Overarching Goal and Objectives:

Goal:

to build leadership and life skills of youth in the Americas through exchange, civic engagement, and collaborative community development

Objectives:

1. increase active youth involvement in communities
2. increase knowledge and awareness of cultural, environmental, and health issues
3. collaborate with community members on Community-Based Initiative (CBI) process
   

Project Specific Activities:

Volunteers will collaborate with Plan Honduras community youth groups to prepare presentations for a large youth fair, whose theme is selected by community youth at the beginning of the project.  Past themes for the fairs include recycling and community culture.  Often, community youth groups will use the opportunity of being at a fair to share their youth group initiatives with other youth and raise funds for future initiatives via the sale of local products.

Volunteers will also work with youth to facilitate educational activities several times a week for children between the ages of 5-12.  Educational activities will focus on health and the environment, but will also include components of creative expression, youth leadership, and team building.  Some examples of 2007 topics include environment, physical education, art, dental hygiene, leadership and teambuilding.

Finally, Volunteers will work with the Plan youth groups to plan and implement a Community-Based Initiative.  This activity aims to develop the leadership capacity of youth as they brainstorm ways to take an active leadership role in the development of their communities.  Some examples from 2007 projects include planting a school garden, illuminating the school, repairing school buildings and cleaning up trash around the community.

Project Area:

All host communities are located within three hours from Gracias, the capital of the department of Lempira. Gracias is located in the Comayagua Valley and is known for its colonial architecture and its strategic location for ecotourism, due to the nearby Moñtana de Celaque, a national park and cloud forest. Atop Celaque, which means "box of water" in Lenca, eleven major rivers are born. Some of the rivers flow northeast and empty into the Caribbean Sea while others flow south into the Pacific. Our communities are located on both sides of Celaque, and the vegetation differs according to which side you are on.

The region of Lempira is also known as the Lenca highlands. The Lenca are Honduras' indigenous groups that put up the strongest resistance to the Spanish during the early part of the conquest. The Lenca language is no longer spoken, but the history of this indigenous group is still a part of the fabric of the region

Project History:

Honduras was the first country AMIGOS ever visited in 1965, when almost 300 Volunteers provided human immunizations against polio. For the next 17 years (except 1974), AMIGOS Volunteers worked on immunization, eyeglass distribution, animal health, well digging, and community sanitation projects in 13 of the 18 departments of Honduras.

After time away during the 1980s due to economic and political instability, AMIGOS returned in 1993 to Lempira to participate in community sanitation, dental hygiene education and environmental programs until 1998. In 2004 we again returned to the Lempira region to work with Plan International in promoting youth leadership and community development.

Partner Agencies:

Plan International Honduras

Further Actions:

• Apply to Volunteer
• Apply to Serve on Project Staff