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lempira

 

 

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

Project Specific Activities:

  • Collaborate with Plan-Honduras community youth counterparts to prepare presentation for large youth fair, with themes selected by youth at beginning of project (past themes include recycling and local culture).  
  • Facilitate educational activities 3 times a week with youth counterparts for 5 – 12 year old children. (themes include environment, physical education, art, dental hygiene, leadership and team building).

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:
AMIGOS Voices

“Above all, my AMIGOS experience empowered me. I realize that if I can create and teach classes in a foreign language, inspire a village’s children to wash their hands and brush their teeth, and become a respected role model within a culture other than my own, I can do just about anything.”

–Jillian Gold, Veteran Volunteer