News updated March 31, 2008

Doctor Juan Almendares meets with Canadian Youth Delegation

March 17 2008

Earlier this month, a group of Canadian youth and adults taking part in a humanitarian cultural exchange in Honduras had the opportunity to meet a prominent figure in the international environmental arena.

Doctor Juan Almendares, healer, human rights activist, and founder of COHAPAZ (el Comité Hondureño de Acción por la Paz), CPTRT (Centro para la Prevención, Tratamiento y Rehabilitación de victimas de la Tortura) and Movimiento Madre Tierra, took a few hours out of his day to sit down with the group to tell them the story of his life and of his country.

The Canadian delegates hung on his every word, fascinated by the events that led this medical doctor and scientist to become a leading advocate of human rights, a student of natural medicine, an environmentalist, and a poet. As he told his own story, Almendares encouraged the youth to consider their own futures, reminding each one of them of their great potential to contribute to the world around them.

“He was really inspiring. He had something profound to say in response to everybody’s ideas,” said 15-year-old Megan Aiken after the discussion.

The exchange was facilitated by Falls Brook Centre, a New Brunswick-based organization which has a long-standing partnership with Dr. Almendares and the organizations he founded. Participants visited a COHAPAZ project on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa and assisted in building pilas (water catchment cisterns) and efficient wood-burning stoves. Falls Brook Centre has been bringing young New Brunswickers to Central America for five years now, and is proud to continue building solidarity between Canadian and Honduran community movements.

--Alison Shurvell

Donations

1. the scholarship program - $500+

The idea with this scholarship is twofold--to enable youth to attend high school, while at the same time encouraging (or requiring) their participation in COHAPAZ. This is accomplished by requiring active participation in COHAPAZ events as a condition of the awarding of the scholarship.

The scholarship will be in the amount of 300 lempiras (16 USD) per month for 10 students, amking a total of 3000 lempiras (160 USD) per month. Unfortunately this means the span of the scholarship will potentially be short. But we hope to sustain it with additional funds raised, plus the funds from the repayment of the soap factory loan (see below).

2. the zamorano field trip - $60

In February, Laura, one of the interns, was invited to an environmental/feminist conference near the agricultural town of Zamorano. Laura invited several young women from COHAPAZ to come with her to the conference, at the cost of renting a vehicle for the day.

3. The women's loan fund - $200

It is unfortunately a frequent occurrence that the women of COHAPAZ want to go to big events to sell food, but cannot come up with the funds needed to buy the supplies they need to make the food they would sell. With the urging of the four Doñas of the junta directiva of COHAPAZ, we decided it would be a great idea to set up a loan fund that COHAPAZ members could dip into in order to buy supplies needed to make items they would then sell. The beauty of this fund will be that once the women have sold what they are selling, they will replenish what they took out, and the fund can continue forward undiminished.

4. the soap factory - $160 grant + $125 interest-free loan

to a womens soap making microenterprise outside of the town of Marcala in the province of La Paz.

In November 2007, with our friend and COHAPAZ member Telsa, we visited the factory (a four room modest building) where the women were engaged in the production of natural sabila (alow vera) soap. There were several women there working in the factory, all of whom lived nearby. They told us how two things were holding them back, their application for their registered business status and corresponding number (at a cost of around 300 USD), and their lack of electricity to power the soap making machine they had in the factory. When we visited it seems they were making the soap using fires, instead of the machine that they had on site. So, we purchased some soap from them (of excellent quality incidentally), and impressed by their sincerity, wished them luck.

A few months later, having received donations via this website, and still remembering well our visit to that little soap factory, we inquired with Tesla, who lives nearby, how the women and their soap business were doing. We learned that they had managed to get their registered business status, but were still lacking the funds to have electrical wires brought to and installed in their little factory. At that point we said to Tesla that if the women would make us a proposal for funding, detailing expected expenses, we would consider helping them.

The women presented us with a proposal, detailing their expenses. They estimated that it would cost them 5500 lempiras (260 USD) to get the electricty running. We discussed it and decided to give them the 5500 lempiras, but with 2500 lempiras being a grant to be repaid to COHAPAZ in the future, at no interest.

Tesla Ventura and her supporters continue to fight in the face of government stall tactic