![]() ![]() what it means to accompany and partner with and be peer collaborators rather than having the assumption that I know better,” Knapp says of her work in El Salvador. “The value of these spaces was clear.” “I’ve had to question. “I had that longing,” Knapp says of her desire to support local organizers. ![]() Nueva Esperanza was born to respond to this challenge. However, since most community members worked in sweatshops or other exploitative jobs demanding most of their time and energy, it was difficult for them to sustain such efforts. Considering a return to Notre Dame to pursue a master’s degree in peace studies, Knapp grappled with how to continue supporting the groups’ organizing efforts in her absence.įor many, those groups were valuable, even essential to survival - opening pathways to belonging outside of gang involvement, which is commonplace in the surrounding neighborhoods. She ended up staying four years, living in the community that had received her during her study abroad experience.ĭuring those years, Knapp spent most of her time doing trauma healing work with incarcerated youth, and on nights and weekends she helped lead the youth groups she had worked with while in college. Returning to Notre Dame for her senior year, Knapp applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to return to El Salvador after graduation. having these spaces of refuge and for people to work on their personal and interpersonal healing could still happen,” Knapp says. “It was really just amazing to be a part of watching how community organizing at the local level was supporting folks in the community in situations of ongoing violence. The NGO Knapp would eventually found, Nueva Esperanza, exists within that community today, and builds on the work Mercedes and Rick began. She became involved in a youth group led by Mercedes Ramos Jones and her husband, Rick, in Mercedes’ community outside San Salvador, the capital. As a junior, she spent a semester there through a Santa Clara University program called la Casa de la Solidaridad. Knapp spent summers in El Salvador as a Notre Dame student, learning about the structural violence that prevented young people from thriving in their own country. During those trips, Knapp ’10, ’16M.A., witnessed the vibrancy and sense of community in El Salvador despite the country’s ongoing trials. foreign policy abroad, including American involvement in the Salvadoran civil war. Later, as a student at Brebeuf Jesuit High School, she participated in immersion trips in El Salvador to learn about U.S. Jenna Knapp’s relationship with El Salvador began when she was 5 - her Indianapolis grade school, St. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |