ICS blog

As I come to the end of my time in Honduras, I think back on the last nine months I’ve spent in the country and working on the ICS programme with Progressio. These have been the most varied and challenging nine months of my life, through which I have learnt so much and have fallen in love  - with another part of the world.  

Travelling across the world to Africa as a volunteer is by far the most empowering thing that I have ever done. I believe it has opened up many doors far beyond the realms of my life goals. It was my first time travelling alone, as in, without family or close friends. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t scared about what I was getting myself into. However, the fellow volunteers have become good friends who I can rely on like family; this has made my stay very comfortable and stress free. 

As we come to the end of our 10 weeks in Honduras, we have been reflecting on our experiences as team Yamaranguila and as individuals. Collectively we have made improvements to the local community centre, run four entrepreneurial skills workshops, held three events at the local school to promote a culture of peace, spearheaded a community clean-up, run an entrepreneurial recycling workshop, and contributed to the construction of an eatery business for the local youth network. 

Seeing as we are approaching the end of the cycle now and everyone is busy writing up reports and debriefs, I thought that this week would be a good time to reflect on the progress that we have made this cycle and everything that we have done in the National Park Volcan Masaya. 

A question that almost all of us were asked before we came to volunteer in the community of Santa Marta is, “so what are you actually going to be doing in El Salvador?” Since, at the time, I wasn’t exactly sure of the answer myself, I would often reply with something vague, along the lines of “we’re building a school” or “we’ll just be doing whatever needs done!” Sometimes the reaction to this somewhat underwhelming response would be a look of confusion.

Seven weeks ago I had zero clue on what ‘ISALS’ could have possibly meant. Now, after having completed five training sessions with an average of 80 farmers per session, I’d like to think I have acquired enough information on the subject to confidently say, “Why yes, I do know what an ISAL is!”

After seven weeks of hard work from both groups it seemed like it was about time that Group 1 took a trip to the volcano to see exactly what Group 2 had been up to. We were given the option of two different routes. The first, called Las Marias, was a route which Group 2 had done a lot of work on. The second, called Las Pencas, was a longer, more scenic route that they hadn’t done much work on, but still needed to promote. For both routes, Group 2 had to take photos of the tour for brochures and posters to promote the volcano and encourage more tourists.

I have the right to... play, have water, food, security, education, healthcare, shelter, and freedom of expression. 

If you were to walk past the local school near Yaramaguila, Honduras, on 19 August you would have heard approximately 120 excitable children aged 4-13 shouting in both English and Spanish 'Tengo el derecho a...'/I have the right to...'. 

My “Mangwanani mese. Ndinonzi MJ!” was met with a series of giggles and whispers. This was Lowdon Lodge, a boarding school for seven - 17 year old girls with various disabilities. 

Our first meeting with the girls started with an informal baseline survey. We joined them at St Dominic High school for their Friday PE lesson. They split into two groups: one group doing a coached wheelchair tennis session and us volunteers running the netball session.

After finishing our main project we decided to start a vegetable patch in the church grounds and a playground in the La Sabanita school as a prize for the enormous amount of bottles that the students had collected during the previous weeks.