Between Monday, September 23, and Friday, September 27, the XII Assembly of the COMPARTE Learning and Action Community took place in San Salvador, El Salvador, with the participation of more than 40 people. Attendees included representatives from the social centers that form part of the network, the CPAL, and allied actors from universities (Ibero and Iteso from Mexico, UCA El Salvador, and Javeriana in Bogotá) and Jesuit cooperation foundations from Canada and the United States, who facilitate and support the work of the network.
Thus, men and women from Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Canada, and the United States gathered, hosted by the social center Solidaridad CVX in San Salvador, to continue strengthening network collaboration and fostering economic alternatives driven by productive organizations, which are supported by the social centers that make up the Comparte Network in their respective countries.
The first three days of the Assembly included sessions on alternative economies, spirituality, and thematic processes underway as part of Comparte’s Strategic Planning (solidarity economic circuits, participatory guarantee systems, multi-stakeholder collective building, socio-environmental audit systems for economic-productive initiatives, access to financing for productive organizations, gender equity, and the empowerment of women in economic-productive initiatives, among others). On the second day, three field visits were organized to explore experiences of the productive organizations accompanied by Solidaridad CVX in El Salvador, highlighting the prominent role of women in developing Self-managed Savings and Credit Groups and economic-productive ventures.
The fourth day took place at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) and included a roundtable discussion on “Solidarity Economies: Contexts and Challenges in Latin America,” with representatives from the UCA, the Universidad Iberoamericana of Puebla, and the Hogar de Cristo social center in Ecuador.
Additional topics addressed until the close of the Assembly included the review of the network’s organizational system, the monitoring system for our strategic planning, the network’s communication strategy, and collaboration with allied actors.
This network gathering allowed us to deepen our understanding of the challenges faced in the territories and within the social centers as we build economic alternatives, as well as to identify strategies to overcome these difficulties and forge alliances that will help us continue advancing territorial processes towards an economy oriented towards well-being in Latin America.