Mangrove Cybercafe: Getting Ready for Business

On Monday, August 23rd, 2004, the Coordinadora's Mangrove Cybercafe opened for business in San Nicolas, El Salvador.

The Cybercafe is a special project: it promises not only to provide needed skills, opportunities, communications, and information access to dozens of rural communities, but it will also provide revenue to help support other important projects like sustainable agriculture.

The following photos depict part of the setup process.

Here is the satelite dish used for the high-speed internet connection.

Note the boxes in the background. These were used to ship generous donations of computers and parts from Chicago, Olympia, and Austin to El Salvador.
Estela Hernandez, a community leader, helps facilitate the training and planning process for Cybercafe staff.
Trainees in a meeting.
The interior of the cybercafe, during a break in a training session.

The young people from the communities who will be working in the Cybercafe aren't just employees, they're interns. They will learn the business, computer, and repair skills necessary to make this community-run cybercafe a success.

Here, Moises and Chepe assemble a computer desk.

A finished computer desk.

The Cybercafe hopes to eventually have 15 working computers. To reach that capacity, they still seek the donation of working Pentium III or better machines.

Walter, Diana, Nielson, and Freddy from Ciudad Romero help test run of the computers and equipment.
On Sunday, a group of volunteers from the Jewish Youth Philanthropy Project (JYPI) arrived to help get things ready for opening day.
Here, one volunteer helps test the computer network.

The JYPI volunteers generously donated their extra luggage space to bring the computer donations from Chicago and Austin.

Here, a volunteer helps to set up one of the computers that they brought down.
A cold soft drink after a long day's work in El Salvador.

To receive future updates on the Cybercafe and other projects in El Salvador by the FSSCA and Coordinadora, click here.

To view a few more photos of the JYPI volunteers working on the Cybercafe, click here.

To donate a computer or anything else to this project, or for more information about the Cybercafe, contact Sean Hale at 512-388-7957 or