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Drawing on his personal evolution from troubled youth to mature champion of conflict resolution and social activism, Magdaleno Rose-Avila is launching a daring initiative to combat the growing phenomenon of gang violence that is ravaging post-war El Salvador.
    The son of Mexican farm workers who immigrated to the United States, Magdaleno worked the fields himself as a boy and was deeply affected by poverty and racism at an early age. His response to the inequity and prejudice he preceived was to retreat into anti-social behavior, violence and drug use. Magdaleno was profoundly influenced by the death of his younger sister, who was taken from her family as a teenager by the state, institutionalized, and went on to become a drug addict. He became determined to prevent this fate from befalling other troubled youths.
    Magdaleno had also undergone a profound conversion through his involvement in the United Farm Workers movement, which drew him into friendship and dialogue with César Chávez, and the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s, particularly the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King. He went on to work as a country director for the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Guatemala, with Amnesty International as director of a campaign to abolish the death penalty, and as the first director of the César Chávez Foundation.