We will be using the blog again!

Hello compa ñeros and compañeras,

After an unforgettable 4 weeks in El Salvador, the 2011 OSES delegation has finally returned to the Oberlin campus. Today, we had our first meeting as a student organization, and we made a bunch of plans. One thing we decided was that we will be using this blog to record our plans an activities as a group. So that all our friends can see what OSES is up to, we will write each post in English and then translate it to Spanish. We hope we can keep in touch with our friends from ADES, the Radio Victoria, and others, and maybe even receive feedback from them about the activities we are planning and activities they think we should plan.

In our meeting today, we made the followings plans:

1. We will work together to publish a zine about our experiences in El Salvador and specifically in the community of Santa Marta. We will each write short articles about topics like the various organizations in and around Santa Marta (the greenhouse, CoCoSI, the Radio Victoria, ADES, the clinic, etc.), personal testimonies about the civil war that we heard, the idea of solidarity and what it means to us, especially in the context of this trip, mining in El Salvador, anti-mining activism, and violence against the activists. We will also include a timeline of big points in Salvadoran history, and an article that shows the U.S. perspective during the 80s on the civil war.

2. We will create a website for the zine so that people can continue to visit the website and learn about our experience.

3. We will publish the zine and distribute it on the Oberlin campus

4. Eventually (by the end of April), we will organize and publicize a potluck. At this potluck, we will have a call-in campaign and/or a petition-signing activity related to anti-mining activism and fighting against the violence towards environmental activists in El Salvador. At this potluck we will also distribute the zine.

Those are our big plans for now. Please leave us questions, comments, and concerns! Until next time..

In solidarity,
OSES