Educate 1,800 impoverished children in Honduras

LATEST NEWS FROM OUR HONDURAS PROGRAMME – SEPTEMBER 2021 

We are happy to report that all the boys and girls in our Honduran education programme remain happy, healthy and in school.

However, for the majority of children in Honduras they are not so fortunate. Schools in the Latin America and the Caribbean region have been hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, with 158 days of full school closures on average. These closures have deprived the children of potential life-saving interventions, such as school feeding. Lockdowns and curfews have increased safety threats in the home and local area, particularly for women and girls.

The country has also been ravaged by the economic catastrophe caused by lengthy lock-downs. In regions where children were already disproportionately hit by poverty and inequalities, the pandemic has further undermined their fate. The forecast unemployment and income losses are expected to greatly impact the large informal job sector upon which poor Honduran families rely for their menial income. Children of these families are the focus of our work.

Despite so many challenges, including soaring prices in food and essential goods, our partners, the Sisters of Mary have successfully maintained the education programme. Local companies and the families of the children have been generously helping with food and sanitary donations where they can which has been a tremendous help to an ever-increasing stretched budget.

At the current time face-to-face teaching has not been able to resume. Some of the teachers live in the school so have been able to take lessons but most of the classes are still being delivered virtually.

The Sisters have worked hard to ensure that the children are as active as possible outside of their classwork. Both schools have busy sports and artistic programmes and take part in many competitions to keep their motivation levels up.

We were thrilled to welcome 183 girls and 194 boys to our schools in Tegucigalpa and Amarateca respectively. Despite being malnourished and behind with their studies, they have all settled in well to their new school-life and making the most of the opportunity they have been given.

All of these children can from the most impoverished backgrounds imaginable with their families and communities plunged into deeper poverty due to the pandemic. Some of the stories of their life before joining the schools are harrowing. Stories such as Edwin’s:

Edwin’s story

 “My name is Edwin and I am 12 years old. I have a twin called Cleofe and two other younger brothers. My parents are simple farmers who till the soil for us in order to survive.

“In 2019, I tried to migrate to the United States with my father, hoping for a brighter future for my family, but it ended in despair. My mother, my twin and two other younger brothers stayed at home, and prayed for our safety.

“During the journey, I saw and experienced many difficulties; the shortage of money, hunger, tiredness, lack of shelter and many others. I feared for our safety too because some people had guns and rifles; I thought it would be the end of my life.

“When we reached the border of Mexico and the US, we traveled across the Rio Bravo by night in a plastic boat. After crossing the river, while walking, soldiers captured and brought us to prison. We were in one cell with many other migrants. The next day, they sent us back to Honduras by bus and we returned home to my family. This migration experience took 22 days.

 “During my travels, I was informed that my twin, Cleofe, had passed the examination to join the Sisters of Mary school in Amarateca and that I would have to be parted from him.

“I worked together with my father over the last difficult year since he couldn’t afford to send me to school. I was working in the field, planting vegetables, harvesting and cleaning. I so wanted to be with my twin at school.

“Earlier this year that dream came true and I am now in Grade 7 and Cleofe is in Grade 8 – I need to catch up on all my missed studies to I can join his class. 

“After my five years of education at the school I want to continue my studies in college. I want to be a mechanical engineer because I’m interested in cars and I want to have my own company someday. I thank God every day for all the people who have helped me reach my dream. After my traumatic experience of trying to migrate with my father, I hope that I can be a professional and be able to travel safe and sound and lift my poor family out of poverty.”

• Honduran update report with photos (PDF)
  

Despite the numerous challenges that have faced the Sisters of Mary since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, they were delighted to welcome new girls to our secondary school earlier this year in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Cases of the virus are still very high in the country and restrictions for internal travel remain. As a result, the Sisters haven’t been able to undertake their routine community work to meet children living in desperate poverty who would benefit from their interventions.

Last November, through the help of local parish priests and former graduates, around 500 extremely vulnerable girls were identified and put forward for a virtual interview and entrance exam.

In January, 181 girls were enrolled at the school and were rigorously tested for the virus on arrival and were required to be quarantined for two weeks before joining their other class-mates.

The Sisters tell us that many of the girls were very thin and malnourished and some were experiencing anxiety as a result of the pandemic. They have now settled in well and are very pleased to be in the safety of the school environment and the care of the Sisters.

They also tell us that they had to adapt quickly to remote learning methods. For the first time, they used Zoom to bring the teachers into the classroom. This has meant investing in new laptops, a sound system, projectors and cabling to enable the education programme to continue un-interrupted.

This new type of learning has enabled the girls to keep up with their studies and sit their annual exams, which graduates helped supervise along with a teacher on Zoom.

The pandemic continues to have a financial impact on the Sisters of Mary programmes with the price of staple foods such as, wheatflour, vegetables, milk, rice and beans doubling. Supplies are often hard to come by as many of the markets have been forced to close. Despite these challenges, the Sisters have maintained three nutritious meals a day for all the children.

At the time of writing, the vaccination programme hasn’t yet got underway in Honduras, but we were delighted to learn that Israel has recently donated five million vaccines so hopefully this situation will change very soon.

One of the best ways to understand the transformational impact the Sisters of Mary’s humanitarian programmes have on the beneficiaries is to hear their personal stories.

Meet Eva, a recent graduate

Eva was the youngest in a family of eight children living in the slums of Honduras.

Her father was a construction worker but work was unreliable and the family struggled to survive. Living in poverty, begging and scavenging on the rubbish dumps, life was harsh for them all. Instead of attending school the children were working long hours in danger to support themselves.

In 2013, the Sisters of Mary met Eva and, with the generosity of our donors, they were able to provide a place for her at school in Tegucigalpa in January 2014. Eva studied hard at school and in the care of the Sisters she excelled in her subjects. In June 2018, she was awarded the Gold Award for Academic Excellence by President Juan Orlando Hernández, an award for only 12 students in Honduras each year. In July 2018 she represented the school in the regional Maths Olympiad. She went on to win this and then the National Math and Physics Olympiad. Later in 2018 she represented Honduras at the Ibero-American Physics Competition held in Porto Rico.

When Eva first started school she wanted to become a teacher. Now aged 18 and with her new skills in Maths and Science she wants to help her family and ‘bring food for all the poor people in Honduras’ and she has won a full scholarship to Zamorano Agricultural University in Honduras, centre of excellence for agricultural studies in Latin America. She is a shining light at the University and destined for a future professional career that will be ‘of benefit to the most needy communities.’

May 2021

Links:

• What World Villages for Children exists to do
• Our secondary school programme in Honduras

• Latest news from our Honduras programme (PDF)