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While these well-off teens are furthering their education, the majority of
Hondurans have not completed elementary school. Of those that have, boys
outnumber girls by two to one, as girls are expected to stay home to keep house
and raise children.
Oscar Anibal Puerto Posas, executive director of the Honduran
Institute for Rural Development, gives tour members an overview of the Honduran
social and economic situation. His daughter Clarisa (centre) and Horizons of
Friendship tour coordinator Rachael Currie translate.
OPSEU Senior Communications Officer Randy Robinson and Social
Justice Committee member Mary Cory pose with José Roman Hernandez. José’s wife,
labour leader Virginia Garcia de Sanchez, was traveling with Rosa Altagracia
Fuentes, general secretary of the Workers’ Confederation of Honduras, when six
masked gunmen opened fire on their car. Garcia de Sanchez, Fuentes, and their
driver died April 24, 2008. No group claimed credit for the murders, but many
suspect the two were targeted for their organizing work Honduras’ maquiladoras,
free-trade zones where labour laws do not apply.
With average per capita incomes at less than US$1,000 a year,
more than half of Hondurans live below the official poverty line.
In the poorest areas of Honduras, houses are made of stick
frames supporting walls made of mud and straw. Unfortunately, the walls are home
to a biting insect that spreads Chagas’ disease, an often-fatal infection of the
nerves and organs. Poverty and disease walk hand in hand.
 
Cassava bread from the roots of the yucca plant is a main source of
carbohydrates for traditional Garifuna communities. Horizons of Friendship
provided a motorized grater which eliminated most of the arduous manual labour
from the process of making flour.
Mary Cory, of the OPSEU Social Justice Committee, chats with
a baby in the Garifuna village of Guadelupe on the north coast of Honduras.
In 2001, the United Nations declared the Garifuna language,
music, and culture a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of
Humanity.”
Mary Cory with Irma Cristina Orellana of the Network of
Migrant and Migrant Family Members Committees of Honduras.
  
The participation of women is central to Horizons of
Friendship’s approach to development. Some of the women pictured here got up at
2:00 a.m. to walk seven hours over the mountains to meet with the Horizons
delegation.
A childcare centre in a tiny settlement high in the
mountains. The sign outside reads, “Boys and girls house: I learn and play while
my mother organizes and trains.”
This young man installs “biodigesters” in mountain villages.
These simple devices, which cost US$200 to build, provide an endless supply of
methane gas to fuel cookstoves. Cow manure and water are the only inputs.
Mary Cory asks a question of Lorena Silva, project
development officer with the Canadian International Development Agency in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras. |
