My name is Abel Nahin Lara Ruiz, I have been a member of the cooperative ‘La Patroncita’ in the West of El Salvador for 12 years. In 1990 I started working with CIAZO and I now focus on Reflect. In August 1999, after participating in a training session on participatory budget analysis, I decided to see what would happen if I used these techniques with a Reflect circle, a women's group who are members of my cooperative. The group chose to analyse the finances of the cooperative. Using questions such as: who controls the money, for who, we realised how financial matters in the cooperative lacked transparency. In fact one person, the President of the cooperative, (with 3 helpers) controlled everything.
At a general assembly, which involved people from two other cooperatives, we shared our findings. The reaction was immediate. The people in control of the cooperative’s finances, obviously threatened by our findings, went to the police and falsely accused me of taking their land. I was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. Luckily, with the support of the Reflect group, who campaigned within the cooperative to rally more support, I was able to prove my innocence, that I had not been attempting to take the land and I was released after 3 days.
While in prison I questioned my work, Reflect, and whether it was really worth doing anything with the cooperative. I wondered if anything would ever change, or whether Reflect was really just based on idealism with no roots in reality. However, as time went on and I considered the injustice within the cooperative, I decided that now I had started I had to continue. I left prison with increased motivation and determination. Also I now had the support of the majority of the members of the cooperative. These were people who worked in the cooperative in areas such as corn, coffee, watermelon and cattle all day every day, and were paid below the minimum wage. They neither saw nor knew anything of the cooperative’s profits. Soon after my release, the members of the cooperative called a general assembly. We voted to oust the leader and his three main supporters. I was elected in his place.
Unsure what to do once I held a position of power, I realised that I could use the same process of asking who should control the money, for whom, etc. to design a new, more democratic structure within the cooperative. I worked with the other members to form committees with specific roles, which would ensure that the process was more transparent in the future.
Although the cooperative still has a long way to go, there are now various committees, and for the first time in the cooperative’s history, women are occupying key positions. Recently the members took the decision to form a ‘grupo de desarrollo communitario’ (community development group) with members from the two other cooperatives. I hope that this will provide a space so that those involved can share their experience and ignite action in the other cooperatives – encouraging them to question the way money is controlled in their cooperative and looking at how they could implement more democratic structures.
