Volunteerism

Educate2Envision Spreads Education in Honduras

When you see the state of education there, with only one or two students graduating from sixth grade and girls getting married at 13 or 14 and having kids. ... It's shocking to our culture, but that's what they have to do to survive. They need to work and so school is left behind.
-Katia Gomez

By Chris Metinko
Katia Gomez knew how this usually worked. When she and some college classmates visited Honduras during spring break in 2009 with a group called Global Brigade, the goal was to survey water quality and sanitation. She helped dig ditches and build water storage structures. They are the things altruistic college students sometimes do, before they settle back into their more comfy college lives never to return to those less fortunate areas. "I thought about that, you know?" said Gomez, 23, a native of San Leandro, California. "You just go back to college for whatever and never go back. I didn't feel good about that."

Comments (1)

The Pilgrimage to Copán

For the past eight years, Copán Ruinas has served as the site of an annual pilgrimage by people from all walks of life, various faiths, and different countries. The purpose of the pilgrimage has been to come together as a community to find ways to become more enlightened and learn how to work as One.

By Marco Cáceres
For the Jewish people, it is Jerusalem. For Muslims, it is Mecca. For Catholics, it is Vatican City. For non-Catholic Christians, it is Bethlehem. For Buddhists, it is Bodh Gaya. For Hindus, it is Varanasi. For Tibetan Buddhists, it is Llasa. For Sikhs, it is Amritsar. And on and on. It seems that every religion has its "Holy City" -- a place that holds special significance to that particular faith, belief system, or movement. These wonderful cities provide a spiritual connection to the past and a place where individuals can go to feel closer to something beyond their limited physical existence. They offer a location where people can come together with others of like-mind to worship, pray, meditate, and become better human beings by recommitting to radical teachings of how to better treat each other and thus eventually truly become One. (9/28/10)

Comments (1)

In Gratitude to Copán

I did not know what a counterpart was in 2003. I just knew that we needed someone “on the ground” if we hoped to put on a conference with a bare minimum number of headaches.

By Marco Cáceres
When we first thought of moving the Conference on Honduras from Washington, DC to Copán Ruinas in 2003, the idea was to “test the waters” and see how easy (or difficult) it would be to stage the event in Honduras. After having completed three consecutive conferences in Washington without any problems, we were concerned with the prospects of trying to organize the conference from afar (I live in Washington and my partners, Jerry and Sandra Thompson of Special Missions Foundation, lived in a small town in Texas). We knew a few people in Copán Ruinas, and we had a vague feeling that the town was the right place to hold the conference in Honduras. But that was it, really. In March 2003, I took my first trip to Copán Ruinas. My Hedman Alas bus left Comayaguela around 6 am, and I arrived in Copán Ruinas shortly after noon. I walked down the cobblestone streets toward the central plaza and checked into the Plaza Copán hotel, next to the Catholic church.

JTF-Bravo Team Hikes Food to El Paraíso

All ranks of JTF-Bravo members chipped in nearly US$1,700 for the food. A portion of the money was also used to buy two piñatas for the children and basic school supplies, including pencils, pens and paper for 120 students.

By Matthew McGovern
More than 120 Joint Task Force-Bravo personnel hiked two miles up steep terrain June 11, to deliver food to people living in an isolated village near Comayagua. JTF-Bravo Army, Air force, Navy and Marine hikers carried 160 bags of food in backpacks, as part of a bi-monthly Chapel Hike to help the needy. "This was by far the largest group that we've ever taken in the history of chapel hikes and it's the largest amount of money raised and families we catered to," said Chaplain (Maj) Daniel Thompson, JTF-Bravo Command Chaplain.

Building on Kennedy's Alliance for Progress

... it was becoming clear that most Hondurans did not have the education to compete with other Central Americans for jobs requiring more than assembly-line skills, jobs that support families. Those jobs are becoming increasingly important as campesinos, hurt by foreign trade, move to urban areas to find work.

By Carol Frey
The late President John F. Kennedy had the right idea in 1961 when he pledged US$20 billion to help Latin America’s poor through the Alliance for Progress initiative. Kennedy said all nations of the Western Hemisphere would work together against tyranny, and for social change that would relieve poverty. To the people of Latin America, “to the campesino in the fields, to the obrero in the cities, to the estudiante in the schools,” President Kennedy said, “... prepare your mind and heart for the task ahead -- call forth your strength and let each devote his energies to the betterment of all, so that your children and our children in this hemisphere can find an ever richer and a freer life.”

Comments (1)

The Pure Logic of Short-term Missions

It is a bit troubling to me when I hear comments these days questioning the effectiveness of short-term missions. Any process can be improved, and mission work does need to be thoughtfully planned, but I have no doubt that short-term work can be effective...

By Thomas Poteet
Ia had always considered mission work as something good, something approved of by God, something I should support... but something that was for a different type of person than me. And I don’t mean different in the “find your gift” sense. I mean in the sense that I am the cautious type. Maybe “precautious type” is a better term. Real mission work was for people who could suspend a little bit of common sense. I had been on several domestic mission trips in high school, and felt afterwards that some good had been done, felt good about my part, and felt glad to have met new people. But those trips hadn’t really caused me to suspend my sense of caution or enlightened my sense of how blessed I was. And I was satisfied with my efforts to support mission work.

The Transformative Nature of Mission Work

The activity that we call "mission work" is one very good way to learn how to become One because the more we engage in it, the more our eyes are open to the fact that we on planet Earth are more alike than different. And that those superficial physical traits to which we ascribe... in the end, mean absolutely nothing.

By Marco Cáceres
There are thousands of "mission teams" that travel to Honduras every year. On any given flight to Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula from the United States, anywhere between one-fifth to one-third of the passengers (you know, the ones with the brightly-colored t-shirts) on the plane are members of teams doing a wide range of volunteer work in the cities and in remote towns and villages. These teams are sent mostly by medical brigade groups, churches, universities, hospitals, and civic club organizations such as Rotary. While most of the work of mission teams tends to focus on providing education, healthcare, and construction services, there are some teams that are involved in religious activities such as conducting Vacation Bible School (VBS), spiritual retreats, and campaigns to convert and "save" people by teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Losing Carolina

Her eyes were not the happy, glittering pools they had always been before. During her last visit to the hospital, Carolina had overheard the doctors saying that she had become terminal. Carolina knew that she was going to die.

By Pam Harrison
A long time ago, an impish dark-headed, bright-eyed and intelligent 10-year old girl, came to Paramedics For Children headquarters in Copán Ruinas with her mother. Her name was Carolina Cordona, and she had cancer. So we did what we do best... We took pictures and told her story. We asked for help and we got it. Donations came pouring in. Enough to have all of the necessary tests, medications, and enough for the chemotherapy that eventually was needed to help save her life. Carolina loved three things in life; she loved her family, her dolls, and she loved to go to school. The only thing that ever seemed to bother her were the few times she would have to stay home because she was too ill to attend class.

Three Dynamics for Change in Honduras

It is not possible to have a viable nation when its communities are working separately or against each other, knowingly or unknowingly. Few efforts in Honduras complement each other. Often, they negate or restrain each other's achievements or potential gains -- which only serves to reinforce the view of Honduras as a culture that takes one step forward and two steps back.

By Marco Cáceres
There are three major dynamics underway to change Honduras. The first one is political. It seeks to "refound" the country by rewriting the Constitution and having the government redistribute wealth, resources, and power to those who traditionally have had very little of these... In other words, more than half of the country's population which lives in poverty and has little means to improve its lot in life. The second is business-oriented. It seeks to stimulate economic growth by attracting investors to Honduras to undertake projects in key areas such as infrastructure, energy, agriculture, and tourism, with the goal of creating tens of thousands of jobs, fueling capital formation through increased exports, and making the country economically more self-sufficient and diverse. The third focuses on empowering people by promoting -- on a wide and coordinated scale -- grassroots projects (many of them volunteer-based) targeting basic needs such as education, healthcare, and stable families and communities.

Thinking on Amplification

I'm not sure why some people believe that map coordinates should determine which child is more deserving of assistance than another... which child should live and which should die.

By Rodger Harrison
The good we do in the world is determined by the words we speak and write. When telling about the children of Honduras, we have to understand that every word about them makes a difference. Say too much, and we lose the reader. Say too little, and the message is lost. Since a child's life may depend on these words, the words must be crafted carefully. This is always a challenge when reporting to the world about the needs of the children we serve in Honduras, because we know that in seconds these words can leap from the page into the mind and heart of the reader.