FLOR AZUL

Flor Azul began in 2004 as a farming community for neglected or abandoned teenage boys. The greater population (64%) of Honduras lives in conditions of extreme poverty. Children are often malnourished and required to work for their subsistence. The situation is even more critical in rural areas where young people drop out of school to work in the fields. The youth migrate to cities in search of a better future after inconsistent floods and droughts plague the harvests. Here, unemployment, hunger, disease, drugs, and gangs await them.

In three short months the boys of Flor Azul cleared the fields with machetes, planted corn and fruit trees, built a modest home and a one room school house. These are loving hard-working boys with a dream and the ambition to achieve it.

The Flor Azul project is currently mentoring 80 boys and providing each with elementary and high school educations and agricultural training

MONTAÑA DE LUZ

The problem of HIV/AIDS within Honduras is widespread and the statistics are alarming. The facts are daunting:

The Honduran city of San Pedro Sula is estimated to have the second highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the world.
70% of all Central American HIV/AIDS cases are found in Honduras.
One out of 100 people living in Honduras is infected with HIV
6% to 8% of pregnant Honduran women are currently HIV positive.

Many Honduran children have been infected by HIV/AIDS. Set upon a mountaintop, overlooking the valley of Moreceli, there is a tiny light that illuminates the lives of HIV infected children – it is a home called Montana de Luz. A home to over twenty HIV infected children as young as one year of age. The project, managed by a small group of North American volunteers and their Honduran colleagues, is designed to support a child’s medical, social, mental, educational, and emotional needs. Here the children grow in a loving and caring environment. Here the children feel cherished. It takes enormous effort to provide round the clock care for these children. A staff of 25 exceptionally devoted people daily walk the long journey to arrive at Montaña de Luz and often work twelve hour shifts caring for the children.  Various individuals, organizations, and churches, in the United States and Canada fund Montaña de Luz.

NUEVO PARAISO VILLAGE

Nestled in the mountains only two hours from Tegucigalpa is the small village of Nuevo Paraiso. This tiny village of 60 homes is a safe haven for those who are victims of extreme poverty and neglect. Here, Sociedad Amigos de Los Ninos helps them build their dreams one step at a time. With guidance, training, support, and love they thrive in a nurturing environment. Neuvo Paraiso offers the Christiane Kinder for 60 children, an elementary school for 230, and a high school for 350 students. The Santa Rosa de Lima medical clinic attends 40,000 patients per year. In addition there is a training center, soccer field, Cielos de Honduras brick factory, a plantain chip factory, and the beginnings of other micro-businesses.

THE PEDRO ATALA HOMES

Over seventy children live together in the four lovely but very little Pedro Atala Homes that are nestled almost one atop another in a quiet corner of Tegucigalpa. Here the children range from three to fifteen years in age. They are all victims of extreme poverty. Some are orphaned, others have parents in prison. Here each child is lovingly provided with food, clothing, shelter and education.

A wish list for the Pedro Atala homes includes financial support for food, clothing, and education. It might also include new bed linens, Spanish books, jump ropes, dolls, toy cars, barrettes, shampoo, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.

THE REYES IRENE VALENZUELA TRAINING CENTER

Poverty has its way of weaving a wicked web of abuse and neglect. Frequently in Honduras, a teenage girlís only alternative to a life on the streets is working as a household domestic. But here too there is psychological and physical abuse. Many of these young girls earn no more than one dollar a day and are expected to endure terrible and demanding living conditions. Most of them have little education and no concept or dream of a better life. The Reyes Irene Valenzuela Training Center provides the girls with an oasis of support and encouragement. Here they receive psychological and medical attention, legal counsel and training in a variety of life skills. In 2004 over forty girls graduated from the Reyes Irene Valenzuela Center. Many of these girls are now continuing their studies at the university level. In addition to financial support, the center is in constant need for clothing, books and craft supplies.