Francisco Napoleon Pacheco

Most of my life I have worked with the popular movement in El Salvador and with community organizations in the United States, I am an organizer and educator. With NDLON I work in the program management area with workers, in the southern estates of the United State, affected by anti-immigration law, organizing grassroots communities and networks. With “RENASE” I am a volunteer, working with the topics of culture and identity. I arrived to the United States as many do, crossing rivers, fronteers and deserts. Before my involvement with the pro-immigrant movement I worked in construction. I like working with communities, and my dream is for communities to have POWER through their leadership, and of course with economic and social development.

How does your current work relate to economic democracy?:

I do transnational work with El Salvador, I work with workers in the southern states. About the work with the workers, the hiring centers are an economic experience with the relation between worker and boss, at the national level we have conducted some efforts for cooperation, but we have not being able to have a deep impact with those efforts. I think the worker’s center  should transform to cooperatives, to improve the workers’ quality of life, as well as a space for them to learn to make collective decisions for the benefit of the cooperative and of the community. I have always thought about the importance to contribute to create power from a participatory economy point of view, that allows people to be self-sustainable. In the southern states, through the “Comites de Base” (based committees), we could conduct sustainable projects, as well as with the community in El Salvador, to establish a healthy economic democracy that benefits the community.