NY/HELP HONDURAS

March 2020 Mission Group
The last trip before COVID

Scott conducting teacher training

Learning to sew

NY/HELP's Mission

Since 1989, many people from the churches of the New York Conference of the United Church of Christ have gone to the remote Indian village of La Laguna, in the Yoro mountains of Honduras.  We have since branched out to provide help to the 10 or so villages comprising the Tolapán tribe in that region of Honduras.

      MISSION STATEMENT
NY/HELP Honduras works cooperatively with the Mataderos tribe to provide access to health services, education through 9th grade & beyond, and vision statement related skills training.

VISION STATEMENT 
 The people of the Mataderos tribe will have an accessible path to a healthy, educated and economically self-sufficient life.

New School is being Built

June 16, 2019
David Makepeace just sent the following exciting news.


I have exciting news for New York Helpers. Tomorrow, I will be sending to Joel, our coordinator, money for the start of the new school in the lower villages (La Missión) based on a budget prepared by Joel and Salvador (Lead builder for the project). The materials will be delivered at no charge by the municipality of Yoro. This is the start of a 5 room junior high school similar to the one we built in Mataderos for the upper villagers. This will mean that all tribal children will have access to education through the 9th grade (before it was only K-6 grades). We will be asking for your support as we build room by room. Each room costs approximately US $3500.
 
More good news. In their annual highway improvement project whereby the Honduran government funds several weeks of work for local villagers and, in this case, heavy equipment, the road between Los Cuchillos and La Fortuna is supposed to be completed. This will mean that La Fortuna (and, therefore, La Laguna) will be linked to Agua Blanca in the lower villages by road. In support of this, we have been asked to supply 2 barrels of diesel (4000 Lempiras) for the machinery. I will also be sending this money.
 
More good news. The sewing project in 7 villages has been launched. Alba Luz, the head of CEVER, wrote that they had 7 tables, 7 chairs and 8 whiteboards, made in their carpentry program, ready be delivered to the trained sewers in 7 villages. CEVER is a vocational school in Yoro. NY/HELP helped CEVER purchase the current site shortly after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. CEVER was founded in 1976 and its original site was in downtown Yoro.  NY/HELP has helped provide some support to CEVER through tuition for some students, and by contracting them to build things for us.  Alba Luz appreciates our having them make things as this helps support their program and gives their students experience on projects. These tables, chairs, and whiteboards will be used for sewing classes to be given by women trained by Aracely García in La Laguna and will result in the need for more treadle sewing machines as the knowledge spreads. Special thanks to Connie Frisbee Houde and New York Help Administrator Scott (Carlos) Reinhart.
 
Yours,
David Makepeace
NY/HELP Honduras Interpreter / Translator

Thank you all for your interest and continued support.

By the summer of 2022, 3 rooms were completed in Mescales and the parents have filed the paperwork to begin next year starting in February (great news) and the government should be sending teachers. The towns in the lower villages are closer together and it should be much easier to fill the school. 
    Since the school will get under way even if there are only 3 school rooms, it should make the clinic rooms easier to approve as Ginger indicated to me in August of 2022 that there was sufficient money to finish the school and two of the rooms could serve dual purposes

This is the most recent picture taken showing the 4th room of the new school starting to be built.

Elementary school children are showing off their school supplies for the year.  In Honduras, the school year begins in February.

Thanks to gifts to NY/HELP's "Judy Project" these children have new school supplies.  The white board behind them says " Gracias Projecto Jude"

Your donations help bring school supplies to these children.