Francisco, in Cabañas. She shared that the workshop helps her become a voice in her community. “We are gaining knowledge, gaining tools to defend our rights, and in this way educating ourselves to be able to reproduce this information in our communities… I am a spokesperson for my community, so that they can obtain the knowledge, just as I am now.” she said.

ADES commits to these processes in order to strengthen youth leadership in Cabañas’ rural communities so that young people can contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of their people.