The Tikal Sur Outreach Center was an incubator for another kind of change maker in Apopa’s network of violence intervention practitioners: a family counselor named Izamar Marroquin. Marroquin grew up in Apopa and was a school teacher who volunteered at the Outreach Center where Rebeca still sings. Marroquin was hired by CESAL, a NGO that received a grant from CVPP to apply its risk diagnostic and family counseling model for youth violence prevention.

“That’s where my interest grew: my interest in youth, their behavior, their conduct with their parents, and the desire to be able to give a bit of what we had, that family warmth,” says Marroquin, who became a counselor as a result of working in the Tikal Sur Outreach Center. “The family is the first school.”

While Outreach Centers offer kids a safe space to play away from street culture and the pressure to join gangs, evidence shows that the family remains the most influential factor in a child’s life. CVPP’s family centered approach to violence prevention is based on evidence indicating that when families aren’t unified and parents aren’t supporting their kids, their resilience to gang involvement and violence is dramatically reduced.

Using a tool called the Youth Services and Eligibility Tool, youth in vulnerable communities are evaluated for their level of risk for joining a gang or engaging in violence. Those who measure at a heightened level of risk are referred accordingly to counselors to receive the more intensive and targeted family support.

“And that’s where another element comes in, the reality of the context in which we live. Youth can’t just move from one place to another,” said Marroquin.

She was referring to the fact that different gangs control and monitor sections of Apopa, and crossing these invisible borders can put kids in danger. Marroquin says she often had to be strategic about when and where she could meet her counseling charges, a reality that underscores a harsh environment.

Exposure to gangs is exacerbated in Apopa where parents are often forced to spend most of their time away from home working to make ends meet. 36 percent of households are under the responsibility of a single mother, which means a significant number of families are even more disadvantaged. Counselors say the most common struggles in the home were lack of attention given to kids, and parents’ absence.

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