Village Updates March 2012

Magic Bullets
A couple of weeks before school started last month, we stopped to talk to some young boys (pictured above) ambling down the road returning from picking coffee. After all these years it is still disconcerting to see little kids wielding machetes almost as big as they are Immediately I recognized one of the boys. I had photographed him five years ago playing with a bicycle tire. He was an extremely shy little guy who eyed me with uncertainty. Pictured above with three of his nine siblings and his father, the family lived in a small, crumbling adobe shack. None of these children attended our center, though they all knew about it. At that time someone in his neighborhood told the other parents not to send their children to us because we might kidnap and sell them... We were able to defuse that rumor, and eventually this boys sister came to the center. But he never did. Asking the boys if they wanted to be a part of the center, all replied yes. When asked if they were going to join us when school started in February, each shook his head no. Kicking at the dust, one by one they told me that their parents would not allow them to attend. As we have discussed in previous newsletters, the most compelling reason parents keep children out of school and our center is because they are worth a few dollars a week working at menial jobs like picking beans. These boys were being sacrificed on the altar of The Tyranny of Low Expectations. It is the war we have fought and won with so many parents since we began working in Linaca. Yet the parents of these young boys remained unwilling to let them attend our center. While we may be winning the war, certainly we have not won every battle. According to recent statistics published by UNAH (The University of Honduras), an astounding 68% of the population of Honduras is under 30 years old! With a population over 8 million, about 800,000 Honduran young people neither study nor work in Honduras. These young people are referred to as the ninis (pronounced nee-nees) meaning they neither have jobs nor go to school. Six out of ten live in rural areas like the ones we serve. Analysts blame the government, teachers unions, and society in general for the social crisis Honduras will face in the coming years because of this generations abandonment. If something radical does not happen, the situation will be considerably worse by 2015. Over the past four years of teachers strikes and political unrest, many children have lost up to 50% of their school days. If it were only one year the situation would be bad enough. But this prolonged calamity has greatly limited the ability of most Honduran children (that attend Public Schools) to read, write, or do math up to grade level. The children are seldom held back in school for their lack of the basics. They are passed from grade to grade with no foundation to understand new concepts. Recent statistics show that by the 6th grade students have only attained 36% of the math skills they should possess and 50% of reading skills! In the next ten years Honduras will be brimming with what is called The Bonus Generation, meaning a population bulge. This group will be the largest percentage of a potential workforce in a generation. If you dont fix the problems this generation faces, immediately, the results will be catastrophic. Without a solid education and work ethic among its labor force, Honduras stands little chance of anything other than anarchy in the years to come. However, if the problems are addressed and fixed, Honduras will have huge opportunities for growth. For years, we have been doing exactly what the experts prescribe as the most critical need facing the country today educating and training children to be responsible citizens with a good work ethic. While the public schools have been closed 50% of the time over the past four years, our doors have been wide open. While the rest of the country sinks into chaos, for very little money, we have been creating a model that can be easily replicated throughout the country. By waging this war on ignorance, over the years we have amassed an army of kids. In 2003 we had 70 children enrolled in our center and it was hand to hand combat to keep them there. Sometimes we had to go to the parents two and three times a year to convince them to leave their children in school. Nine years later these kids have grown up with us and they are our magic bullets, bolstering our arguments with parents when it comes to keeping their kids in school. These accomplished young men and women can look parents in the eye and say to them, Why should you send your child to school? Because I was a kid just like yours, and I am now in University! How much more money can a college graduate earn than a bean picker? In late February, on the official start day of the public school year, our center was wall to wall kids! Packing every corner of space inside the building, the overflow crowd was on the front and back portico, a bunch more kids met on the side of the property and even more spilled out into the yard.

World Resources Group w 509 Flamingo Drive w West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 Phone 561.758.2198 w Email: worldresources@bellsouth.net w Web: www.wrgnews.com

Off in the corner of the grounds I saw one of our University students, Boniet, teaching a new crop of Kindergarten and First Graders their numbers. The little faces (pictured above) took me back to those first days in Linaca. So shy, so dirty, most kids dressed in rags, these little souls could barely count to ten. They were identical to the children from 2003 whose parents used to say to us, But look at him, he is so stupid. Why send him to school? In 2003 Boniet wasnt much older than these kids. His parents were ones we had to convince to allow him to continue his education and remain in the center. Now he is part of our team of leaders. Jose has coined a great term for our High Schoolers they are now referred to as The Road Scholars! From the time we entered Linaca we have told our children that the work is not contained in the four walls of our center. Our work is the community. If the center collapsed, we would meet under a tree and continue to be a presence, helping the community. Teams of Road Scholars are often deployed during their volunteer hours walking the roads of their communities following up with parents, teachers, and doing census work or projects like the Rotary water filters. As most of you know, last year these Road Scholars were dispatched to canvass villagers who had received filters and also to rehabilitate those that were non-functioning. What our kids quickly learned was that a vast majority of the filters were broken, missing, or if they remained in residence they were not being properly maintained. Very few people in our area were consuming clean water. Returning to Linaca this month is a team of experts, including a Professor and his students,

from UC Berkley. They came for the first time last year on their own dime. The team taught our teens how to fix broken filters, and also explained the bio-mechanics of how they work. Ensuring the teens understood the consequences of not having clean water enabled them to thoroughly educate the townsfolk in the urgency of properly maintaining and using the filters. It gave the teens great satisfaction to be part of such an important service to their community; and the community was very impressed by the knowledge and professionalism of its future leaders. After receiving the instruction from the UC Berkley team, our Road Scholars came up with skits to help educate the younger children in our center about the importance of the filters and clean water. The UC Berkley team was thrilled to see how well these students captured everything they had been taught. The costumes and hair dye provided great entertainment for all. These kids get more creative by the minute!

our kids provided that they offered a grant for 2012 that will be over three times the amount of last year, once all the details are ironed out! This grant is critical to the survival of the scholarships for our Road Scholars. The dream of having students in University seemed like light years away back in 2003, when we wondered how on earth we could keep 70 kids in elementary school! Nine years later, we have 10 University Students and over 120 High Schoolers (Road Scholars) from two valleys serving well over 1000 youngsters, their parents, and their community. Just think, what if even a fraction of the children our older students are influencing follow in their footsteps? Should a mere 10% of them join our ranks as mentors and Road Scholars we have the potential to reach tens of thousands of kids in the next few years. And if 10% of these new recruits join our ranks? I think you can see the progression. Without this antidote, Honduras will be a failed state in a very short time. Not every student in Honduras must end up University. But all children need to learn how to read, write, and gain a strong work ethic in order to rise above the stark poverty they will be forced to endure without these skills. As we travel the back roads of Honduras in years to come, there will probably always be tiny kids wielding machetes. But we know what these kids can be with a little genuine love and an education. And we will fight as hard as we can to give each one a decent future.

The water filter project our partner created last year came with a grant of $16,000 from Rotary International to help pay for the scholarships of our High School students. Following on the success of this endeavor, Rotary International Clubs in Wisconsin, California, and Canada were so impressed with the excellence of the service

It doesnt take that much effort to reach the nation. It simply takes a long-term vision and partners like you to make these dreams come true. On behalf of the children, we thank you for standing with us in this vision and look forward to a report in another nine years that will make this pale in comparison!

SPECIAL NEEDS
Honduran Public Schools run from February to November. Without a uniform, black shoes, supplies, and many special requests during the year for additional activities our children cannot attend school. Our Childrens Fund is in need of donations to off-set the money we spent insuring 1000 children in two valleys could remain in school.

A NOTE ABOUT DESIGNATED GIVING

World Resources Group is unique among non-profits organizations. All specified donations go 100% to the fund designated and are 100% tax deductible. We do not take percentages for administration - those funds are raised separately. Undesignated giving is used where the Board of Directors deems the need to be greatest.

World Resources Group w 509 Flamingo Drive w West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 Phone 561.758.2198 w Email: worldresources@bellsouth.net w Web: www.wrgnews.com