The Santa Marta Center:
Why we do it
Martha came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered, “Martha, you are distracted by many things; there is need of only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her.”
-Luke 10:40-42
St. Martha reminds us to show hospitality. Jesus liberates us from society’s expectations of gender.
Our Story
The Santa Marta Center is a community-based shelter, care, and advocacy space for LGBTIQ+ youth in El Salvador.
We respond to the violence many young queer people face at home, in schools, in public institutions, in migration processes, and in the streets. For many, family rejection or domestic violence leads directly to homelessness, forced displacement, interrupted education, emotional crisis, and exposure to further harm. Santa Marta exists to interrupt that chain.
Our first task is care. We provide emergency shelter, food, hygiene support, psychosocial accompaniment, safety planning, referrals, and practical support for young people who need a safe place to stabilize. Each person arrives with a different story, so our response is careful, direct, and grounded in dignity.
Our work also reaches beyond shelter. Santa Marta advocates for the rights, safety, and social inclusion of LGBTIQ+ youth in El Salvador and the region. We document patterns of violence, raise public awareness, build alliances with civil society and faith-based partners, contribute to international advocacy spaces, and promote policies and practices that recognize queer youth as people with rights, needs, and futures.
We also work to change the conditions that make shelters necessary. This means challenging stigma, strengthening community protection networks, supporting access to services, and helping institutions understand how violence, exclusion, poverty, migration, and family rejection affect LGBTIQ+ youth.
Our approach is rooted in care, community, inclusion, and human rights. Protection is more than a roof. It also means being believed, being called by your name, having your identity respected, receiving support during crisis, and finding concrete paths toward autonomy.
Founded in El Salvador, the Santa Marta Center works with psychosocial staff, volunteers, community leaders, faith-based allies, civil society organizations, and international partners. Together, we build immediate responses and long-term strategies for young people who have been pushed out of the places where they should have been safest.
We exist because LGBTIQ+ youth deserve safety, belonging, and the chance to build their own lives.
Our Team
Eduardo Madrid
Helen Jacobo
Eduardo has a Bachelor's Degree in International Affairs. He has spent the last several years working as a researcher specialized in human rights in Central America's Northern Triangle. He studies the social construction of hatred that LGBTIQ+ people face throughout their lives, as well as economic opportunities for LGBTIQ+ youth. In 2017, he published an innovative study examining the attitudes of rejection towards sexual diversity and the failures of El Salvador's judicial system when addressing hate crimes.
He loves his dog Shanti and actively seeks queer literature for leisure. Shanti and Eduardo are both Swifties.
According to her mother, Helen has always been "tremendous!" Her mother, a passionate social worker, has been an example who nurtured Helen's desire and love for community, seeking experiences, and persistence. Helen remembers from a young age accompanying her in her community work. She has volunteered with the Salvadoran Red Cross supporting with psychological first aid, and worked in her university library systematizing information. She has also participated in various training processes on strengthening women's leadership, training in human rights, gender and sexual diversity, survivor attention, migration issues, labor rights and training in lesbian-feminist politics.
She loves to live intensely, and she has graduated from a military parachute course with 5 jumps.
Joseph Russ
Joseph Russ is a Graduate Student pursuing his Master's Degree in Latin American Theology at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas in San Salvador. There, he researches the theological implications of people's experience of deportation. After spending four years working in human rights in El Salvador, he has dedicated himself to building international partnerships and raising funds to support this essential work. In the past, he has served as a missionary with the United Methodist Church, and now volunteers with a coalition of progressive movements, supporting efforts to build bridges of international cooperation in the UMC.
When not at work, he loves to sing, dance, and play with his cat.
Our Partners
Our partners provide us with invaluable support, connecting us with other services we are unable to provide, consultations, or financial support. If your church, organization, or community group wants to explore a partnership with the Santa Marta Anglican Center for LGBTIQ+ Youth and Young Adults, shoot us an email!
