A new service for the Communities Working Together Project
A USAID funded project, implemented by Chemonics International in El Salvador
Transforming lives in El Salvador: A Service for Lasting Impact
In El Salvador, the incarceration of more than 70,000 gang members in over 2 years under the state of exception has raised a critical question: how can we sustain peace and provide vulnerable young people with real alternatives to gang life? Funded by USAID and implemented by Chemonics International in El Salvador, the Communities Working Together (CWT) project aims to tackle this question and reduce youth vulnerability in targeted urban areas. This programme offers services that help these young people, their families, and their communities to reduce their risk of violence.
CWT is addressing the challenge of offering alternatives to gang life for youth by launching a new service rooted in the belief that designing an intentional way to socialise can be harnessed for prosocial and transformative outcomes, especially for hard-to-reach youth. We call it Structured Socialisation, and Hidden is helping design the service experience for this core initiative.
A new service to experience teamship and belonging
Using Service Design methodology, we are crafting a service that empowers young people to connect, grow, and thrive. Central to this effort are experience maps, which visualise the journey young participants will take, clarifying the intent behind each stage of the service. At the same time, a service blueprint ensures cohesion of purpose and action across a diverse ecosystem of collaborators, including local and central government entities, NGOs, implementation partners, and the CWT team.
By using service design, we focus on:
An experience to replace gang structures with positive belonging: Offering vulnerable youth meaningful alternatives through experiences that offer mentorship, sports, and personal development.
Creating clarity and cohesion for implementation: Providing tools such as experience maps and service blueprints to align all collaborators and ensure consistent outcomes.
Designing for evolution and long-term impact: Building a service that can be refined over time, learning from each implementation phase to adapt and remain effective in changing community contexts.
La Campanera is a community with a complex history emblematic of gang violence. It contributed to the country’s reputation of being one the most dangerous places in the world since it was home to the Barrio 18 gang, one of the two major gangs in the country. Photo by Eva Guerra.
Photo by Communities Working Together Project, El Salvador
Empowering change:
A pilot for El Salvador’s hard-to-reach communities
With the design phase nearing completed, the project was preparing for launching a pilot phase in the second quarter of 2025 to refine the model, validate its effectiveness, and set the stage for broader implementation and continual improvement. However, the project is currently paused following a global stop-work order from the U.S. State Department to all USAID-funded projects.
Photo by Communities Working Together Project, El Salvador
Photo by Eva Guerra
Photo by Communities Working Together Project, El Salvador