"If the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today."
- Martin Luther
|
|
Hear interviews with MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee on WERU Community Radio Station. Details.
|
|
|
Among the oldest dyes used for textiles. This indigo comes to us through our El Salvador Sistering Committee, which collaborates with Salvadoran farmers and artisans working to revive the traditional, non-toxic industry. Indigo is high quality with 46% intensity. Order online.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
El Salvador Sistering Project
|
 |
|
 |
| MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee volunteers visit organic coffee farmer Don Raul in Valle de Jesus. January 2007. |
MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Project maintains a relationship between MOFGA and two Salvadoran grassroots organizations working toward sustainable agriculture. The committee explores issues such as organic certification, free trade, marketing, etc., that affect farmers in both countries. Several delegations from Maine have visited El Salvador, and delegates from El Salvador have come to Maine to tour farms and participate in the Common Ground Country Fair.
Each April, the El Salvador Sistering Committee hosts an Empty Bowl Supper in Belfast to raise funds for the ongoing collaborative work. Dinner guests make donations to the efforts, enjoy a hearty meal, and take home beautiful, handcrafted bowls made by Maine artisans. We are always looking for donations of handmade bowls (including seconds!) from potters. If you have bowls to donate, contact Karen Volckhausen. Thanks!
Information for Prospective El Salvador Sistering Project Committee Members
Reports from Past MOFGA Delegations to El Salvador
 |
| Delegates from El Salvador have come to Maine to tour farms and participate in the Common Ground Country Fair |
|
|
|
|
Empty Bowl Supper To Benefit El Salvador Sistering Work
|
|
|
Each April, the El Salvador Sistering Committee hosts an Empty Bowl Supper in Belfast to raise funds for the ongoing collaborative work. Dinner guests make donations to the efforts, enjoy a hearty meal, and take home beautiful, handcrafted bowls made by Maine artisans. We are always looking for donations of handmade bowls (including seconds!) from potters. If you have bowls to donate, contact Karen Volckhausen at pkvolckhausen@escrap.com. Thanks!
US-El Salvador Sister Cities
MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee works closely with the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities network, a grassroots organization of U.S. citizens and residents who have ongoing partnerships with small rural communities in El Salvador. Those partnerships began in 1986 as a citizen-based response to the U.S. intervention in El Salvador’s civil war. Today, eighteen sistering relationships from across the U.S. are paired with Salvadoran communities or organizations in six of El Salvador’s fourteen departments. Three of those sitering groups are in Maine: the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee, the Bangor/Carasque Sister City Committee and the WERU/Radio Sumpul Sister Radio Committee.
The Association for the Development of El Salvador, or CRIPDES, facilitates these efforts. Sister Cities works to connect and strengthen movements for social justice in the U.S. and El Salvador by sharing experiences, support, and accompaniment. The organization strives to build a new kind of globalization, one built from the ground up and united by human values of justice and solidarity. More information about Sister Cities.
Welcome! ¡Bienvenido!
Dear Prospective Member of the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Project,
Thank you for your interest. This information should give you some ideas about our work so that you can determine whether and how you might want join us. If you have ideas that you’d like to discuss after reading this information, or if you’d like to attend our next meeting, please contact us at the address below.
Our mission is to create solidarity among small farmers and community organizations in Maine and El Salvador. We promote economic and social justice and environmental protection through sustainable, organic agriculture and sustainable communities. Through this mutual relationship we hope to put a human face on the impact of globalization, learn from each other, and educate people in both countries.
We are a standing committee of MOFGA consisting of a dozen or so members, both farmers and non-farmers. We hold a monthly potluck supper and meeting, usually in Lincolnville on the third Sunday of the month. Our meetings are loosely structured, rotating roles such as facilitation, note taking, etc. Decisions are made through consensus. Our recent work includes:
• Leading delegations from Maine to El Salvador every other year to build solidarity, tour projects of our sistering organizations (CCR and CORDES), educate and be educated, and discuss issues that affect us both.
• Raising funds by marketing Salvadoran products, such as string marketing bags and wool water carriers- both hand made by a women’s cooperative, and indigo, and working on a solid, sustainable plan for this fundraising to support projects in El Salvador and projects of our U.S. network and our committee. (We are a member of the national U.S./El Salvador Sister Cities Network)
• Coordinating, hosting and funding a two-week tour of Salvadoran organizers and farmers to Maine in September 2003. The main focus of the tour was the effect of globalization on agriculture. The delegation impacted hundreds of people through farm tours, college and high school classroom visits, panel discussions, a keynote speech and talks at the Common Ground Country Fair (CGCF), a meeting at the Maine Department of Agriculture, and other contacts
• Educating Maine people about food and farming, here and in El Salvador, through talks at fundraisers and to various groups, slide shows and our booth at the CGCF, reports to MOFGA, newspaper articles and radio shows
• Communicating regularly with our sisters in El Salvador
• Exploring ways to support Salvadorans’ efforts to accomplish organic certification
• Representating our committee on the Board of the national US/El Salvador Sister Cities Network
• Participating in an international encuentro (meeting) in El Salvador in July 2005.
• Being actively involved in advocacy issues such as the impact of gold and silver mining on the environment and human rights issues
You may become involved with our committee in one or several ways. For example:
• Join our committee and participate in our monthly meetings
• Help with a specific project, such as our Empty Bowl Supper (our primary fundraiser), or our booth at the Common Ground Country Fair
• Join a delegation
• Help host a delegation
• Help with translating or fundraising
• Write some of our quarterly newsletters to our sistering organizations
• Represent our committee to other groups in Maine
• Look for technical information that may help Salvadoran farmers.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Paul and Karen Volckhausen
MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee
1138 Happy Town Rd
Orland, Maine 04472
pkvolckhausen@escrap.com
Each April, the El Salvador Sistering Committee hosts an Empty Bowl Supper in Belfast to raise funds for the ongoing collaborative work. Dinner guests make donations to the efforts, enjoy a hearty meal, and take home beautiful, handcrafted bowls made by Maine artisans. We are always looking for donations of handmade bowls (including seconds!) from potters. If you have bowls to donate, contact Karen Volckhausen at pkvolckhausen@escrap.com. Thanks!
US-El Salvador Sister Cities
MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee works closely with the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities network, a grassroots organization of U.S. citizens and residents who have ongoing partnerships with small rural communities in El Salvador. Those partnerships began in 1986 as a citizen-based response to the U.S. intervention in El Salvador’s civil war. Today, eighteen sistering relationships from across the U.S. are paired with Salvadoran communities or organizations in six of El Salvador’s fourteen departments. Three of those sitering groups are in Maine: the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee, the Bangor/Carasque Sister City Committee and the WERU/Radio Sumpul Sister Radio Committee.
The Association for the Development of El Salvador, or CRIPDES, facilitates these efforts. Sister Cities works to connect and strengthen movements for social justice in the U.S. and El Salvador by sharing experiences, support, and accompaniment. The organization strives to build a new kind of globalization, one built from the ground up and united by human values of justice and solidarity. More information about Sister Cities.
Welcome! ¡Bienvenido!
Dear Prospective Member of the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Project,
Thank you for your interest. This information should give you some ideas about our work so that you can determine whether and how you might want join us. If you have ideas that you’d like to discuss after reading this information, or if you’d like to attend our next meeting, please contact us at the address below.
Our mission is to create solidarity among small farmers and community organizations in Maine and El Salvador. We promote economic and social justice and environmental protection through sustainable, organic agriculture and sustainable communities. Through this mutual relationship we hope to put a human face on the impact of globalization, learn from each other, and educate people in both countries.
We are a standing committee of MOFGA consisting of a dozen or so members, both farmers and non-farmers. We hold a monthly potluck supper and meeting, usually in Lincolnville on the third Sunday of the month. Our meetings are loosely structured, rotating roles such as facilitation, note taking, etc. Decisions are made through consensus. Our recent work includes:
• Leading delegations from Maine to El Salvador every other year to build solidarity, tour projects of our sistering organizations (CCR and CORDES), educate and be educated, and discuss issues that affect us both.
• Raising funds by marketing Salvadoran products, such as string marketing bags and wool water carriers- both hand made by a women’s cooperative, and indigo, and working on a solid, sustainable plan for this fundraising to support projects in El Salvador and projects of our U.S. network and our committee. (We are a member of the national U.S./El Salvador Sister Cities Network)
• Coordinating, hosting and funding a two-week tour of Salvadoran organizers and farmers to Maine in September 2003. The main focus of the tour was the effect of globalization on agriculture. The delegation impacted hundreds of people through farm tours, college and high school classroom visits, panel discussions, a keynote speech and talks at the Common Ground Country Fair (CGCF), a meeting at the Maine Department of Agriculture, and other contacts
• Educating Maine people about food and farming, here and in El Salvador, through talks at fundraisers and to various groups, slide shows and our booth at the CGCF, reports to MOFGA, newspaper articles and radio shows
• Communicating regularly with our sisters in El Salvador
• Exploring ways to support Salvadorans’ efforts to accomplish organic certification
• Representating our committee on the Board of the national US/El Salvador Sister Cities Network
• Participating in an international encuentro (meeting) in El Salvador in July 2005.
• Being actively involved in advocacy issues such as the impact of gold and silver mining on the environment and human rights issues
You may become involved with our committee in one or several ways. For example:
• Join our committee and participate in our monthly meetings
• Help with a specific project, such as our Empty Bowl Supper (our primary fundraiser), or our booth at the Common Ground Country Fair
• Join a delegation
• Help host a delegation
• Help with translating or fundraising
• Write some of our quarterly newsletters to our sistering organizations
• Represent our committee to other groups in Maine
• Look for technical information that may help Salvadoran farmers.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Paul and Karen Volckhausen
MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee
1138 Happy Town Rd
Orland, Maine 04472
pkvolckhausen@escrap.com
|
|
|
|
US-El Salvador Sister Cities
|
|
|
MOFGA's El Salvador Sistering Committee works closely with the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Network, a grass-roots organization of U.S. citizens and residents who have ongoing partnerships with small rural communities in El Salvador. Those partnerships began in 1986 as a citizen-based response to the U.S. intervention in El Salvador’s civil war. Today, twenty sister cities from across the U.S. are paired with Salvadoran communities in six of El Salvador’s fourteen provinces. The Association for the Development of El Salvador, or CRIPDES, facilitates these efforts. Sister Cities works to connect and strengthen movements for social justice in the U.S. and El Salvador by sharing experiences, support, and accompaniment. The organization strives to build a new kind of globalization, one built from the ground up and united by human values of justice and solidarity. More information about Sister Cities. Please also see the following website.
|
|
|
|
|
|