Profiles of our lay missionaries

Ronan Sharpley - El Salvador

Ronan Sharpley has been working in El Salvador since November 2008 with Sr. Anne Griffen. Sr. Anne is a member of the congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary based in Chigwell, London. Sr. Anne is currently pursuing justice for the victims of the massacre in El Mozote, (a village in the Morazán department in El Salvador) in the Central American Courts in October with the help of another NGO called CEJIL, the local parish priest and some others.  El Mozote was the site of the El Mozote massacre in December 1981 when nearly 1,000 civilians were killed by the US-trained Atlacatl Battalion, backed by the Salvadoran government.

Ronan says  “We have just started on a new project called ‘El Mozote Retreat/Reconciliation centre which will be built on about 4 hectares of land which we have purchased just outside of El Mozote. It will serve as a retreat centre and also a place where capacitations and other formation classes will be given dealing mainly with the theme of reconciliation especially after the war.  Also it will encompass trying to deal with the high levels of violence, including domestic violence and the big problems of fear generated by gangs in this country.
More than anything it will be a way for the people of El Mozote and the surrounding areas to overcome their past and move on as best they can.

At the moment we are building the monument part of it, which is an open air spiritual centre built at the entrance to the centre. We just had the blessing for the laying of the first stone there two weeks ago

We have seven people working there at the moment and we change four of them every 15 days in order to give employment to as many people as possible. The local mayor’s office recognises the benefit to the community the centre will be so they have offered us the use of their machinery for free.

We are also getting funding from a priest from Germany who is based in Ecuador and he has been very generous to us.
It is a very big project involving a lot of people, a lot of fundraising and more than anything will be providing a massive boost to El Mozote and the surrounding areas which is one of the most impoverished places in El Salvador

The picture shows the site the laying of the 1st stone for the retreat centre