San Francisco Gotera (Gotera), located 30 km south of Ciudad Segundo Montes, is the largest city in the Department of Morazán and the newest of our Salvadoran partner communities. Gotera has a partner relationship with a community in Montgomery County, MD. The relationship began when Evelyn Gonzales, who is from Gotera but migrated to the U.S., wanted to link her two communities in a cooperative exchange.

Gotera is a mid-sized city, with outlying rural communities, meaning that it must overcome the challanges presented by rural and urban development. In the city, youth do not have jobs and increasingly face pressures to join gangs or engage in other destructive behavior. In the more rural areas, citizens are able to farm, but have few other economic opportunities.

The partner community relationship with Montgomery County, MD began in 2005. Over the first two years, the Montgomery County partners held fundraisers to purchase school supplies, soccer balls, and other items for children in the worst schools in the rural villages of Gotera. Now that the relationship is established, the partners in Gotera and Montgomery County would like to begin addressing more serious development issues. Both partners agree that working with youth in both the rural and urban areas will be the most beneficial. In the winter of 2008/2009 Voices and the Montgomery Co. community will organize a delegation from the U.S. to visit Gotera and continue planning long-term initiatives.