HONDURAS 2019 

 At the end of January we (former Xavier parishioner Monica Maher, Mary Phelan and myself) returned to Honduras at a time when the residents of that country continue to face difficult choices due to dire political and economic conditions.  We found that the people whom we visited have a lot of potential which could be realized if only they can get a break.  They work hard to try to make things better but it is always a challenge under a repressive and corrupt government that gives no break to anyone except the wealthy. 
 
We visited both groups of scholarship students in the programs which Xavier has supported for over 15 years.  The students were still on their two-month vacation which, for them, is the months of December and January.  We traveled to a small village in a poor rural area where most of the students in one of the groups live and go to school.  In past years we met at locations more convenient for us and so the students and their leadership team appreciated that this time we came to their turf.  We stayed overnight in the village and met the next morning near the church which sponsors the program in a hall which was specially decorated in anticipation of our arrival.  The leadership team does an excellent job in keeping records and mentoring the students. All 17 students had averages over 80 last year with the exception of 2 students who were ill, and four had averages over 93.  Each recipient must perform at least 16 hours of verified community service and they meet as a group once a month.  They all wrote letters of appreciation and spoke of their hopes and challenges.  We shared lunch and played an ice-breaking game.



We visited the second group of students in the program managed by a women's co-operative in the village of Guacamaya.  The leader of the group now is a very dynamic woman who has a lot of plans for the group and for the community.  The group also anticipated our arrival by taking us to the nearby community library where many children had gathered and the program in the library for the coming year was described.  Then the adolescents performed a program for us based on Christian rap.  The story they acted out had a “West Side Story” kind of theme, with the ultimate appearance of one of them wrapped in a white sheet indicating he was Jesus and would save them from their life of violence.  The women prepared lunch for us and we then met as a larger group with the scholarship students.
 
Both groups requested that we expand the programs to the university level and a few students have already made requests for assistance.  We agreed and established procedures whereby requests would be addressed to the program leaders who would vet the applications before forwarding them to us.  The amount which most students would need at that level is $400 or $500 per semester compared to about $100 per semester which students receive at the secondary school level.  We hope that some parishioners at Xavier, either individually or in groups, would be willing to undertake this support.  While not guaranteed, a student who has hope of a higher education degree is certainly less likely to  leave the country in a caravan.



We also visited Casa Corazon, the home for children who are HIV+ and who have designed the holiday cards which we sell during each season of Advent.  Some of the older residents have now moved on to lives on their own or with other family members.  But a couple of them have simply disappeared.  The overall age of the children in residence is advancing as fewer unwanted HIV+ babies are born.  We took about 25 of the children to lunch at Pizza hut which they always enjoy.
 
On another day we went to a prison where currently the Friends Peace Team, a Quaker group, has instituted their program of workshops called Alternative to Violence (AVP).  We arrived just as the three-day workshop in Trauma Healing was finishing.  About 150 prisoners have now taken at least one workshop and the program has spread to the women's prison adjacent.  The location of the prison is in an isolated rural area reached by a dirt road which runs through pineapple plantations. There is a police checkpoint at the entrance where you must give up your passport.  No mobile phones or cameras are allowed inside. Inside; the prisoners organize to manage the operation of the prison.  "Cells" consist of four levels of bunk beds from floor to ceiling with about 20 people in each such "dormitory".  Guards lock them in for 12 hours at night and periodically raid the prison for weapons but otherwise do not enter the prison.  During the day, prisoners circulate freely in the courtyards.  Some weave cloth, others have laundry or kitchen duties, play games, use the small library or attend an English class given by a volunteer teacher.  The AVP workshop was in the prison chapel.  We attended the afternoon wrap-up session which included the facilitators, and five volunteer coordinators who are convicts who have previously taken the program. Those 5 talked very matter-of-factly about their backgrounds. One, for example, said he left home at age 10, was participating in gang murders by age 11, became an assassin and entered prison at age 16.  He was transferred to this prison after he participated in an uprising at his earlier prison.  He is now 35. Another one is a composer who has written several songs for guitar with an AVP theme.  All 5 feel that AVP has changed their lives.  One of them, when he is released in a few years, would like to go back to his community to bring the AVP program to the streets.  But he can't because his old friends will remember him as he was and expect him to go back to that kind of life.

One final experience in Honduras was a visit to a maternity hospital. Friends here belong to a knitting group which knits small teddy bears with various colors of yarn and some decorations for children in hospitals.  One of our earlier scholarship students in Honduras went on to nursing school with the help of three people here at Xavier and now works as a nurse in the public maternity hospital and she told me the mothers would love the bears.  So she met us at the hospital and we distributed 50 teddy bears in the maternity ward and clinic.  In Honduras each year girls as young as 10 give birth.  Abortion is prohibited even in cases of incest which is a big problem.
 
And so we had a busy four days on the ground in Honduras.  Thanks again to parishioners here who have supported our efforts over the last 20 years.  Please contact me if you would like to be more involved in this effort.

 You can make a donation to our project via Faith Direct

https://membership.faithdirect.net/givenow/NY406/10577

To join us on our next trip, or for more information, contact Brian Hotaling at [email protected].

As always, thank you for your support!