biography of East Coast Victory Tour speaker Audelia Lopez

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Audelia Guadalupe Lopez de Kleutgens

Audelia Lopez is a coordinating member of the FMLN’s National Women’s Secretariat, the body within the party that works for the advancement of female political leadership and the vindication of women’s rights.  She is also the FMLN’s Adjunct Coordinator for the department of Chalatenango in the north of El Salvador, working on strategic development with Mayors and the FMLN’s local organizing efforts, and a Substitute Deputy to the National Legislative Assembly.

The National Women’s Secretariat was instrumental in the popular organization that brought about the March 15th historic victory of President Mauricio Funes and Vice-president Salvador Sanchez Ceren as the first leftist president and vice-president in the history of El Salvador.  The female vote was very important in this election (women make up 52% of the Salvadoran electorate) and the Secretariat’s grassroots organizing and political education efforts were crucial to the FMLN’s success at the polls.  In addition to Ms. Lopez’s organizing work with the Women’s Secretariat, she also coordinated all of the electoral efforts for Chalatenango as the departmental Chief of the Campaign.

Ms. Lopez was elected for her third term as a Substitute Deputy to the National Legislative Assembly in this past January’s legislative elections.  During her time in the Assembly, she has primarily participated in the Economic Commission as well as leadership and political trainings that the Women’s Secretariat provides for women Deputies.

In 1979, one year before the founding of the FMLN, Ms. Lopez organized into the Farabundo Marti Popular Liberation Forces (FPL)—one of the five leftist political-military organizations that joined together to form the FMLN and launch a guerrilla offensive in 1980.  As an FPL combatant in the guerrilla front of Chalatenango, Ms. Lopez worked primarily in community political education and with the Women’s Association of El Salvador (AMES)—a group that organized for women’s rights during the period of armed combat.  When the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, ending the Civil War and recognizing the FMLN as a political party, Ms. Lopez helped coordinate the centers for political education known as the Popular Schools in Chalatenango.

Ms. Lopez will be touring the East Coast of the United States (with stops in Boston, New York City, and Washington D.C.) to speak about the grassroots organizing to bring out and defend the vote that led to the historic leftist victory in El Salvador on March 15th.  She will also discuss the many challenges that the new administration (inaugurated on June 1st) will face and their concrete plans to bring about real democratic change in El Salvador.

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