“I was born and raised in El Salvador during the civil war that ravaged that country for about twelve years (1980-1992). During those tragic years, I experienced firsthand the consequences of an armed conflict. Particularly, over the families who lost one of their loved ones due to the political and repressive context. When I was in High School I studied the historical causes of the conflict, as well as its endogenous and exogenous factors, such as political and military repression and external intervention from foreign potencies. That was when I realized for the very first time that any political and military conflict has a very concrete social foundation. In my country of origin, that conflict was clearly based on a systemic social injustice in regards to the distribution and use of the most basic social goods, such as the access to land, education, health, and the control of public institutions and laws that regulate the social connivance.”
Originally from El Salvador, Reca Fernandez has lived in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Spain, and now in the US. He earned his Doctoral Degree in Education at the University of Oviedo, Asturias, Spain. His doctoral thesis focuses on Participatory Action Research applied to social development projects. He is also a specialist on Popular Education methodologies applied to community organizing, organizational development and leadership development. Reca Fernandez is the co-founder of La Tapizca (“the harvest”, in Spanish) in Honduras and now Popular Education Consultants in the US that assesses progressive social organizations in terms of educational and organizational capacity building processes.
As part of his consultant job, Reca Fernandez has facilitated educational processes for community leaders on human rights, social leadership, popular education, gender, masculinity and community development. He has been working intensively on strategic plans, strategic campaigns plans, organizational evaluations, and leadership development processes in the USA and evaluating socio-economic development projects in Central America at the same time.
Reca currently resides in Florida.