Visiting priest details water pumps, sustainable farming projects and postwar challenges in El Salvador

Father Chencho Alas, a priest representing the Institute for Technology, the Environment and Self-Sufficiency, described projects he said aim to bolster sustainable agriculture, water access and community self-sufficiency in El Salvador during a public conversation in Missoula.

"One of the main goals of the institute that I am representing is to do a research about the digital technologies, so how we can innovate new things and transfer them to the people or peasants of women, and thinking about economic sustainability," Father Chencho Alas said, summarizing the organization’s goals.

Alas described a low-tech water device his team has promoted, which he called a "rock pump," and said his organization built six of those pumps and brought them to villages. He said the pumps are simple to operate and can provide water even for children; he added that water purification is needed because some wells contain pesticides such as DDT.

Alas said the institute has identified local contamination in shrimp ponds and is using biologists and engineers to research water quality. "We have 6 professionals," he said, naming two engineers and three biologists among staff, and asked for transportation and tools. He said the group lacks a four-wheel-drive pickup and needs a metal shop to scale production of pumps. "What we need is $49,000," he said, describing that amount as required to equip a metal shop to manufacture pumps at larger scale.

Alas also discussed efforts to shift some farmers toward organic coffee production with outside partners in Germany and university collaborators in the United States. He described the transition away from decades of chemical-intensive agriculture as time-consuming and requiring education, comparing it to broader shifts in technology and energy use.

On broader national context, Alas said El Salvador has lived in peace since the 1992 peace accord but remains in a fragile political transition. He noted that in recent months he had heard of killings of former guerrilla commanders and said the army has reappeared on some roads, which he described as psychological pressure ahead of the next election cycle. "Certainly, the peace accords have brought to us peace," he said, "but now the test squads are active in El Salvador, and they have killed 2 Salvadorian commanders... They have killed 14 more people since July." He added that the next elections planned in 1994 will be an important test of the transition.

Alas recounted fundraising and operating details for his organization: an earlier donor family gave $25,000, another $15,000 and a friend $7,000, which enabled purchase of a tractor he said cost $28,000 and a computer for administrative work. He said the institute struggles with limited office resources and asked listeners who could help with tools, transportation or institutional support to contact the group.

Why it matters: The projects described address rural water access, agricultural practices and local economic capacity in communities recovering from conflict. The institute’s requests for equipment, transportation and a metal shop indicate scaling constraints at the operational level; the political remarks point to continuing fragility in El Salvador’s postwar transition.

The transcript contains first-person accounts and project descriptions from Alas; the broadcast did not include on-the-record independent verification of the contamination findings, financial figures or the $49,000 metal-shop estimate. Audience members and prospective funders should verify technical and financial claims with the institute and partner organizations.