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Nourishing food, education and alternatives to life on the street offer young Hondurans hope for a Better Life HELP FOR HONDURAS: Third in a four-part series

January 23, 2007 12:50 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

N ONE OF THE Western Hemisphere's poorest countries, it is the children of Honduras who suffer most--orphans abandoned by their families, street kids hooked on drugs, teenagers with no hope or education, girls who are moms at age 14.

Here's a look at some other relief agencies with ties to the Fredericksburg area that are making a difference in Honduras:

Mirian E. Mejia is director of the Centro de Nutrición in El Progreso.

There are 22 children here now, poor children who have parents who can't afford to pay for medical care and rehabilitation.

"They tend to come from outside the city, where people are poorer," she says through an interpreter. "They first go to the hospital and then come here for rehabilitation."

Pictures in a scrapbook tell the stories: children who are malnourished, with bellies bulging out--a classic symptom--girls and boys with severe rashes and genital infections. One child came in with a cigarette burn to the stomach.

Run by donations from the Catholic Church, it sits in a gated compound on a side street.

"The most important thing we have here is love for the kids. They need care because their parents aren't taking care of them."

One child, Paola, came in at 4 months old. Smiling and intense, she runs into the arms of anyone who visits. She has no family.

"Her mom smoked when she was pregnant and [Paola] has birth defects," Mejia says.

Several University of Mary Washington students with the Campus Christian Community ministry have stopped in to play with the children on the floor, holding them, and later dancing with them. Ashley Davis, a freshman at UMW, who is fluent in Spanish, cuddles a little girl.

"I want to take her home," she says.

Several mothers come in to help feed the children. They drop by when they can.

The place is clean and modern, rivaling any day care center in the United States, with a dormitory, dining room, television, little desks for the children. They have breakfast, lunch, dinner, naps and snacks.

OYE means "listen up" in Spanish. It's also an acronym for Organization for Youth Empowerment, run by Justin Otero, a 24-year-old University of Massachusetts graduate who hails from Washington, D.C. He and two other students founded the organization two years ago after volunteering in Honduras.

Housed in a former restaurant in a tough neighborhood called Barrios Los Angeles, OYE works with orphans, street kids and at-risk youth in El Progreso.

"These kids are at the bottom of the social ladder," he tells a group of visiting college students. "The need is in your face every day. There is such a need for education."

OYE provides a place for neighborhood kids to study and hang out. Fifteen elementary school kids, 22 high schoolers and 19 college students are enrolled.

Otero relates how one boy got connected here. He stopped by to collect glass bottles to sell for recycling.

"I talked to him and gave him a sandwich and let him color. He came back the next day with his brother. Then the next day, eight boys from the neighborhood. They were hanging on the gate, saying, 'Hey. You have crayons here?'"

OYE also has started an arts and sports program, for boys and girls. The budget is about $55,000 a year, with $35,000 going toward the education program and the rest for rent, supplies and expenses.

Shin Fujiyama volunteered at OYE two years ago. He and his sister, Cosmo, talk with Otero about supplying a steady flow of college student volunteers, and possibly helping to buy the building and sharing offices.

Most of OYE's donations come from supporters in the states, though Otero tries to get money wherever he can, from foundations and other nonprofits.

"It's a balancing act. Many are in-kind donations," he says.

Last year, OYE was one of 20 programs worldwide honored by the International Youth Foundation.

He smiles, "They flew us to D.C. for a weeklong program. It cost a lot. I wish they had just sent me the money they spent on putting us up, and mailed the plaque."

Glue-sniffing and drug use is endemic among street kids in northern Honduras. When the police pick them up, or when they go through the courts, some of the lucky ones wind up at Fundación Proniño, (For the Children) a program for street children started by George Mealer, a retired Army sergeant major from Richmond.

"There are 78 kids here, all with drug problems. Ninety percent are street kids," he says. "Most are abandoned and wind up on the streets, sniffing glue."

There are two sites. One, Las Flores, is a detox center, where the boys are weaned off drugs and put in school, with military-style discipline. Kids who misbehave are locked up in a "thinking room" for an hour or two.

After detox, they go to La Montaña, where they go to regular school, learn trades such as electricity, plumbing, building, computer skills and English. The government operates a similar program, but Mealer says it's not as structured and the boys often run away.

Proniño has 28 staffers, a psychologist and a doctor. Some boys arrive at age 4 or 5 and stay until they are 18.

Mealer moved to Honduras to retire a few days before Hurricane Mitch in 1998. He bought a boat, planning to fish in the nearby river, but has put it in the water only once, to rescue people from a flood. He saw what was happening to street kids and gave his energy and resources to Proniño. He also operates a medical mission, Bless the Children.

His wife, Elizabeth, operates a restaurant in El Progreso.

"These kids need a lot and we have to give them a lot of love," he says.

Off a side street in El Progreso, behind a high fence topped with barbed wire, sits the Centro de Retiros Notre Dame, a retreat center run by the Catholic Church.

Visitors from America doing relief work in the city can make reservations to stay here for just $17 a night.

There are beds with mattresses, screened rooms, cold showers and three meals a day prepared by Hondurans who work here. A load of laundry can be done for 40 lempiras, about $2. Huge iguanas prowl the grounds, which sit under coconut palms.

The center was built for young women to become nuns in 1956, says Sister Reina Rojas, who speaks English. There is an American connection: The order is based in St. Louis, Mo.

"Our purpose is to provide education to young people in El Progreso. There were no high schools here then, so the sisters shifted their focus to secondary education," she says. A high school sits on the rear part of the property.

The retreat center also has served as a place where married couples could stay to worship and study.

"Then we started having seminars, for the church, and other groups," she says. American nuns could come "to have experience with Honduran reality and could stay here."

The center has an affiliate five hours away in Monte Verde, a mountainous area that is home to poor, indigenous people, the Lencas.

Sister Teresita Gonzalez, known as the "Mother Teresa" of Honduras at Centro Notre Dame, is a Lenca. She founded the Copprome orphanage.

The Campus Christian Community delegation, Shin and Cosmo Fujiyama, the Rotarians, two journalists and a group of Catholic high schoolers from Pennsylvania bunked at the center.

One of the sisters, Marie Augusteen, 68, is an American, from St. Louis. She's been in Honduras for 21 years.

Few Americans, she says, have any idea how average Hondurans live, and how poor many of them are.

"We help people to have a fuller life, and to be closer to God and to help change the social system so that people have justice and freedom. I wish every [American] family could change places and get to know the people here face to face. To see each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. There is enough for everyone to share."

To reach RUSTY DENNEN:540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com