In 2006, Students
Helping Honduras built a small one-classroom elementary school that
benefitted more than 100 children in the shantytown of Siete de Abril.
One of them was Juli Rodas, then a ten-year-old girl who became the
first girl in her family ever to graduate from elementary school. She
is thin, shy and is always carrying her three year old brother on her
back. Her father works as a night guard at a local car wash and her
mother washes clothes in the neighborhood to supplement the family's
meager income. Until SHH built her family a new cinder-block home, Juli
lived in a dilapidated shack built with rotting tin and cardboard
boxes. The house had no electricity so she had to study under the
candle light to study in the evenings. The only source of water came
from a nearby river that everyone used to wash their clothes. She kept
all of her possessions in one small box at the corner of her home where
the rain didn't leak in. She shares a mattress that sits on a piece of
rotting wood with two of her siblings.
Despite all
of the odds going against her, Juli graduated in 2007 as the
valedictorian from the elementary school we built. She studied day and
night to get the award. Everyone in her village, including Juli,
thought that she would continue onto high school. After all, she had
nearly perfect scores in the sixth grade. Not only did Juli have a
chance at becoming the first girl in her family to graduate from high
school, she could soon become the first girl in the entire village to
do so. Everyone cheered her on. But there was one major
problem.
Her parents, both of whom work, still
lacked the financial means to support her education. In Honduras, a
child needs school uniforms, textbooks and transportation to attend
high school. For a family that struggles to put food on the table,
those expenses are often far beyond their reach. Children who come from
more rural areas like Siete de Abril often need expensive
extracurricular support (tutors, re-enforcement classes, mentors, etc)
to catch up with others who had access to better schools in the cities.
Juli was devastated for a while but decided to talk to our organization
to seek help. Upon finding out about her plight, SHH gave her a small
scholarship to cover most of her costs to study at the Hernandez Chevez
Secondary School. In return, Juli told us that she wouldn't let us
down.
She wasn't joking when she told us that. In
2010, Juli has successfully moved on to her third year at the secondary
school. She leaves before dawn on a crowded public bus to get to class,
but loves math class and her new friends. Juli is already thinking
about which college she is going to attend in the future. One day, Juli
playfully told us that she wanted to be the President of Honduras and
eliminate poverty in Honduras. We actually didn't think it would be
impossible at all, knowing how much potential she
had.
Unless both Hondurans and the international
community work together, thousands of kids like Juli will never have
access to an education, simply because they live in one of the poorest
countries in the hemisphere. Too many of Juli's peers in her city have
dropped out of school or never even had the chance to start. Others
have become beggars, gang members or prostitutes during the time we
have known her. In Juli's village alone, nearly 100 children are at
extremely high risk.
In Honduras, 170,000 children
are said to have been orphaned or abandoned. Claudia, a ten year old
girl from the city of San Pedro Sula is one of them. With an easy
smile, Claudia has short brown hair and is often caught doing pranks on
her friends. Her parents abandoned her years ago, forcing her
to spend time surviving alone in the streets. Eventually, the Honduran
government sent her to an overcrowded orphanage with rooms sealed by
iron bars and with very little access to an education. In
addition to her joke-loving personality, Claudia is extremely
intelligent and possessed an unusually strong desire to study.
One day, she surprised our volunteers when she
began reciting different words and phrases in English out of thin air.
Many of the children in the orphanage were illiterate, let alone know
any English. When we asked her where she had learned her English,
Claudia pulled out a dilapidated sheet of paper with something written
on it. It was a sheet of paper with different English phrases that a
volunteer had jotted down for her many months ago. She told us that
before going to going to bed every night, she pulls out the sheet of
paper and reads it over and over. Without access to books, computers or
even a simple magazine, this sheet of paper was her only way to educate
herself.
When we asked Claudia what she
wanted to be one day, she already had an answer. Claudia dreams of
becoming a doctor to help people with HIV and eventually start a
nonprofit organization to help other abandoned children in her country.
She smiled and said that is why she has to read the sheet of paper
every night because her dream would be impossible to reach without an
education. We bit our lips when she told us, knowing how difficult life
is in Honduras for children like Claudia who have no families to care
for them. Bureaucratic red tape makes adoptions and foster care almost
impossible in Honduras. Most orphanages are severely underfunded or too
overcrowded to accept more children. As a last resort, many of these
children live on the streets.
Children like Juli and
Claudia face challenges that seem impossible to overcome. As outsiders
and volunteers with little to no money, it is hard to fathom what can
be done. It' almost impossible not to be cynical when millions of
children face similar circumstances all over the world. How can an
ordinary person from places like the suburbs of Northern Virginia even
begin to help?
How can we
help?
The truth is, Students Helping Honduras has proven over
and over that ordinary students, parents and even kids can make a huge
impact, even from afar. We have successfully helped educate and empower
hundreds of kids in Honduras for the past five years. Hundreds of
volunteers have poured their sweat in Honduras and seen our results. So
here is why you should get involved with SHH in 2010 to help us raise
$200,000 for Honduras.
This spring, the first
$150,000 we raise will go towards the SHH Education and Empowerment
Fund. Help us provide a combination of material needs (school supplies,
transportation, etc.), extracurricular activities (Villa Soleada
Learning Center, tutoring, mentoring, etc/) opportunities for families
to become self-sufficient, and other programs to help hundreds of
children in places like Villa Soleada shatter the cycle of
poverty. We will also construct an
income-generating business center that will help the project become
self-sustainable
The next $50,000 we raise will help
SHH open a children's home at Villa Soleada so that orphaned and
abandoned kids can have a safe shelter, loving environment and an
excellent education. With the money, we can start the first
phase of the project and gradually expand in the coming years.
If you decide to join this monumental
challenge, we will help you create a personal fundraising page on our
website so you can keep a track of your progress. We will even help you
plan your fundraising letters and events. It could take a few
bake sales throughout the semester to reach your goal. It could take a
few letters and emails asking for donations towards your fundraising
page. Or it might take a benefit party that you organize with your
roommates. However way you decide to raise the money is totally up to
you and your chapter. It will only take 200 people to raise $1,000 each
to reach our $200,000 goal. Are you willing to spend just a few hours
each week to help educate and empower kids like Juli and Claudia? If
so, join us for the next 100 days of epic fundraising.
Students Helping Honduras is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Our tax ID number is 41-2191361. All contributions are tax deductible. Visit Guidestar to view our financial records.
