Honduras: Perspective Beyond the Political Circus

Though Honduras was buffeted by natural disasters this past year, this small Central American nation has generated comparatively greater media coverage through its latest man-made debacle.

While HOPE International Development Agency’s Honduran partners were busy helping people to recover from severe flooding and a 7.1 earthquake, President Manuel Zelaya’s June 28th deposition suddenly became a colorful ringside attraction in the urban circus that the poor may not have the time to attend.

While expressions like ‘military coup’ might conjure stereotypes of dysfunctional Third World politics, the reality on the ground has been, according to our Honduran friends, much quieter than one might expect.

It is also worth noting that the ‘crisis’ of a deposed President has somewhat overshadowed the circumstances preceding Zelaya’s fall from grace. In fact, Zelaya had been about to hold a referendum on the constitution that would have potentially allowed him to extend his rule past the legal term limit.

Our friend and colleague in Tegucigalpa shared a few of his thoughts about this very complex situation, and they are worth reproducing here:

For the first time in Latin America, a country has rebelled , and without shedding any blood and without violence, against a constitutional and democratically elected President who has violated the constitution and legal orders from the Supreme Court, the Congress and the Attorney General of the country.

The international press had not understood this nor have they taken the time to study what has been happening in Honduras over the past year. They have simply taken a position saying that this has been a military overthrow of the government of Honduras - as something coming out of the cold war of twenty – thirty years ago.

However, the lesson coming out of this is that a President, who has been democratically elected by the people of this country, does not have the right to disobey the constitution and the laws of this country.

The message of Honduras is simple, if a president has received the popular vote of the country, this does not give him or her the license to break the laws, as all the effort going into governing a country for the common good should be done within the framework of the law.

The general public of democratic countries will be seeing these actions and will see that they no longer need to tolerate the abuses of power by constitutionally elected presidents who many times consider themselves untouchable because they were elected by the people. Big mistake….. ask Mel Zelaya!

While Hondurans living in severe poverty never have an easy row to hoe, we are relieved that, despite the political drama, conditions throughout the country are mostly very peaceful. Certainly, HOPE’s work has not experienced any disruptions whatsoever. It is our hope that this ‘crisis’ is resolved to the satisfaction of the majority of Hondurans. They, like all people, would prefer a government that respects the severity of their struggle as well as the importance of their institutions.

Self-indulgence - The new self-reliance

In the developed world, our aspirations appear to have evolved well beyond the notion of self-reliance.

You could not find fault with a person who observes that the definition of self-reliance has undergone a radical revision and now has more in common with self-indulgence than self-reliance.

This new definition is very alluring, as evidenced by the fact that many of us can no longer define, at least from a moral perspective, at what point we would have enough money, possessions, or status. The fact that it has taken a worldwide financial crisis to remind us that there is in fact something out there called “enough”, should be a warning to us all to revisit our moral compass.

Having enough used to be defined within the confines of an appropriate measure of self-reliance. More recently, however, having enough is defined as never having enough.

The tragedy of confusing self-indulgence with self-reliance is twofold.

Firstly, if you cannot define, from a moral perspective, what enough means for you, you are likely to never have enough.

Secondly, and most importantly for the poor of our world, if your definition of having enough does not include helping those who have nothing, they will continue to suffer and perish as they do now.

Never before has it been so important to so many that each of us define, from a moral perspective, what it means to have enough - this is the only way to ensure that we will all have enough.

To learn more about HOPE International Development Agency’s work among the poor, please visit www.hope-international.com

Hunger: Over One Billion Under-Served

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Association, we have reached a sad milestone. Over one billion people living on the planet are now hungry, a new record for the scourge of malnutrition. Due to the global economic crisis and persistently high food prices, one in six people are subsisting on less than 1,800 calories per day.

When we enter ‘1,800 calories’ into an internet search engine, we produce just under one million hits. However, it takes more patience than we have on supply to comb through the links in order to find just website referencing this threshold figure for inadequate diet - instead, these links appear to be mainly meal plans for dieting Westerners. As freedieting.com helpfully states: ‘1800 calories per day is about the lowest a man should go when aiming for fat loss.’

Presumably, in most of the developing world, there is not a lot of fat to spare. According to a study by a USDA economist, the average sub-Saharan African is consuming around 2,176 calories per day, compared to an average American’s 3,654. Whereas the typical Western diet showed a distribution of calories from varied food sources (18% of an American’s calories might come from sugar alone), the African derives 70% of his or her energy from grains and starchy root vegetables. More nutritious food is not available or is simply too expensive.

This study was based on 1995-97 statistics. Likely the data would be different today, reflecting an even more pronounced gap between developed and developing worlds. While body-conscious Westerners work on their self-control, over one billion people are already on the 1,800 calorie diet through no choice of their own.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Honduras: An Unprecedented Time of Disaster?

As we prepare to send a second shipment of emergency medications to the Swat Valley, Pakistan, we are asking ourselves whether we have ever received so many calls for help from so many quarters of the world in such a short period of time.

In Pakistan, an extraordinary refugee crisis (3 million displaced) in the troubled Swat Valley has compelled us to respond with emergency medical shipments. In Sri Lanka, the fallout from the Tamil-government conflagration is enormous; refugees there are in great need of supplies and shelters. In Bangladesh, we are helping to assist 4 million people who are injured or homeless in the wake of a cyclone and extensive flooding. In Honduras, an earthquake has destroyed homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods, and we are working with survivors to heal and rebuild.

Each one of these disasters is extreme in its own right, but taken together, they amount to an overwhelming constituency of sufferers. Our own capacity to respond is pushed to the utmost.

For an organization that is geared towards finding long-term solutions to poverty, this congestion of emergency-based, short-term assistance is difficult. However, it is because we have a long-term commitment in each of these countries that we must help when their fortunes take such a nightmarish turn. We, like they, have no choice.

Through us, right now, people in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Honduras are depending on people who so often choose to invest in long-term solutions, like clean water and food security. Will they be generous in these exception circumstances? Experience has shown us that they will be. Still, it is a test for our supporters - just as it is a test for us.

We have sent out an emergency appeal for donations to each of these countries. We truly hope that our friends will help them to survive this terrible chapter in their struggle for development.

Pakistan, the Swat Valley: 12 Medical Teams Equipped

The UN now reports that the mass exodus of people from Pakistan’s Swat valley is the largest refugee crisis since 1994’s Rwandan genocide. In three week’s time, almost 1.5 million people have fled the area, where government forces are fighting to eradicate Taliban strongholds.

Fortunately, we received word that our staff in Pakistan received our most recent medical shipment. We assembled this shipment specifically to equip the medical teams tending to the families stranded in camps across Mardan district. Twelve teams are treating refugees on a daily basis; they will ultimately administer life-saving medications to thousands. Special attention, as always, is given to expecting mothers and infants, who are very vulnerable to infections, especially in the severely hot weather that has made their displacement all the more terrible.

Abbotsford, BC: The Run for Water

The 2009 ‘Run for Water’, held on May 31st in Abbotsford, B.C., was an unqualified success. Thanks to the dedication of the Run for Water Society, and the 1,600 people who participated in the premiere running event, $81,000 was raised for clean water in southern Ethiopia. An endowment like this has a tremendously positive impact in the villages where HOPE International Development Agency is at work - especially when you consider that it costs only $35 to give a southern Ethiopian clean water for life.

It is wonderful when a good time and a good cause dovetail. But it isn’t lost on us that behind this fun, sunny, celebratory event, is a huge investment of time, energy, thought, planning, and labour on the part of the Society. We are incredibly grateful to this adventurous and kind-hearted group of friends for choosing to partner with HOPE International Development Agency.

Learn more about the Run for Water:

Bangladesh: A Song from Jhenidah’s Survivors

The children HOPE cares for in Jhenidah, Bangladesh, put on an impromptu concert for a visitor from our Canadian office two weeks ago.



This is the type of activity - a safe, playful, creative time together - that the children have found most rehabilitative. Coming, as all they do, from such wretchedly painful experiences, the freedom to play and sing is of great therapeutic value.

There is no poverty like that of parent-less children in developing world conditions - in this, the two axes of social and economic deterioration intersect. Theirs is a vulnerability so profound that they either grow thick skins of criminality or they are enslaved by stronger agents. Abuse or be abused.

As for these children, they are safe enough to sing. Their performance is all the more beautiful if you are one of the many people who have made this safe place possible for them.

Sustainability and the poor

We frequently hear about ‘the economy’ and ‘the environment’ being pitted against each other in a kind of zero-sum contest, never feeling very sure of what side it is in our best interest to root for. But in our work with the poorest families in the world, we often see this paradigm undone.

Where we work, the economy (or ‘means to eat, be housed, and be clothed’) and the environment (or ‘place from where you get that which you eat, wear, and live in’) are not really different things at all. Families in the Dominican Republic, for example, have an economy because they have the land and water to grow their crops. They can’t have one thing without the other. Because this concept is so elementary to them, ‘sustainable’ practices often come naturally. In fact, all over the world, HOPE International Development Agency families easily choose practices that protect their land as well as bolster their economies.

What is sustainability? It is nothing more than ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The reason a Dominican farmer uses techniques that nurture rather than deplete the land is not because he feels guilty about global warming, or because HOPE won’t help him unless he sacrifices some economic advantage in order to be ‘green’. The reason why the Dominican farmer chooses to be sustainable is because he is well aware that his children and grandchildren will have no future unless he keeps his land healthy and productive for them.

This brings us to the most important lesson the poor have taught us about sustainability. Sustainability comes from having a heightened sense of the welfare of your children. It means doing what you have to do to ensure that the things you have today can be passed down to the generations that follow you. Poor families, who might not say the word ‘sustainability’, understand and practice the concept instinctively.

A friend of ours, Daniel Schellenberg, is a champion of applying lessons learned from the poor about sustainable living. Having spent many years in Kenya, he now resides with his extended family on a beautiful homestead in East Texas. Their ‘Propagelle Project’ is an attempt to find a way of living which is most mindful of the generations to come. Daniel’s blog is well worth reading for its insights from a person who approaches the situation of the poor and the environment with a balanced, informed, and passionate advocacy.

Afghanistan: A school truly designed for the ‘poorest of the poor’

Afghanistan continues to be a place of stark need and clear opportunities for investment, especially as its young women are concerned.

The news agency IRIN tells us that ‘about two million state school students do not have access to safe drinking water and about 75 percent of these schools in Afghanistan do not have safe sanitation facilities’. In this same article, UNICEF states this lack of adequate facilities is one prominent reason that girls stay away from school. Classrooms may exist, but they are unsuitable for female students unless there are latrines nearby.

As with their clinic, the high school that HOPE International Development Agency Afghanistan is building this year will serve the poorest of the poor in the country’s northwest. Who better exemplifies real poverty than a young girl from a family without opportunities, in a region the government all but ignores, in a nation struggling so profoundly with issues of gender? Because this school’s raison d’etre is addressing the needs of the very poorest people in Afghanistan, care is being taken to ensure that this is a comfortable, appropriate place for girls. In addition to its 12 classrooms and library, the school will be equipped with a clean water system and proper washroom facilities.

Again, as with the clinic, the standard of quality that this school will reflect all but guarantees that families living all over the region will make use of it. It is an ambitious project, but services for these families should be provided with care, completeness, and attention to detail. Going the extra mile for Afghanistan’s most vulnerable citizens - its young daughters - is a necessary investment.

Sri Lanka: ‘This is our responsibility.’

‘I personally feel that this is our responsibility as people who are involved in development to support, at this crucial time, our local communities to make their lives less vulnerable by providing some food and other material assistance in this fragile situation.’

We received this entreaty last week from a colleague in Sri Lanka who is on the front line of what has become a truly atrocious humanitarian situation. Reflective of the dignified persistence that all our international staff have in common, this statement touches upon the severity of the crisis with gentle understatement.

‘Fragile’ it is. Over 100,000 people have been caught in the crossfire of savage fighting between Tamil Tigers and government forces. The former is likely on its last legs, shunted to a narrow strip of territory, while the latter refuses to halt their offensive for a moment, eager to finish off Sri Lanka’s rebel movement while they have the momentum. Meanwhile, refugee camps outside the conflict zone are receiving what has been described as a ‘human avalanche’ of traumatized, starving people.

HOPE International Development Agency is mounting up its response to the crisis. As always, men and women who we Canadian staff can trust and admire will manage the distribution of live-saving supplies to displaced families. Once again, the abstract ‘emergency’ that we grapple with only in our imaginations will for them be a very tangible, very difficult, sweaty, frightening, loud, confusing, and heart-breaking reality. Now, as with always, we must do all that we can to overcome our feeling of separateness from the suffering in order to answer our Sri Lankan colleague’s challenge with nothing less than love and affirmation.

Learn how you can save lives today.

The Dominican Republic: resourceful when receiving

HOPE International Development Agency delivered a medical shipment to our partners in the Dominican Republic shortly after New Year’s and these supplies have been put to excellent use in the last four months. Happily, all clinics serving the poor in Ocoa province are completely stocked for the first time our Dominican friends can remember.

A staff member from the Canadian office visited the area last month and was reminded why we treasure working with our Dominican counterparts so much. The thoroughgoing hospitality of Dominicans is world-famous, but they often don’t get enough credit for their creativity and resourcefulness. These are people who will make a kingdom out of a pittance.

For example, when the distribution to the various clinics was complete, there was a supply of small items like gloves and cotton swabs left over. Not wanting to waste a single part of the donation, Dominican staff made small packages that they gave to community businesses like barber shops after performing short demonstrations of good hygienic practice. A few bits of cotton and rubber were transformed into an opportunity for community education.

In Ocoa, few opportunities are wasted and no resource is squandered. Any generosity we show in this place is generally multiplied as Ocoan people practice their particular brand of community solidarity.

Philippines: Jeana and her clean water

Clean water is the first step out of the worst kind of poverty for the world's poorest families.

Jeana Pangcato, a Filipino mother of five children, tells her story of how clean water has transformed her family’s life.

Before we had access to a HOPE International Development Agency water system, we used to get our drinking water from the nearby river, about one kilometer down a steep hill.

We would dig a small shallow pit just beside the river to try and filter the water a bit, but it did not work very well. My children and I always had diarrhea, stomach problems, and even skin problems because of drinking the river water.

Often, there was not enough water for use near the river and we had to look elsewhere. There is another tap available from a system constructed by the government many years ago, but the water is contaminated because sewage has entered the system. Even still, there were lineups for water there every day at the single faucet meant to serve the entire community.

Today, we have a new water source from HOPE International Development Agency. I only have to walk about 100 meters from my house to access a tap that has clean water, with enough water for everyone, everyday.

There are taps throughout our community so that everyone can have water. I come to use the taps almost every hour for washing, cleaning, and cooking - it is so convenient. My family is much healthier and not sick with waterborne diseases anymore.

Throughout the day, I now have extra time now to keep my household clean, and my husband does not need to stay home to work. He can go do income-generating activities.

Visit www.hope-international.com and learn more about our efforts to bring abundant supplies of clean water to the world’s poorest families.