“Today I am happy because after 20 years fighting to obtain my deed, thanks to COFOA organizing, I can say that I am the owner of my own home. Nobody can take it away.”- Cindi Martinez, COFOA leader
Cindi was one of twenty-one leaders from the Miramar community in the Santo Tomas municipality who received their property titles from the Minister of Housing in a formal ceremony on January 28th. This story is also unfolding in more than one hundred ten unregulated residential developments organized through the COFOA RENCER (REBIRTH) Campaign.
Built by teams of leaders who have engaged with every family in these developments, organized community assemblies to prioritize essential needs like water, electricity, and roads, and convened monthly strategy meetings to plan collective actions, the RENACER Campaign is pressuring developers and the government to deliver deeds to more than 8,000 families defrauded by unscrupulous developers.
Over the past three years, local teams have collected data, presented it at local developer’s offices and organized demonstrations of more than 1000 people at the Ministry of Housing, the Legislative Building and the Presidential House to demand justice. Seeing the effect of COFOA’s RENACER campaign, a USAID subcontractor provided a small grant to support COFOA’s leadership development approach. While this grant has been frozen, COFOA’s work continues. COFOA teams organized public meetings with developers in January. Another meeting is planned with the Minister of Housing, Michele Sol, at the end of February.
“I thank God for the community and all the people who supported us”, Cindi Martinez added at the end of the ceremony. The Miramar community is one example of the progress the RENACER campaign is making. We know that many more leaders like Cindi will be able to celebrate receiving their deeds in the coming months. We know that eventually that all 350,000 families across El Salvador who were defrauded like Cindi was, will also receive justice and celebrate.
