Donate Now
On Thursday, November 15, 2018, join Pulitzer Center grantee Danny Gold at Guttman Community College for a focus on the role of the evangelical church in El Salvador as one route by which gang members can change the course of their lives.
Gold discusses his Pulitzer Center-supported project “The Only Way Out in El Salvador,” in which he reports on the gang members who are looking to Christianity for a second chance at a non-violent lifestyle in El Salvador. He found that while gangs like MS-13 and 18th Street generally do not allow members to quit without penalty of death, there’s only one exception: joining an evangelical church. Meanwhile, the government of El Salvador continues cracking down on gangs, and law enforcement rounds up anyone with any links to the gangs, even church officials that work with them to foster peace. While some in El Salvador praise the pastors and reformed gang members for changing their ways, others wonder whether these actions are a way to escape the wrath of law enforcement or rivals.
Gold is one of the founding correspondents and producers for VICE News. He has reported from 17 countries, and his work has been on a range of outlets including Netflix, PBS, MSNBC, BBC, the New Yorker and Wall Street Journal. He was a 2013 Ford Fellow at the International Center for Journalists with a focus on the Rohingya in Myanmar, and returned in 2016 to do a documentary that exposed UN inaction through leaked internal documents.
This event is free event and open to Guttman Community College students, faculty, staff and the public. Guttman Community College is part of the Pulitzer Center's Campus Consortium network.
Earlier in the day, Gold also meets with Guttman students and faculty for a session focused on his work generally and his career path to becoming a journalist and producer. Ann Peters, university and community outreach director at the Pulitzer Center, accompanies Gold on the visit.