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Shin and Cosmo Fujiyama have worked to aid the bottom rung of society in Central America with a passion for Serving Others

HELP FOR HONDURAS: Last in a four-part series

January 24, 2007 12:50 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

BY ALL appearances, they are two college seniors on the cusp of promising careers:

Shin Fujiyama, 23, an international affairs major at the University of Mary Washington who will graduate in May, with medical school in his future, and his sister, Cosmo, 21, a senior at the College of William & Mary in American and women's studies who has a job offer on the table.

Unlike most of their peers, the siblings from Northern Virginia have already made an indelible mark in another country. Not for their scholarly pursuits, but for something essential and basic--helping those at the very bottom of society in Honduras. They returned earlier this month from their largest relief effort in the Central America nation.

In the past two years, they've:

Established a multicollege nonprofit help agency, Students Helping Honduras, and linked up with UMW's Campus Christian Community ministry for a steady flow of volunteers;

Built a bond with the people of Siete de Abril, an impoverished village outside El Progreso in northern Honduras, providing building materials, supplies and money;

Been instrumental in expanding and supplying the Copprome orphanage there;

Worked with other aid agencies here and abroad, and with big philanthropical supporters such as Doris Buffet and her Sunshine Lady Foundation.

Shin, a compact bundle of energy with a buzz cut and passion for soccer, took his first trip to Honduras three years ago with the Campus Christian Community. He visited Our Little Roses, a home for orphaned girls in San Pedro Sula, and other sites around El Progreso.

Then he happened to sit next to Henry Osburn on the plane trip home. Osburn, a Milwaukee philanthropist, told Fujiyama about another orphanage, Copprome.

"I wanted to see what it was all about," Fujiyama said. Osburn offered to pay his plane fare back if he'd come along and translate.

Three months later, he was back in Honduras during spring break. He went to Copprome and saw the squatter village Siete de Abril.

"I asked myself, 'What can I do, as a college student with no money, no skills?'"

Back in Fredericksburg, Fujiyama got a job as a dishwasher to raise money for a return trip. With that, saving spare change and a small research grant from the university, he went back that summer and spent three months in Copprome with the orphans.

"I had a vision for long-term stuff," he recalled. He spent the summer in Honduras in 2005. He worked at Proniño center for drug-addicted street kids and OYE, a community outreach program in a tough neighborhood, and he spent time at the village.

Copprome, he learned, was in a financial crisis and its future was in doubt. The home is a last resort for dozens of children whose parents have abandoned them or could not afford to keep them.

"There were rumors that it was going to have to shut down. We were worried and the kids were worried," he said.

"I went back to [UMW] and did a lot of networking, to see if our friends could help." That was the start of Students Helping Honduras, during the summer of 2005.

"It was about seven of us. I showed them around" in Honduras "and then formed a core team of students helping me out. I knew that I could not do much by myself. By taking students down to see the situation with their own eyes, I believed they would want to help."

He began working closely with Bob Azzarito, minister of Campus Christian Community.

"Bob was my big mentor and I wanted to show him El Progreso."

Fujiyama made a film documentary about the orphanage: "Copprome: A Hope for Honduras." It won the Film of the Festival award at UMW and got more students interested.

"It was huge. There were about 1,200 people there," he said. It got two standing ovations.

"It was my way to spread the news about Copprome. After that, the entire school was asking, 'How can we help?'"

He decided that a walkathon could raise money.

He went to Doris Buffett--sister of billionaire Warren Buffett--who lives in Fredericksburg and has funded major community development projects.

"I had a 30-page paper prepared," Fujiyama said, but he gave her a short overview.

"She offered a double-matching grant on the spot."

"We were overwhelmed and that's the day Students Helping Honduras emerged. It became a movement. Everyone was electrified. We said, 'OK, this is our chance to help the kids at Copprome.'"

He made 35 speeches in three weeks, at churches, civic organizations, Rotary clubs. "And I'm terrified of speaking in public."

They raised $80,000, and with Buffett's contribution, it came to about $150,000--a respectable sum for any charitable drive, especially for a recipient thousands of miles from Fredericksburg.

Construction began last month on the Copprome education center. "We worked together with Washington Overseas Missions from St. Louis," which is paying off the land debt, Fujiyama said.

Azzarito says Fujiyama "operates on 100 percent heart, whether he's taking the next step or jumping in with both feet. He doesn't hesitate. He's driven by the possibility to meet the needs of someone or to help."

And it hasn't been easy, Azzarito said.

"He has to put up with a lot of roadblocks and obstacles--mainly from adults--in getting this done, keeping his eye on the ball and not losing focus. Still, when I watch him, I notice he's having a good time. It's not like he's sacrificing."

Azzarito added, "Those who do this kind of work well, do it with such enthusiasm and enjoyment, that's why it works."

Shin was born in Niigata, Japan, Cosmo in the United States. Both had overseas experiences that helped point them on the road they are now traveling.

Shin spent time in Brazil after high school and played soccer with a professional farm team there, an achievement in itself because he was often ill as a boy. He is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese and is learning French.

If Cosmo is the yin of the relationship, Shin is the yang. On trips, they complete each other's sentences, work together to budget money, check on work being done, delve into delicate village politics and hug almost everyone they meet.

They've even gotten their mom and dad, Aoi and Yuichiro, who live in McLean, and brother, Gaku, a freshman at Virginia Tech, involved. The family spent a week together in Honduras in late December.

Cosmo, the more practical and organized of the pair, was a cheerleader, on the homecoming court and active in high school government.

"I immersed myself in discipline. I was premed at first, then prelaw," she said. She delved deeply into American history and women's social, economic and religious issues, "to take a big idea and attack it from a lot of different angles. I'm always looking for a situation to think about and analyze. Cultural nuances and languages, how they affect women more than men. It's given me practical experience in the real world."

She traveled to Nicaragua her freshman year.

"It really changed my life," she recalled. She got her first real look at Third World poverty and helped build houses.

"That sense of social injustice made me want to become part of the solution."

She went to Peru for two months to better learn Spanish. "I was so scared after getting off the plane in Lima." Now she speaks fluently.

Their parents, she says, always encouraged them to be independent and inquisitive.

"For me, every encounter with someone teaches me something." She worked for Habitat for Humanity in Honduras and got an internship with a women's rights center in Nicaragua last year.

That's when she got a call from Shin, who was back in Honduras. He needed her help.

"I got on a bus and rode from Nicaragua to Honduras. Shin was showing me what he was doing and I was observing and telling him, and he'd say, 'Oh, great idea.'"

"I felt for the first time" as a younger sister "that I was equal with Shin."

Cosmo called on about 40 students from William & Mary, who were able to raise about $14,000 in two weeks.

Though it seems chaotic, everything is planned. "We never take on a project without knowing what we're getting into," she said.

Shin and Cosmo now stand at a crossroads. He must decide when to go to medical school; she has a job offer from Teach for America, a nonprofit that sends recent grads to teach in low-income areas.

They won't be easy decisions.

There's much work left to do in Honduras--building a transitional home for girls who graduate from Copprome, and building permanent houses in Siete de Abril, along with a water purification system and bringing in electricity.

That's where their hearts are.

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