lapaz

 

Location: La Paz, Honduras
Length: 6 Weeks
Special Theme:
Environmental Health
Dates: July 1, 2009 - August 12, 2009
Dates and information are tentative. Check back regularly for updates.

Project Specific Activities:

  • Facilitate educational activities three times a week with youth counterparts for 5–12-year-old children.  
  • Educational activities will involve different presentation methods such as physical education, art and leadership and team building activities, with an emphasis placed on environmental health. 
  • Work will be both in schools and through campamentos (summer camps). 
  • Plan and implement a Community-based initiative in collaboration with the Plan-Honduras youth group.

Project Area:

All host communities are located within four hours of La Paz. The department/state of La Paz is located in central western Honduras, two hours northwest of Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital. Staff headquarters will be in the department’s capital, La Paz, a small and quiet city with a population of 17,000 located on the southern edge of the Comayagua Valley. All Volunteers will be in communities located in the mountains.

The mountain communities are located to the west and south of the city. In June and July the weather is warm during the day (in the 60s and 70s) and cooler or cold at night depending on the altitude. During these months it is also the rainy season.

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 2003, AMIGOS began working with Plan in the region of La Paz.

Partner Agencies:

Plan International Honduras

Further Actions:

AMIGOS Voices

“Both our children left Houston as fun-loving, typical teenagers and returned from their AMIGOS experience with new-found confidence and maturity and a real sense of what life is like beyond our community.”

–Leslie Miller, Parent of two Volunteers