1. The subject of my speech is “the gangs of El Salvador”, called “maras”. I have chosen it because
I have spent 5 consecutive summers in this country, working as a volunteer in a reeducational program for
young people. I have met lots of boys and girls there who belonged to one of the different gangs that exist
in the country.
Image 1
First we can start observing a map: El Salvador is a Central American country of 21,000 square
kilometres bathed by the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It is
called the Tom Thumb (el Pulgarcito) of America. There are nearly 40 volcanoes and it frequently suffers
earthquakes and hurricanes.
Image 2
The country has a population of 7 million people, most of them living in the capital city area of
San Salvador.
El Salvador suffered a civil war that lasted over 12 years, from 1980 to1992, that left 75,000
civilians dead and 8,000 disappeared.
Image 3 and 4
Due to the effects of the war and the consequences of the environmental disasters lots of people
left their villages and went to the capital looking for a way of surviving. They established near the rail
ways on the outskirts of San Salvador, creating big colonies where the buildings are made of cardboard
and corrugated iron. This image is from the Iberia Community, the colony where I have lived during my
stay there.
Most of the people live in less than 14 squared metres without water or electricity and barefoot
children share the streets with the rubbish.
Image 5
In this picture we can observe this family, a mother with three of her children. The babies have
the lower abdomen inflated. This is because of the parasites: Amebas (Amoebae), Lamblias, Ascaris, who
infects the water.
Image 6
Women are here the support of the family, who take the responsibility of the education of the
children and of their maintenance. Men are disappeared or drunk most of the time.
Image 7
But the poverty is not the only problem of El Salvador. After the armed conflict, hundred of gang
members were deported from the United States. They brought gang culture with them to a country floody
with weapons from civil war. Back in El Salvador they founded local branches of the gangs, which over
the last decade have expanded throughout Central America and southern Mexico.
They recruited thousands of local teenagers to keep the wars they brought with them from LA.
Today, some estimates put total gang membership in El Salvador at over 40,000.
Image 8
The main gangs in El Salvador are Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 and Mara 18 (18th Street gang).
And they are sworn enemies; they kill each other for honour, territory and crack. Which gang you belong
to depends on your area, graffiti tells you who is in charge.
By nightfall is very dangerous to stay on the streets and all the people take refuge in their
houses, because is the moment that maras take the streets to look for the rivals and start a crossfire
between them.
In the Iberia Community the largest street is divided in two between both maras. I lived in the
part of the 18, but I worked in the part of the 13. At the beginning at night I listened the sound of

2. fireworks and I thought that it was like in Valencia, a celebration anywhere, but then people explained me
that it was the sound of shots. And every day in the news it was said that the body of a young had been
found in any place.
Image 9 and 10
Children as young as seven join the gangs.Young people join the gangs to find a sense of
identity. When they join the gangs they get a power that society denies them.
The gangs have strict rules applied to their members. To become a member they have to be
beaten by some of the members of the mara during 13 or 18 seconds, depending on the mara. The sense
of identity is renforced by the tatoos all over their bodies: the name of the mara, a crucifix and a RIP for a
friend dyed.
Image 11 and 12
The gang also gives these teenagers the chance to smoke copious amounts of drugs; and the
excitement associated with the war against rival gang. Who becomes a member of a mara belongs to it till
his death. The breaking of a rule can lead to the execution of the young. Murder is also a duty for a
member of a mara. Once, a girl from the 18 related me how she had killed another girl on the bus because
this girl had made with her fingers the sign of the 13.
For them the expectation of life is no more than 30. Most of them die very young.
Image 13
Although the majority of gang’s members are boys, there are also a 30% of girls in them. They
have also to pass a ritual to enter in the mara, but in some cases they can choose between being beaten by
their homies (colleagues), like the boys, or being raped by them.
When a young joins the mara he takes a nickname, for example “The Happy”, “The strange”,
“The porky”, “The devil”. And they learn to speak the wrong way round.
Image 14, 15, 16, 17,
The project in which I have been working that time was started by a Salesian priest “father
Pepe”. He obtained the permission of the city council to build a little house in a rubbish dump for children
of the street. Now this rubbish dump is a complex with a primary and secondary school, a medical centre,
8 little enterprises: bakery, printing office, wood-work, die-stamping, mechanic, shoe factory, aluminium,
and two houses for boys and girls. The complex is known as PIDB, for Don Bosco Polytechnic Institute.
Father Pepe has an agreement with Juvenile Court of San Salvador that offers the young the possibility of
finishing their term in this institution, having access to a formal education in the school and a professional
formation in the little enterprises. The program for boys is named Miguel Magone and the program for
girls Laura Vicuña. Both programs are destined to young people in high risk, or in conflict with law.
There, members of the gangs that were in prison have an opportunity of reintegration in the society.
There, the enemies share the house, the food, and the new spectations in life.
The process is not easy, the mara doesn’t forgets their member and not always let them to abandon the
group, but also the society doesn’t forgive; for an ex-marero is very difficult to find a job because of the
tattoos. It exist a laser technique to eliminate them but is too expensive and not always effective. But the
worst is the risk of being murdered at any time for a rival mara or for their own mara. Most of them can
never return to their villages, can never visit their mums. Some of them have neurological problems
because of the drugs. And all of them have a great luck of love and comprehension. This is that everyone
who goes there can offer them: love, patience, comprehension, ears to listen and shoulders for cry.
For me this has been the greatest experience of my life. There, I have been a mother, a sister, a
friend, a teacher, a doctor. And I have received so much love that is impossible for me to explain it. I
have suffered with the murder of a young, really a friend, but also I have been happy with the entrance in
the University of another one or with the paternity of another one.
Image 22
And I finish with this picture. They are the future and their smiles are a sign of hope for this
country.