Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett will lead a delegation of 66 people to El Salvador this week. Lasting about a week, the trip is part of an effort to establish the county’s first “Sister Cities” relationship with Morazan, in the northeast part of the country.
More than 50,000 of the county’s 142,500 Hispanics are Salvadoran, and 35,000 were born in El Salvador, said Bruce Adams, director of the county’s Office of Community Partnerships and a board member of Montgomery Sister Cities, the nonprofit behind the trip. The county’s total population is about 946,000.
The trip will help participants gain a better understanding of the Salvadoran history and culture, so they can better understand the customs of Salvadoran residents in Montgomery County, he said.
Adams, a former County Council member, said the focus of the trip is for Montgomery County to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with Morazan, a relationship that has already begun.
After an initial trip to El Salvador last year, Adams helped a Salvadoran nonprofit establish a bank in Montgomery County so Salvadoran residents of Montgomery County could more easily transmit money to relatives in El Salvador.
“It’s a complete win-win-win,” he said.
In addition to Leggett and Adams, who will leave Monday, trip participants include County Councilman George Leventhal, Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez and former U.S. Rep. Connie Morella, as well as county staff, teachers, professors and other community members.
All travelers are paying their own way, including all travel and food expenses, said Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield, who also is going on the trip. All county staff are using vacation time, except for the elected officials who don’t have paid vacation time.
But he emphasized that the trip is not a vacation.
“This is work,” Lacefield said. “Whether people are taking it as leave or not, this is work.”
Agenda items range from meetings with local leaders and visits to historical sites to a cheese tasting.
Office of Community Partnerships Latino Liaison Karla Silvestre, who is going on the trip, said one of her goals is to learn why people leave El Salvador.
Leventhal said he is looking forward to learning about the history of the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s, which drove about 25 percent of the population to leave the country.
Fourteen Habitat for Humanity volunteers also will build 38 homes, and nonprofit MoverMoms is performing community service at a school in Perquin.
