Why Honduras??

This blog will detail our Partnership Trip to Honduras taking place from March 14-23, 2011. Beverly Brace and myself will be part of a group of 14 individuals from Atlantic Canada who will travel to Honduras as part of a process to establish a long term, cooperative realtionship with our Honduras partners.We will meet with staff, volunteers and participants and visit different program sites around the country. Our goal is to be able to facilitate communications, support program development and coordinate and share resources from our associations and the ACJ of Honduras.


The Exploits Valley YMCA is one of the YMCAs in Canada East that is in partnership with th ACJ (YMCA) of Honduras. We started the process in 2009 and will continue to the end of the agreement in 2013.

So what about Honduras??

As you can see from the map Honduras is one of the seven countries of Central America, located east of El Salvador and Guatemala.

It is a country with significant social challenges as illustrated by the following statistics...

Out of a population of almost 8 million, 65% of the population is under the age of 25 with the average level of schooling attained being at a grade four level. It is estimated that at least 25% of the juevenile population is neither working or attending school.

Honduras has the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in Central America .National fiqures suggest that between 20 and 22% of the adult male population also suffers from depression.

There is also a high incidence of homicide among young people in the country.

These are the types of challenges that the YMCA of Honduras are facing as they develop programs for the young people in their country.

Our monetary contributions every month are used to support a number of programs that help in providing citizenship training and facilitates capacity building and the involvement of youth in the political process at both local and national levels.

Here is a link to a YouTube video from Honduras that highlights some of their work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgGKhCeefk&feature=related


Stay tuned to our blog as we begin our final trip preparations and share out thoughts, observations and stories with you....

Thanks for following!!!