El Salvador

GHM in El Salvador

Pastor Concepćion Vanegas, a local pastor and Registered Nurse, gathered a few small churches in 2008 to focus on health education. They developed a plan and asked Global Health Ministries (GHM) for support. Within a year, 30 volunteer “Community Health Promotors” (CHP) were mobilized. Today, the program reaches across the country, with over 125 CHPs committed to improving the health of their neighbors.

GHM supports these efforts with grants that empower the ongoing training and expansion of this network, and by shipping first aid supplies and basic hygiene kits to help the CHPs as they care for their neighbors. Some of these same CHPs work with high school youth in public schools, training them in first aid, reproductive health and a host of other topics required for a 3-year certificate in health promotion. All these efforts are facilitated with GHM support.

This is a “church of the poor,” declares Bishop Gomez, the national leader of the Salvadoran Lutheran Church. Pastors coordinate the networks of volunteer health promoters. Together they train their neighbors in sanitation, first aid, malaria prevention, reproductive health, nutrition and even herbal treatments. Today this powerful network is problem-solving to address a host of development challenges, including lack of access to water and income generation opportunities, even as poverty, natural disasters, COVID-19, and gang violence threaten their communities.