2026 Spring Letter

In the midst of the numerous crises we face in our world and country, we continue the daily work of living, of bearing witness, of seeking change, planting seeds and bringing to life the beloved community. 

I just returned from accompanying the people of Honduras who marked the 10th anniversary of the assassination of the indigenous, environmental leader Berta Caceres. 
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Our delegation of eighteen faith and community leaders joined with twenty delegations from all over the world to remember and to recommit to a vision of ecological and social justice.
Berta and the Lenca indigenous believe the river is sacred because it gives life. El agua es vida!  (water is life).

Visit to Illinois, California and Texas:

One of the highlights of the delegation to Honduras was meeting with Juana Esquivel, a leader of the local committee defending the Guapinol River.  Juana and her co-workers are demanding justice for the environmentalist Juan Lopez who had continued Berta’s work only to be assassinated for defending the river September 14, 2024. 
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One of the delegates, Presbyterian Reverend Debra Avery of Peoria, Illinois, invited Juana to visit her congregation in Illinois. Juana and I will travel to Peoria, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area from April 17 to the 27th.  ​

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​From May 7th – 17th, Maria Orellana of SHARE’s partner -ProVida of El Salvador - and I will be visiting San Francisco, Los Angeles and Houston to share about the programs welcoming women and their families who have suffered deportation from the United States. With your support SHARE is supporting ProVida and other organizations who provide deported refugees medical services, mental health support, job training and facilitate their re-entry and reintegration into society.

The visit’s objective is to invite more people to join in solidarity.

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Planting food crops:

​The rainy season is approaching soon in El Salvador and Honduras and women and their families are preparing the land for planting. 

I was born in May!  My last name, Artiga, means “to prepare the land for planting.” At my home I have watered seeds of dahlias, sunflowers and lots of vegetables. Over Easter weekend, I planted these young seedlings in carefully composted garden beds. 

The women of the CCR in Chalatenango, El Salvador are also getting ready for the rainy season to plant their vegetables, beans, corn and squash – maiz, frijoles y ayotes. 

I love the story of these beautiful women.  During the pandemic women were not allowed to leave their homes, and they wished to cook their famous sopa de gallina india (free range chicken soup). Forbidden to go to the mercado (marketplace) to buy the magic bunch of herbs that give the soup special flavor and aromas (onion, garlic, basil, spearmint, parsley, cilantro, chili leaves…), they held an emergency meeting and decided to plant those herbs. 
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Workshops were organized to produce the organic fertilizer, to prepare the beds; baby plants were produced and distributed to over 40 communities. Fast forward to find that production was so successful, they had surplus herbs to trade in the community.

Producing our own food is revolutionary

With your support, SHARE has been promoting the Vegetable Gardens in El Salvador and Vamos a la Milpa in Honduras.

This July SHARE, the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and cooperatives of CONFRAS in El Salvador and the Jesuit ERIC in Honduras will continue planting fruit trees. 

Since 2011 we have been planting fruit trees on the dry Corridor, an area through Central America that is becoming a desert as a result of drought and deforestation.

Fruit trees produce oxygen for the planet; they are a source of food for the people and animals; they prevent erosion, and are home for millions of animals, insects and fungi. They are repositories of water and offer many more benefits to Mother Earth.                                                                   

Each of these efforts is a source of life grounded in our shared humanity and in community.  They are seeds of hope, watered by solidarity, love and respect. They give meaning to the words of the great Indian author and philosopher Arundhati Roy who declared, “Another world is possible. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

From El Salvador to Palestine we are all together in the struggle for justice, for clean water, for putting food on the table and for dreaming a new world is possible.

Thank you for all you do to keep SHARE healthy and strong. With our love and appreciation for all of us at SHARE. 

 Jose Artiga
Executive Director 
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