Participatory Strategic Planning Workshops with the Santa Marta Community

In May 2025, community members in Santa Marta came together for a series of participatory workshops focused on strategic planning for memory, education, and community-led organizing. With the involvement of more than 40 participants across generations, the workshops helped consolidate a shared roadmap for 2025–2030 grounded in lived history, collective care, and long-term continuity. Rather than “starting” something new, the process deepened work the community has sustained for decades, and clarified priorities for the Casa de la Memoria [Memory House] (as a physical and digital space), sites of memory, intergenerational education, artistic participation, and women’s memory as a pillar of community knowledge. The workshops also reaffirmed that the future Committee of Historical Memory, chosen by community assembly, will guide coordination and continuity of the initiatives.

The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University,  Ferris State University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.