Venezuelan petroleum funds to be invested in Honduran infrastructure and irrigation projects

Alvaro Morales Molina
Honduras This Week

35 percent of PetroCaribe concession funds are going to be invested in infrastructure and irrigation projects throughout Honduras. This was the determination made by Honduran President Zelaya and was announce Secretary of Cattle and Agriculture, (SAG), Héctor Hernandez.

The government official assured that these funds will be destined for construction of several agricultural infrastructure projects, such as storage silos and grain drying, as well as cattle ranch projects, to achieve a massive impact in agri­cultural production.

Hernandez explained that this will improve Honduras’ trade balance as it will harness those products that have export capacity, promote the exports at regional and international levels, as well as impel projects that contribute to the reduction of those products that need to be imported.

He added that they hope that within 60 days, the National Congress will approve the agreement and stated that it is very important for the Honduran people and the government of Honduras to improve the agricultural output of the country.

Currently, prices of basic grains, dairy products and other popular consumer items are high in the international markets. For this reason, Hernandez points out, it is a great opportunity to invest massively in agricultural land in Honduras.

During the previous year, 64 percent of the export total was agricultural products. Because of this, President Zelaya has made the decision to invest heavily in the agricultural sector, as agriculture is the “spine of economic development in Honduras,” Hernandez concluded.

HOSPITAL MARIA: Children’s facility sits empty

Caroline Knell
Honduras This Week

The handling of health care in Honduras has always been a delicate issue. Only last year, the President of Honduras, Manuel Zeleya, declared a state of emergency within the health care system due to drug shortages in the nation´s hospitals.

That said, however, things are starting to improve albeit at a fairly slow rate. The Ministry of Health in Honduras is working endlessly to improve all aspects of health care in the country but among the greatest problematic issues facing the ministry of health at the moment is inadequate use of the budget. In a country where general resources are low, funds used on the health care system are unable to meet the growing demands of modern health care.

Furthermore, access to health care in Honduras is tied directly to income levels. Those who can pay for private care, benefit, yet for the urban and rural poor who constitute the vast majority in Honduras, health care is very limited. Many government clinics lack the equipment, medicine and trained personnel to cope.

Children are the worst affected by the health care crisis as they make up more than half the population of Honduras (53 percent of the population are under 18 with a further 20 percent under the age of 5). Faced with extreme poverty, exclusion and abandonment, children are suffering the effects of poverty and the outlook is, to be frank, bleak.

However, a new project funded by Foundation Maria will bring hope to thousands of suffering children. The foundation was formed in April 2008 when a group of well respected citizens in Honduras joined forces to create projects and social programs to the provide the Honduran population with the provision of medical services, humanitarian aid, nutrition and education to the areas considered most at risk.

The foundations most ambitious project to date is the construction of Honduras´ first specialized pediatric hospital, Hospital Maria, located on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa. The project was first realized after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch back in 1998. Construction then began in October 2000 and was completed in April 2004.

The hospital will become the most specialized pediatric medical service center in Honduras and will also operate as a research and training center for future generations of specialized pediatricians and hopes to establish permanent relationships with other regional health centers in Honduras and countries worldwide.

The services offered by the hospital are free and can be accessed by the most ignored and unprotected sectors of society; as well as those that can afford to pay for the services through medical insurance.

It is readily apparent and visible the hospital has been designed with children in mind. The environment is pleasant and secure, with bright colors, natural light and spacious rooms. In the main lobby there is a large mobile showing picture of fish (on the bottom floor) right up to the planets (on the top floor) which are educational as well as fun and there are playground areas for recre­ational use. The hospital has gone to great lengths to make the chil­dren feel at home, especially now that parents are allowed to stay overnight with their children in the same room which is not allowed in any other hospital in Honduras.

Yet despite all of the good intentions behind the construction of Hospital Maria, it is currently standing empty, closed to the public for at least another year. This is mostly due to funding, which was largely spent on the construction, meaning that very little was left over to equip the facility. The hospital is currently waiting for equipment from the Italian government, who are working in conjunction with the Honduran Health Ministry on the bidding process to acquire the medical and hospital equipment. Both the Italian and Honduran Governments have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for fifteen million Euros.

When the hospital eventually opens its doors to the public, it will play a leading role in children´s health care and improving their quality of life not just in Honduras but all of Central America. Let’s hope the wait isn´t too much longer.

APUFRAM: 37 years helping the poorest people in Honduras

Manfredo Martinez
Honduras This Week

“God, study, work” is the enduring slogan of APUFRAM (Association of Franciscan Boys’ and Girls’ Towns), now in its thirty-seventh year of operation. The organization serves 1,000 of the poorest children in Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Liberia, Africa. “We believe the world is better when opportunity is available to everyone. My interest is to instill in children, love for their neighbor and God and to help prepare them for the future,” explained U.S. Franciscan Father Emil Cook, founder of the project.

Cook, an American missionary began his work in Honduras in 1970, arriving in Flores in 1981. Working with several former students, now university graduates, APUFRAM was established. Its purpose is to provide academic and spiritual education to the poor children of Honduras. Mission Honduras is the US-based support arm for APUFRAM.

APUFRAM was born when it seemed society (the State) wasn’t responding to the needs of the adolescent and young people of the rural areas. It has been on a mission to create dedicated educational space, opportunities and alternatives where the State failed.

Through education, which is unavailable to the poor beyond about the sixth grade, the children receive the skills necessary to become self sufficient and eventually to be competent leaders of families and communities. The goal is to teach the poor “how to fish” instead of simply providing a fish. Only through this method of self sufficiency can the poor help themselves out of the long cycle of poverty.

Rigoberto Lanza, Director of the Maximilian Kolbe Institute, from Flores, Villa de San Antonio, Comayagua, tells his own story of Emil: “I grew up in Gualaco and had very few options open to me. Father Emilio (as Father Cook is known here) arrived and we developed a great relationship, like father and son.

Now, I have a son of my own and his name is Emilio.”

APUFRAM consists of elemen­tary and high schools, orphanages, boystowns and girlstowns, a trade school, university housing, and a shelter for abandoned mothers and children. APUFRAM has educated thousands of young people who are now helping their communities in various fields such as agriculture, business, engineering, medicine and teaching.

In June of 2002, APUFRAM was established in the Dominican Republic and in November of 2004 it founded a center in Liberia, Africa, for the orphan children resulting from the civil war in that nation.

“I feel that this has been my mission, God has used me as an instrument of his work. Of this, feel satisfied,” added Cook, the main propeller of the program and organizer of the plan to help the poor. In the meantime, his eyes light up with the expectation of a better future for the most unprotected.