Today is a day of rest for us, after a wonderfully full AVP Training for Facilitators (T4F) here in Suchitoto, El Salvador. AVP was initiated in Suchitoto in September 2007. In 2008 Sylvia Cabrales (AVP Guatemala) and Kelly Orbik (AVP USA) conducted the first SuchitotoT4F. Maty Escobar participated in the 2008 T4F and subsequently facilitated Basics in 2008 and 2009, as well as an Advanced with the same participants. We were delighted to have Maty join us on the facilitators training team.

This T4F included a component which was new to us – an introduction to the manual two days in advance of the beginning of the T4F. The review of sections, with highlights of essential pages, gave participants who were tentative readers a head start on the workshop. We recommend this addition whenever a T4F includes individuals with limited literacy.

 Estela “Encantada” (Delighted)

Estela “Encantada” leads a group of youth in her village of El Barío.  Her acting skills kept us entertained and deepened our role plays during the T4F.  Estela’s creativity will serve her well as an AVP facilitator.

Damián “Dichoso” is an organizer for FMLN.  He is interested in integrating his training as a mediator with his new insights into AVP.

Damián “Dichoso” (Blessed)

 Ceci “Sincera” (Sincere)

Ceci “Sincera” and Mercedes “Mensajera” are community leaders in El Sitio Cenicero. Mercedes’ visible confidence and enthusiasm and Ceci’s ability to lighten the mood with her smile and humor make them a strong team. Cecilia looks forward to helping people see the positive instead of the negative in themselves.

Mercedes is barely literate, and working with the manual is a big challenge for her, but she left the workshop crowing “It made me feel good, facilitating a sociodrama (role-play), it made me feel that I, too, can do it!”

 Mercedes “Mensajera” (Messenger)

Maria del Carmen works from a deep spiritual base as she leads a women’s group in San Francisco.

 Maria del Carmen “Magnifica” (Magnificent)

 Lorena “Luz” (Light)

Lorena “Luz” (Light) works with Icthus, a Christian youth leadership program in Guatemala. 

PLA supported two Basic Workshops with the young people at the Icthus camp in 2008. She is an active volunteer with the Women’s Ministry of our Guatemalan partner organization CEDEPCA, which does AVP as well as other workshops. Lorena compares AVP to “opening a treasure chest and discovering and immense treasure – a treasure that transforms lives, that refreshes the soul, that heals our spirit..” 

“Each workshop, each activity . . .  always leaves new things with us.  . . . We’re not the same anymore.  We’re changed.  We see the difference.  Each person we talk with sees something of transforming power in our souls.  And the greatest thing is to share the transforming power with other people.  That’s why I’m here, to receive so that I can also give.”