El Salvador is a small and densely populated country in Central America with roughly 6.3 million inhabitants. Together with neighboring Honduras and Guatemala, it forms the so-called “Northern Triangle” – the region with the world’s highest murder rates. In 2015, gang crime claimed more than 20 lives a day in El Salvador alone. This gives the country the dubious glory of being in top position on the list of the bloodiest non-war countries in the world. Apart from violence, El Salvador faces several other problems: Almost 40% of its people live below the poverty line, even more are un- or underemployed, and environmental destruction is progressing rapidly. As a result, many people leave the country. Most of them try to enter the United States as illegal immigrants at the risk of their lives. Currently, about 2.2 million Salvadorians live in the USA.

The department of Morazán has about 200,000 inhabitants and is considered the poorest in the country. The vast majority of the population lives below the poverty line; almost 20% live in extreme poverty. Morazán is also characterized by particularly poor educational opportunities. On average, adults have only completed five years of education; more than 20% of the population is illiterate. Furthermore, the region was hit badly by the civil war in the 1980s. Many of the older inhabitants were directly involved in the war on the side of the guerrillas or the military dictatorship, lost friends or relatives or had to flee from the contested mountain regions to the lowlands or to Honduras. Direct and indirect consequences of the war are still strongly felt in the region today, dividing the population into two hostile political camps.