We are a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting the Salvadoran people’s struggle for self-determination and social and economic justice. The alternative that they are building –an alternative based upon democratic and socialist ideals–is an example to all people who seek a world free of domination and exploitation. We support that alternative because we believe that capitalism is a fundamentally unjust, oppressive and ecologically unsustainable economic system.

We join with poor and working people, immigrants and refugees in the struggle against neoliberalism– the current manifestation of capitalism imposed by the United States government and its state, institutional and corporate allies. Neoliberal policies continue to produce enormous suffering and destabilization around the world. We focus our work on El Salvador because of the U.S. government’s continuing military, economic, and political intervention on behalf of U.S. corporate interests, and because the Salvadoran people’s tenacious and inspiring struggle to build social justice.

We work to achieve three basic goals:

1. To end U.S. economic, political and military intervention in El Salvador and by extension Central America, the Caribbean, and all of the Americas. In the current context we work to end U.S.-imposed global economic policies that devastate local cultures and economies, specifically in El Salvador.

2. To give political and material support to the grassroots movement in El Salvador for self-determination, economic democracy and social justice. The groups we strive to support and collaborate with include labor, women’s, youth, LGBT and other grassroots organizations. We stand in solidarity with the Farabundo Marti­ National Liberation Front (FMLN), as we have since our founding, because of its central role in building a new, egalitarian society.

3. To help build a broad-based progressive U.S. social movement and an international, working-class led movement for economic and social justice.

We challenge ourselves to reflect in our own work the ideals and the vision we have of a society free from all forms of injustice. CISPES’s organizing methodology is an anti-oppressive model of building power and leadership while accounting for the individual privileges we hold and oppressions that we face.

CISPES uses a wide variety of creative tactics to achieve our goals. These include: public protest and education, grassroots lobbying of policy makers and fundraising for both our own work and material aid to El Salvador. Part of our mission is to build and strengthen the progressive movement in this country, by forming alliances with organizations that share our vision, especially grassroots organizations.

We also support other progressive forces in Central America, the Caribbean, and all of the Americas which are working for human rights, democracy and social justice. Inspired by the growth of Left political parties and social movement organizations, CISPES works in coalition with other forces in the U.S. that are supporting social movements and governments building a people-centered alternative in Latin America. In addition, we support fundamental human rights for Salvadorans and other immigrants and refugees in the United States, regardless of their so-called “legal” status.