As we approached the half way mark this week, I took the time to reflect on my journey so far with regards to my own personal experiences and also the work we have all been doing as Team Catacamas.
On a personal level this has been interesting for me as I cannot help but to constantly see many similarities between Honduras and my birth place Colombia and perhaps at times I have allowed this to cloud my Honduran experience. Now it’s not to say I have seen it all and know it all but I envy the sense of excitement and curiosity in which others in the group might approach a situation in which I may have previously found myself in. Equally I feel lucky to not only have the ability to fluently communicate with the locals but to also identify with a lot of their culture and customs. I believe this has been a great advantage in aiding my understanding of the Honduran community and played a massive part in integrating into what has now been my home for the last six weeks.
I feel like I am able to sympathise with some of the struggles Hondurans face on an everyday basis whether this is because I have personal experiences of these or simply because I still have family living in Colombia who have to struggle with a level of poverty similar to those seen here in Honduras. Although my life has changed dramatically since my family moved to the UK, being here in Honduras has allowed me to use this experience to feel more grounded and appreciative, as in my opinion I believe it is very easy to forget about how lucky we are with regards to the opportunities we have available in the UK and this may just be because these are more accessible to us. A prime example was made clear through the work we are doing here in Catacamas and has been the right and opportunities we have in the UK to education.
In the UK this is more of a matter of choice as we have financial help from the government, such as grants and loans from Student Finance and NHS bursaries, which allow us to access further education if we wished to do so. In comparison, here in Honduras due to financial statuses a child reaching the sixth grade is considered to be a big achievement. This is not because a child’s family does not care for their education or because children here don’t have big dreams. In fact, while working in the schools here in Catacamas, I have heard over and over again children who tell me they wish to be Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers and Psychologists when they grow up. Although these goals may be seen to be unrealistic for some, it has been our job to provide motivation and encouragement for these children to achieve in school. Even if higher education is not as easily accessible as it is in the UK, there are scholarship programmes like the one run by our partnership organisation CEREPA (Centre for the Rehabilitation of Patients with Addictions) who currently offer 136 scholarships to less fortunate young people here in Catacamas.
Our Team has worked very hard alongside six schools already and successfully delivered our drug prevention fair to over 600 children here in Catacamas. Just as I was once told, I am starting to feel a sense of fulfilment as the overall figures start to add up and the thought of being responsible for triggering that desire in a child to want to work hard and succeed at being whatever they want to be feels like the ultimate reward, and this is my tiny contribution to make a change to the world I live in!
Written by ICS volunteer Claudia Garcia Morales
