San Salvador's Pitch for Peace

By Robyn Fieser

The battle line between two of El Salvador's most notorious gangs used to run through a vacant lot that separated the new buildings from the old ones in Condominios Los Atlanta, a neighborhood so dangerous that taxi drivers wouldn't enter.

Between the endless rows of two- and three-story concrete block apartment buildings, members of rival gangs, the 18th street gang (Mara 18) and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), were at war. Neighbors say gunfights and stabbings were as common as barbeques.

Sitting squarely at the center of the sprawling housing project, the abandoned lot could have been used as a soccer field. Instead, it was the staging ground for impromptu brawls. One gang member was found dead on the stairs leading up to a concrete slab once overgrown with weeds.

Similar scenes play out throughout San Salvador, across Central America, and, in some cases, the United States. But one thing was different here.

On the lot where they used to turn up dead, children now play basketball. Others watch from bleachers on the sidelines. No longer a battlefield, the lot is the most visible sign of how much the community is changing.

Finding Peace From Within

Three years ago, young people in Los Atlanta, some of them gang members from both MS-13 and Mara 18, worked together to build the new court and a small gazebo where residents today hold meetings and have cookouts.

The new construction was a central component of Youth Builders. Based on a model originally developed in Harlem, New York, this Catholic Relief Services project teaches at-risk young people life and job skills through community service, providing vocational training to help them land a job.

Youth Builders staff came across Los Atlanta 3 years ago through longtime resident, Elvin Alexander Esquivel. Back then, Elvin, whippet thin and a little fidgety, led MS-13 in Los Atlanta. Always with two of his men in tow, he ran the gang's criminal activities. But the endless violence started to take its toll.

"The thing that was hurting me the most was that we were losing a lot of friends that were like our brothers. Because the gang is like a family, it's a refuge, but in the end, joining a gang is a mistake. The people you love the most you lose," he says.

That's when Elvin, who used to take pleasure in knowing people feared him, decided to become the peacemaker. The first step was to risk a meeting with his rivals.

"So I went up the hill to talk to them about the project, and, at first, everyone was like, 'What's going on here,' " he says. "They thought it was a trap. They were freaked out. So I went and came back, I don't know how many times, until finally we had a meeting right here [in the empty lot]."

About 70 people came to that meeting. The two groups stayed on their side of the lot at first, but after the staff gave a presentation of the project, people started to share their stories.

"And little by little, the ice started to melt," says Elvin.

Building Change

Over the next 5 months, the former enemies spent hundreds of hours together. They went door to door fumigating neighbors' homes for mosquitoes. They swept away old soda bottles and candy wrappers as part of neighborhood cleanup days they helped organize. They toiled for hours rehabbing the old lot into a brand new basketball court under the leadership of a foreman recruited from up the hill.

"I was surprised to see some of the people who came out to lend a hand on the project," says Brian Axel, who participated in the program in the hope that it would inspire him to quit the gang permanently. "There was one guy, who we call Choven, who never comes out. He's big—about 6 feet, 2 inches tall. It's kind of scary to see him. But he came out and worked on the court."

And as part of the vocational training component of the project, some learned to repair computers, and others learned to drive a motorcycle or speak basic English.

They bonded during outings. Kids in Los Atlanta still talk about a famous bus trip to the beach. It was the first time many of them had been to the popular beach spot on the Pacific Ocean, even though it's just a half-hour away.

"It was really something to share moments like that with people you never thought you would," says Brian.

Lionel Gomez participated in Youth Builders because he wanted to turn his drawing into a money-making skill. The 29-year-old joined a gang when he was 13, went to jail at 18, and most recently survived a vicious attack by members of his own gang. But he has never held a stable job.

He took a visual arts class through Youth Builders and is now earning a little money silk-screening t-shirts. But it's the unexpected changes the project brought about that impress him the most.

Youth Builders "helped me put a little more love in my life," Lionel says, in a voice so soft it makes his gold-capped teeth and tattoo-laden hands seem like a disguise.

'Black Sheep' Bows Out

Lionel is the black sheep of his family. He was a rebellious kid. His mother's boyfriend beat him. Then, she threw Lionel out. He joined a gang where his temper flared. Violence, he says, was his reaction to nearly everything.

He tried to quit the gang a few years back when he got serious about a girl. That's when his fellow gang members attacked him. They stabbed him repeatedly, then shot him twice in his back and left him face-down in a gully.

When he awoke in an ambulance, a police officer was screaming at him for joining a gang. He got the message.

Not long after that that, Lionel finally left the gang. He was already "inactive" when he started the Youth Builders program.

Still, he says, the program keeps him out of trouble. "I don't know, maybe it is because it kept me busy, it kept me from getting all into it," he says. "Youth Builders has been here for a long time [since 2009], and they always get us involved."

Guilt by Association

These days, Lionel is leading a team of Los Atlanta young people who are carrying out a government program to clean up the neighborhood. And he's looking for a better job, but that's been harder than he expected.

The tattoos give him away.

As he was signing the contract recently for a job at nearby factory, the hiring manager caught site of the tattoos on his hand and rescinded the offer.

It always stings, he says.

At least in Los Atlanta, things are changing. And it's not just former gang members who are feeling it.

Oscar Escobar, 19, never joined a gang but still felt the stigma that came from living in one of the city's "red" areas.

"This neighborhood was all gangs and violence," says Oscar, who shares a small apartment with his two sisters and single mother. "When we went out, people thought we belonged to the gang and that being out in the streets was all we were good for. But part of the project was to show people who we were."

Today, Oscar says, a sense of community has replaced fear. Closed doors have given way to mutual support.

When Oscar's grandfather died, neighbors collected enough money to pay for part of his funeral.

"Today, there is a group of people that support one another," he says. "I always felt like things were going to change, and I think that day has arrived."

In the Gang's Shadow

Things are by no means perfect in Los Atlanta.

The gangs still exist. They mostly stick to their own side of Los Atlanta. But there are fewer fights and less crime.

"We're united so that nothing hurts us," says Elvin. "They take care up there and we take care down here of our families, our kids and our communities."

Elvin still whispers when he talks about what life was like in the gang. He's skittish, he says, because he always runs the risk of being identified.

You never really leave the gang, he explains. He isn't active anymore but people recognize him, and he's always being watched.

But he's doing what he can to keep other kids from joining.

Youth Builders hired him as a program promoter. His job is to go from one bad neighborhood to the next, sharing his story and inspiring other young people to get involved.

"Elvin knows people everywhere," says a community outreach worker with a local Youth Builders partner organization. "He has an amazing way of communicating with the kids.

Spend 5 minutes with Elvin and it becomes clear he is a born leader.

He knows everyone by name. He asks about their life, their kids, their jobs. He makes house calls when people need him to help resolve household squabbles or give advice to parents with misbehaving kids.

It is Elvin who heads up the neighborhood fundraising campaigns, going door to door collecting money when someone loses a job and needs a little extra help or has a funeral to pay for.

Helping other people, he says, is what keeps him going.

"All of the things we [Los Atlanta] went through are on my mind and in my heart," he says. "I feel lucky to have this change even though I am dealing with what I am dealing with."

These days, Elvin is dealing with a lot.

Times Are Hard, Life Is Beautiful

After 19 years of working in a textile factory, stapling $100 price tags on sweatpants for export, Elvin's mother was diagnosed with cancer. She can't work. Her last paycheck was about $18, and she's worried about how she'll make the next mortgage payment.

It's that grinding poverty, and the feeling that he's partly responsible for his mother's hardship, that landed him in his first gang. When he first joined and started stealing from people in nearby parks, he brought the money back to his mother, telling her he earned it from selling firewood he collected.

He remembers his mother once cried as she gave him and his four siblings a tomato to share. He knew she felt bad that they had so little.

"She wouldn't eat, and I would ask her why she was crying," he says. "She would say it was because she was happy to see us growing, but I knew it was a lie."

They haven't escaped poverty. Few have in this neighborhood. But Elvin, like many of the troubled neighborhood's young people, see things differently these days.

"Life is beautiful, and the path one walks is short," he says. "Today I want to face the challenges in life because I'm not intimidated anymore. I already lived that."

Names have been changed.

Robyn Fieser is CRS' regional information officer for Latin America and the Caribbean. She is based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. We alleviate suffering and provide assistance to people in need in nearly 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality.