Elizabeth Dray, a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member and the director of the Arlington Teosinte Sister City Project, provided the following brief update May 5 to meeting members.
El Salvador has been in the news a lot recently — and not in a good way. Salvadorans have been watching their nascent democracy slip away and are a cautionary tale of what lies before us. Their dictator president is serving an unconstitutional second term, has firm control over the legislative and judicial branches and since March 2023 has disappeared 85,000 people, many innocent, to black prison holes with no due process.
But I am not here to talk about that. I am here to talk about the hope and light of Arlington’s amazing 37-year friendship with Teosinte, a small village of incredibly resilient and determined farmers, teachers, builders, leaders, parents and young people.
Focus on education, leadership
Teosinte is a small village of around 350 people tucked into the lush mountains of eastern El Salvador. It has a beautiful church, a three-room school, a medical clinic, a newly built community room, a soccer field and a river that runs through the village. Surrounding the homes are the crop fields terraced into the mountains where families raise corn, rice and beans to feed their families.
Teosinte continues to prioritize education and leadership skills for their youth and to search for a permanent source of clean drinking water. They have paved several stretches of the main dirt road to make it passable in the rainy season and less dusty in the dry. The community is looking for funding to build a small playground where families with young children can gather and socialize.
In Arlington, we also focus on education, both of the community around issues of immigration, and of our students, through a vibrant curriculum that starts in the second grade and continues into high school via the world-languages department and high school clubs. As we talk to both students and adults, we strive to show that the similarities between our two communities, of our hopes, fears and dreams, unite us more than our differences divide us.
Craft, coffee sales
Through craft and coffee sales we support local businesses in and around Teosinte. One hundred percent of all money raised is returned to the community for educational scholarships and community-development projects. Currently, we provide partial scholarships to six high school students and nine university students. In addition to scholarships, we raised money to pave the roads and replace the leaking and corroded water pipes in the village. This fall we are fortunate to be hosting a speaking tour of friends from El Salvador who will speak to hundreds of our high schoolers about the importance of knowing our history, resilience and community organizing.
It is at this fragile time in both of our countries that these person to person relationships build meaningful connections and allow us to support and learn from each other.
The Arlington Teosinte Sister City Project is a completely volunteer-run organization, and we welcome your support — as an occasional volunteer, a board member or a donor. Tonight you can support us by visiting our food and coffee sale during the break, and if you love our coffee, as many do, you can join our coffee club and have it delivered to your home every month. Please visit our website, www.ArlingtonTeosinte.org or email us at ArlingtonTeosinte@gmail.com to learn more.
Gracias.
This announcement was published Thursday, May 8, 2025.
