Gaining a leading role opposite a forgotten social reality

Eduardo H. Loyola Arguello (ISSUP Member)

El Salvador is a geographically small country, with a history characterized by pain, conflict and great need, but where the Salvadoran nevertheless draws a smile on his face and hugs forever the hope of a better El Salvador. I am Eduardo Loyola Arguello a young Salvadoran man of 33 years of age, that I have not been oblivious to the reality and history of our country. I come from a home and exemplary family, where it hurts me in the heart accept that model today becomes exception to the rule, as it is common to hear young people and adults talk about the difficult family situation in which living and develop through the streets characterized by domestic violence, separations, divorces, dropouts, lack of roles, etc. I come from a family where love, union, faith and respect have been and forever will be the pillars of my family, longing to dream that our children and new generations live, although it seems a utopia. Growing up in an environment so dustpan and healthy me not deprive of experiences which would mark my life and gritted my heart in my childhood and youth. The ten years of age, in August 1995, prisoner of my pain from the death of my mother start through a dark path in alcoholism and at the time of certain drugs that deprived me of my reality, a road that ends a decade later being interned in a cen TRO of rehabilitation for almost a year against an indescribable existential vacuum.

All my experience I vowed to form in order to be able to fight, contribute and support this great population sector forgotten and stigmatized by society. I am founder, therapist and director of an institution specializing in the treatment of addicts and lead prevention programmes at the national level where first hand I meet young people very committed to problems that I serve as a mirror, and allows me to take an empathetic value with them, seeing their humanity.

The young people of our country are growing without giving greater importance to the course carrying, without knowing the true values, without listening to the words of wisdom from those who encourage us to re-establish the concept of humanity with their own experiences.

I think that the biggest challenge we have is to unite for a country with a common horizon and shared goals, a more harmonious El Salvador with a sensitive society. The union means to set aside everything that separates us starting from personally, abandon the scheme of life that we acquire governed by self complacency, self satisfaction, absurd relativism, the pursuit of power and self-sufficiency, this reinforces the attitudes of conflict between young people, all because it aims to reach first and fastest, of having and accumulate more things and we become insensitive to the need for the other because we run ourselves the pursuit of selfish pleasure called hedonism.

It's easier to assume a posture of indifference and unimportant that flip the eyes facing a widespread social problem where interests are running into one via, where the great affected is suffering in oblivion and the social stigma that the addict escon his pain and suffering behind a pipe, absent his conscience and human value (in the case of dependents to psychoactive substances) and the population of children and adolescents where their immaturity, rebelliousness and bustle cries out for education with regard to the Prevention of addictions and psycho-social risks, as well as training for the development of life skills.

Given that harsh reality and orphan from starring in all its spheres roles, is where is born the need to speak up for those who do not have it, use positions of leadership in the generation of consciousness required to locate within the construction of a h common orizonte, support for these population sectors with emphasis on the prevention of youngsters, without leaving aside the hard work requiring the employees to succeed with banner of love and not the criminal stigma that our society human beings has placed these forever.

It's time to just where all those agents who have some social influence us conjuguemos articulated way to work for it. Moment where entities such as the Government, with its inclusive political will, the churches their territorial planning, gifts and love; the disposal of the public and private educational apparatus at all levels without leaving aside all the non-governmental organizations and especially the strengthening of the family scheme as a primary institution in the protection and education in values of their members.

We all know that one of the entities that generates greater social influence are the media and social networks; Prevention of the development of addictions and risks psychosocial worth to use this resource as a training tool that will allow us to reach where the constraints of economic and human resources not permitting, supporting teachers, catechists and community leaders and others for the development of all educational and preventive work. An initiative that allows children and adolescents values education articulated with the prevention of addictions and life skills development.

The consequences of not making peace with this reality are unquantifiable, but is easier to disguise and disperse the theme using the troubled society in which we live where prevail in the day to day and headlines the high murder rate, the violence widespread everywhere, the fragile economy of the country, a corrupt policy where young people still do not feel represented and the family in conceptual essence fracture.

Not aware about the consequences of not doing anything within a systematic plan to medium and long term that seeks to meet the needs of these two groups both dependent people like our vulnerable youth, inherently It disproportionate greater spending on public health, facing a population predominantly sick in their physical and mental health. We would also be faced with an escalation of violence increasingly acute, as the phenomenon of drug dependence is closely linked to the Commission of offences and all antisocial personality of the individual development. Just mentioning the two previous consequences to denote the deterioration in the quality of life of the people in its individuality, families and therefore society in general, point of departure or sharpness in national poverty rates.

The phenomenon related to the drugs is not an isolated problem, may determine a society if it is analyzed objectively.

It causes fear to meet with young people who have idealized negative figures of leadership to what they determine how "successful" and that they become a reference point for the construction of a style of life, given their immaturity and high influence media that live exposed to play a role where the factors of protection they are not strong enough to counteract what undoubtedly over time would be to become a system loss permanent both for them and for the same State.

In order to reverse the high exclusion rates that exist on the part of our society and Government, we must strengthen three fundamental points of our democratic system. The first is that, as a society, an empathic dialogue should be fostered with those actors traditionally seen as threats to understand their origins, shortcomings and dreams, along with those people and institutions that know the problem and that even with our We limit it day by day. It is through this dialogue that, as a country, we can take an initial step towards the recognition and legitimization of our forgotten populations.

As a second point, citizens must ensure that all members of society, be they the minority or majority, are represented equally in our Government. This is especially important in the legislative branch where few efforts have been made to formulate legislation proposals that provide integral solutions for our marginalized populations, among them the sick addicts.

As a third point, the Government of El Salvador is an expert in reacting to any situation that the country or its due deserves, but certainly the State has never bet on prevention on many issues, including addictions; This is an important point, because if there was a generalized policy on prevention, certainly there would be fewer addicts that existed in the country and therefore there would be a substantial decrease in marginalized populations, rates of violence and associated crime as it is. in this case the addicts.

It is urgent the creation of policies that facilitate the necessary therapeutic assistance of all those who consume psychoactive substances, of the provision of resources to all those institutions that shoulder a responsibility that, by constitutional order, belongs to the State; feasible and functional policies that allow the technical and professional approach under the prism of the prevention of our new generations, fruit that we could be collecting in the near future, finding us with a conscious, determined youth, with life projects defined and accompanied by the different entities of social influence, with a whole new generation of leaders with a broad human sense.

Our youth in its silence asks us to unite to rescue values, to create a new hope, to be life in the midst of what is dying today. Everything is achieved if you wish with the heart and I as a young contemporary believe it, and not as a utopia.

This is where the great task of every society, of the educator, of the leaders, of the professional or of the counselor that deals with a young person in conflict, the typical antisocial, is born. if in the mind of these people this minor is a criminal, he will treat him as such, his conditioning will not allow him to see his great potential. Our duty is to fight to be good human beings in order to be a good reference of these young people, who come from contexts that speak clearly of a family, social and a loss of love.

There are four elements of society that in my opinion are not fulfilling their task well: the family, the school, the State and the Church. The work with them is about love and law because they have lacked references. It is not misunderstood love that borders on anarchy.

I encourage all those entities and institutions, both public and private, and people who in their individuality are clothed with the charisma of leadership and who have the capacity to generate a positive social influence, to join and embrace values ​​such as the Option for Life as an invitation to transform the destructive tendencies of the subculture of the dependencies by a constructive and creative encounter with itself and with the other. Respect, understanding that each person is a different being and has different needs. Respect as a reflection of the recognition of these differences and the attention to their needs and rights.

I want to invite not to leave for tomorrow what we can start today, where postponement and passivity have become the main characteristic in front of all the problems exposed, it is time to divest ourselves of the words game and the construction of projects that do not they become more than an ideal, but to take a true conscience with an open and empathetic dialogue that evolves to an influence that generates innovation and conformity for a common good, where public policies run in one way. We have to work to generate a commitment in our society that facilitates citizen participation championed by the new generations that claim to play a leading role in the face of the problems of the country.

Reason, finally, to participate in this great process, which in the long term would be very rewarding. I invite the whole society and the State to commit ourselves with smiles, not with accusations, stigmata, trials, penalties and jails; but to give everything with love to those who need it. In Medellin, Colombia, during my last certification process, I learned that these young people are angels with only one wing, and I fell in love to look for the deployment of the second one so that they can take flight, a free flight with its own brightness, that's where my Life becomes an eternal service.

Text originally appears in the book "The country to come: horizon common" Editor Diego Echegoyen. January 2018. ISBN: 978-99923-922-9-4