CELL Honduras: Sustainability Through Community

During the month of March, we are exploring the beautiful country of Honduras, the second largest country in Central America. Roughly the size of England, Honduras has a variety of habitats, including: cloud-forested mountains, pristine beaches, mangrove wetlands, coral reefs, and tropical rainforests. The months of March, April, and May are the dry season here in Honduras with temperatures ranging from the mid 80s to the mid 90s and delightfully cooler at night.

For the first three weeks in Honduras, CELL is collaborating with Heifer International. We are learning how Heifer, in partnership with other community organizations, is alleviating hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation by helping struggling families become environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. Since 1944, Heifer has helped more than 4 million people in 125 countries. Heifer provides more than 25 different kinds of food- and income-producing animals, as well as intensive training in animal husbandry, community development, and environmentally sound sustainable practices. Recipients ¨pass on the gift¨to others in their communities in a way that builds self-esteem and offers everyone the opportunity to make a difference in the struggle against hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation. For more information on Heifer, you can check out their website at: http://www.heifer.org.

Heifer Honduras is working with 25 different community partners in 300 communities throughout the country - impacting over 6,000 families annually. One of Heifer´s partners is an organization called Fundacion Simiente which promotes grassroots initiatives building the capacity of local people to help themselves. What makes this community partnership
so unique? The key to their success is that they focus on the capabilities and strengths of a particular community - they build upon what is already there NOT on what the community is lacking. Once they have identified the key strengths within a community, they then work with the community to build the leadership and organizational skills needed to manage the grassroots sustainability projects successfully. Eventually, the community organizations develop the capacity to manage all aspects of their work on their own.

Yesterday, we traveled by pick-up truck for several hours up into the mountains of Southwest Honduras over rough, winding roads leading to the remote community of Concepcion de Maria - one of the most beautiful villages I have ever seen. Life here has an organic richness. People are poor by ¨Western¨standards. They have no electricity, running water, TVs, microwaves, or designer clothing. They do, however, have something more more meaningful: an inner peace that comes from spending time with their families, knowing their neighbors, and sharing a meal with a stranger.

They don´t have much money, but they have an inner happiness that is shared freely with family, friends, and strangers. They don´t have a lot of material possessions, but what they do have, they share gaciously. They don´t have watches, so their lives flow in a natural daily and seasonal rythym. They don´t have cradles for their babies, so their ¨bebes¨ swing in hand-made hammocks in cool breezes beneath Mango trees. They don´t live frantic, stressful lives, they have time to stop, chat, and work together to build a communal well. They don´t live their lives independently, they live in community. I want to learn what these people have to teach me, and when I return home: I want to slow down, spend more time with my family and community, lend a helping hand to a neighbor without waiting to be asked, take more time to watch the stars and collect fire flies...

Below are reflections from the several days spent with Heifer, Fundacion Simiente, and the beautiful people of this remote region of Honduras.

Dave T: Being in this community takes me back to the village of Sabana Grande (a village in Nicaragua where we lived for two weeks). The animals were part of it, but it was the people that made the experience. The simple act of saying hello as I pass people or the smile and wave received, either way the people living in the country are amazing. They are so willing to give what little they have. They are always so willing to make us cafe (coffee) that is grown on their farm. Their cows were the most beautiful I´ve seen since being in Central America, and perhaps ever. They were well fed and really clean. The ¨pass on the gift¨program has been a real success with 18 heifers being passed on to new families in this small community alone. There is so much ingenuity going on, with a grey water filtration system that fuels a drip irrigation system for the garden; a biodigester producing free, renewable methane from cow dung (used as a fuel for the family´s cookstove reducing their wood consumption by 50% - making a signficant impact on reducing deforestation and soil erosion). The work Simiente is doing with the women´s groups is phenomenal. Now women are organizing, they have savings and money to send their children to school, and they are helping to support their community.

Jonas B: After a month in Nicaragua, I was very sad to leave. Especially after our time in Sabana Grande for two weeks, I felt very welcomed and comfortable there. We made many close relationships with the people in the community and I really hope to return some day.

At first the transition to Honduras was tough for me. For a week, we remained at a hostel-type facility close to the capital Tegucigalpa. After feeling at home and free to roam where I pleased in Nicaragua, we were repeatedly told that the area was unsafe. I began to dread the stay in Honduras. That was until we got to see Fundacion Siamente in action. This foundation works, in partnership with Heifer International, with a community in the mountains near Langue, Honduras. As we drove to the community, I could feel the atmosphere lighten dramatically. We began waving and people would grin and wave back. It was a much-needed trip to the community as it helped strengthen my morale for the rest of our time in Honduras. It makes me really see the effects of globalization in the cities (I think Tegucigalpa has more American companies than Honduran companies). More often than not, this globalization process tears true communities apart, and I hope that its effects do not drift into the countryside.

In the community we helped carry rocks from the mountainside to a well that they have been digging for eight years. I loved feeling that great sense of community as we worked along side the men and women as well as several children. It was hard work, but the idea of working as a community kept me going strong. Halfway through our work, a girl came out and gave us watermelon for a small break. I gladly took a piece and began devouring it until I realized that only we gringos were receiving any. Feeling guilty and more privileged than I wanted to, I gave my other half to a boy named Jose who had been helping me by stacking rocks in my arms.

Max: Heifer’s vision of “Honduran communities inspired by principles of love of one’s neighbor and respect for nature, generating development processes and equitably sharing their resources in order to lead a dignified life;” and, Fundación Simiente´s community structure plan and systems thinking perspective, Isletas #1 was an incredible sustainability experience. They used advanced technologies combined with Honduran ingenuity to create sustainability options for an entire community. While in the community, we were able to see three different projects that all embodied “love one’s neighbor and nature.” The livestock we saw were the cleanest and best looking I have ever seen. There is also something about being in the “campo” and the people that live there, so close to the land. They seem much happier than those with more material things that live in the city. But what it truly is, that I have found out in the northern zone of Honduras, is the community itself, not where it is located. The community could be in the Bronx of NY or the Bayou of LA, it is the community itself that helps foster happy people, animals, and fulfilled lives. These projects have shown us viable sustainable solutions for any type of community. The format that Fundación Simiente has formed focuses on people and on the individual, small group, and large community scales; without a strong base a home or within one’s self, you can never be a part of a well functioning community. We need to start viewing communities and individual people making up a larger group, not just the whole. I feel this was evident in helping build a community well. This made me feel much more connected to that place and the people; we shared laughs, smiles, bruses, and beads of sweat with the people in the community, something that will never be forgotten by all. These types of connections are the ones that strengthen our bonds between our fellow humans, even if they live in a different land, with different customs, or a different skin color; we all live on the same planet and only have one to work with.

Carmen: What really struck me about the people in Las Olivas was how enthusiastic they were about new and positive changes. It seems like these two organizations have brought many new ideas (for example, Heifer's system of "passing on the gift"). So far, these new concepts have taken off and brought so many good things to the community. The people have now witnessed that these things work--that they can be trusted. That is why it is so important for organizations to make sure their plans have a very good chance of succeeding. If not, the people of the community are likely to lose faith in them. The women were very inspiring to me. They have such an amazing ability to support eachother through organizing as a group. They do whatever they can to provide for their families and to send their children to school. One of the main reasons, I feel, that Heifer and Simiente have been successful so far is because they understand how to harness the will-power of the women.

Dave O: Today we visited the Mayan ruins in Copan and a Chorti (Mayan descendent´s) village in the hills nearby. Approximately 30,000 Mayans lived in the valley and hills surrounding Copan, the principal Mayan cultual center during the 400 years when the city was at the peak of its development. Copan was far ahead of other larger and more powerful Mayan cities in its development of sculpture, astronomy, and hieroglyphic writing. While walking around the Mayan ruins, what struck me was: ¨Why did a culture that was so advanced, a culture that so revered the natural world through its art and religious ceremonies on one hand, show such a disregard for its natural world on the other?¨ Most archaeologists, for example, suggest that the decline of the Mayan culture was caused by the lack of stewardship of their natural resouces. The Mayans in Copan deforested their entire environment which resulted in severe soil erosion and an altered climate which grew much hotter and dryer due to the lack of trees to hold moisture and moderate temperatures. The consequence? Failure of crops, starvation, disease, and, eventually, the collapse of their civilization. This same scenerio has been played out by other civilizations that have collapsed (e.g. Aztecs, Incas, Easter Islanders, etc.). I wondered how such advanced cultures could ignore tell tale environmental signs pointing to an eventual collapse of their entire civilization? I then wondered how we in the U.S. (with 5% of the world´s population consuming 30% of the world´s resouces) can continue to ignore the environmental signs of the 21st Century - signs pointing to the possible collapse of our civilization? I wondered what steps I can take to live a life more in harmony with the natural world?

In the afternoon, we visited a poor Mayan Chorti village in the hills near Copan. Most adults in this community are illiterate. They live in thatched-roof dwellings that leak water in the rainy season. They live on a 45 degree-sloped hillside with poor soils for growing their crops. They travel long distances to the river to obtain water. Their children have limited access to education. Historically, they have had little external help. Today, however, with the help of Heifer International and a local community partner, the Chorti are learning how to build homes and furniture, grow crops sustainably, install a community water system that provides clean water to each family, build a new school for their children, and acquire cows that provide fresh milk and a source of income for their families. Today, the Chorti have hope for a more sustainable future. What they are receiving is not charity. Heifer is teaching and empowering this community to learn how to help themselves. They are receiving the education and training needed to help themselves today and to become self-sufficient tomorrow. This process not only builds the skills and capacity of the community, it also builds their self-respect by enabling these beautiful people to help themselves - what they ultimately want and need. We are learning so much about ¨sustainability through community.¨