Amilcar Rivera Calderón School in Villa San Antonio, Comayagua, were humbled to welcome the British Ambassador to Honduras, Ms Carolyn Davidson, on Monday 21 November. Her visit was attributed to the work of the national and UK volunteers from Progressio ICS.
UK volunteers have been working together with the national volunteers since 26 September in the school; developing the school, teaching community classes and promoting key values, like gender equality, recycling and entrepreneurship.
Following the visit from an Official from the British Embassy last month, we were really excited to welcome Carolyn Davidson, the UK Ambassador for Guatemala and Honduras, to our school Arely Azucena, in the rural town of San Benito, Honduras.
It is 25 November. You hear that the next-door neighbour had a baby; it is a beautiful little girl entering the world where she can create her destiny. A life to achieve her highest potential. To live with the same rights as the fellow boy that was born on the same time, same day, same year and the same environment. But how can it possibly pan out for her, influenced by her gender, which she has no control over?
Women in Honduras are living a paradox. Women are becoming more aware of their rights, feminist movements have grown, and more women than ever are participating in economic life. This seems like good news; but progress has hit a wall. No development occurs in a vacuum. Alongside these changes over the last few decades, violence in Honduras has sky-rocketed: it now has the highest murder rate of women in the world. These two trends share an important link.
My Team Leader, Gagan, propositioned me with a question, “What has impacted you the most since arriving in San Benito?”. The answer was easy, the children’s thirst for knowledge. Even though they have very little, they are some of the happiest children I have ever come across. Part of that, I put down to their want to learn and educate themselves.
I am trying to give a name to this day but adjectives like: special, memorable or fantastic are not quite right, they seem far too common for a day that definitely was not usual. In the end, I choose the words “surprise and relief” as they best describe my feelings and the day of 28 October 2016.
We left Villa San Antonio very early in the morning, heading to Tegucigalpa, just in time for the “Discovery Club Expo” organised by Glasswing. This event involved eight other charity projects from across Honduras and involved a science competition.
Since arriving in Honduras, I have been lucky enough to experience a few different celebrations. Some are very similar to what we may see in the UK whereas others have many noticeable differences.
Weddings
As a group of British volunteers coming to Honduras with varying levels of Spanish, it was inevitable some things would get lost in translation. Now as we are coming to the end of week five here in La Villa San Antonio, I think we can all admit that the added time it takes to make a decision or create a plan is a frustrating symptom of the language barrier.
So, unbelievably, we are half way through this incredible experience! In just the six weeks we’ve been here already, we have managed to do so much. On Friday 4 November, we had our mid-term evaluation, which gave us a chance to reflect on how much we have achieved, where we began and what we have left to do. If you asked me six weeks ago how I felt, I would have probably told you I had made a mistake, but now I am incredibly proud of all the work we have done and to see what a difference we are making to the children. This has been my journey so far.
We are Alice, Amanda and Aimee (the A Team). Roommates in la casa de Doña Lola in El Bramadero. Our room (partitioned by a tall wall) is where the magic happens. One and a half of us speak Spanish, which comes in handy when we’re communicating with the family.
