May Group Had Successful Mission

We just received a phone call from the May Group.  They have completed their work and are now taking a day or so to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan.

They built a house, and made eight latrines, among their other projects. 

More information will come shortly.

May Group Arrives in Honduras

The five-member NY/HELP group left for Honduras early this morning for their 10 day stay.  They called  around 5pm to say they had safely arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and had made the trip to Yoro where they were staying the night in a hotel there.  Tomorrow they will head up the mountain to La Laguna to begin their work.

Two NY/HELP Groups Will go to Honduras This Year.

TWO trips are planned for this year.  The first, led by David Makepeace, is going for two weeks, from May 19 to the 30th.  They will be working with the people of the Tribe on community development and construction projects.

The second is scheduled for August 7 to 16.   Gordon Comstock and Judy Toner will be leading a group which we hope will start workingn on a new Kindergarten building in La Kiloma.   Of course, we will be working in the medical clinic as well.

Anyone who would like to come and participate on these trips should contact Ginger at < gkcomstock@gmail.com > as soon as possible.

We will be contracting with Jorge Alexi Ramirez (better known as Joel) to organize the community development work we have been encouraging.  Joel is President of the Tribal Development Committee, and has been doing volunteer work on these projects for the past year.  However, he needs some support so he can continue this exciting work.

Our coordinator in Honduras, Yovany Munguía, has been helping guide this project, but he is not able to be in the mountains full time. However, his recommendations are greatly respected by the people of the mountain communities.

NY/HELP is providing scholarships to 18 students to help them advance their education past sixth grade.   We hope to expand this program.  

NY/HELP Meeting

Hola amigos,

 

The NY/HELP Steering Committee will meet on Sunday, March 23, 2014, at 2PM at the Honeoye United Church of Christ on Main St in Honeoye, NY.

We will be discussing plans for our future activities including a summer trip to Honduras. We hope to have updates on the Tribal Council's activities.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Hope to see you there.

What's Happening With NY/HELP's Projects In Honduras?

The new Health Committee

This is a brief note to let you all know what is happening with NY/HELP.

Over the past several years, NY/HELP has been working with the people of the communities around La Laguna on ways to help the tribal community empower itself.   With the support provided by our coordinator in Honduras, Yovany Munguía, NY/HELP has been working with the Tribal Council and the Tribal Development Committee (CODET) on several community-development projects.  

One project has been to help organize training sessions on basic organizational and financial skills for the leaders of the local Patronados (Community Councils) in each village, so they can be more effective in advocating for their communities.  These sessions are being led by local teachers.

Another project  is assisting the Tribal Development Committee (CODET) in efforts to expand their base of support beyond NY/HELP.  This will involve supporting trips to meet with municipal and non-profit groups in Yoro, and education in how to ask for grants.   

This year, the cost of these programs will be about $600.

Education has been a big priority for NY/HELP over the years.  Having funded the construction of a Centro Básico (Middle School) in nearby Mataderos, we are now trying to encourage more students to attend the 7th to 9th grades there.  Because it does cost money for school uniforms and supplies, NY/HELP is working with the Tribal Council to provide scholarships for these expenses to 15 students this year.  The cost of this program is about $80 per student from the local area, and $125 for students from more distant villages, who must board with a family during the week.  The estimated cost for this program will be about $3000 for this year. 

The other big project for NY/HELP is the medical clinic.  NY/HELP pays the salary of our nurse, Mirtila Garcia, which is $250 a month.   Medicines for the clinic run about $200 a month.  We also pay our coordinator, Yovany Munguía, a stipend of $150 a month (plus expenses); this enables him to support all these projects.

Recently, the community has developed a local "Health Committee" to oversee the operations of the medical clinic.  This committee has 6 community members, including our nurse, Mirtila Garcia.  NY/HELP also has a seat on this committee.

Your support of NY/HELP helps continue this exciting phase of our mission in Honduras!

Gordon & Ginger Comstock, for the NY/HELP Steering Committee
March 5, 2014
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AND on March 8, we received an email from Yovany, informing us that the Tribal Council had awarded scholarshiops to 17 students to continue their education past the 6th grade.  Ten are to attend the Centro Básico in Mataderos, and 7 are to assist students living farther away to participate in the Radio (Correspondence) courses.     
The Health Committee will be going to El Rosario to learn about the governance of the community clinic there   This clinic is sponsored by our sister organization, New Hampshire ACTS.

Gordon & Ginger
March 8, 2014

NY/HELP Honduras November 2013 Bulletin #1

We Continue Strengthening Our Work Partners

In the month of November we were only able to have one meeting with the Health Committee of the Mataderos Tribe.

 

The 6 members of the Health Committee

(NY/HELP representative missing)

The meeting in La Habana served to get to know the committee and to reinforce the importance of their work in improving the health and well being of all the families of the tribe.

In the meeting we outlined to guidelines for the administration of the medical clinic according to the agreement with NY/HELP. We went through the process of elaborating articles of administration and left them the work of meeting in La Laguna to work on those issues in order to present them at the next meeting.

Another activity at that meeting was to learn how to develop a work plan and an annual Budget so that they might develop a basic plan in December.

 

In the pursuit of strengthening organization, we also developed cards, stamps and forms for an inventory of the assets of the clinic. 

The Development Committee (CODET), visited the communities in November to promote the development of plans for Projects that they will present to the Development Committee and the Tribal Council in order to obtain necessary resources.

With respect to the agreement regarding the running of the clinic, the Tribal Council, in a regular meeting, approved the agreement, since NY/HELP had already signed; nevertheless,  there will not be a meeting of the General Assembly until December in order to have formal approval.

Actions planned for December 2013

 Database: We will finish a database of at least 60 national and international organizations that support projects involving health, education agriculture and infrastructure in order to request resources from them.

Educational Scholarships: a plan developed with the Tribal Council to support 15 students will be sent to various charitable organizations for implementation in 2014.

Travel: The Health Committee is preparing a trip to a community medical facility in Yoro to view how it functions. Also planned is a trip for the Development Committee (CODET) to visit potential donors in Yoro and San Pedro Sula. Both trips are planned for February 2014. 

Trainings: A training plan will be developed this month with the three tribal groups with whom we work, initiating its implementation next year. There will be more news of these trainings in the next bulletin.

 Jorge (Joel) Alexis Ramírez celebrating his graduation.

Congratulations, Joel!

August 2013 Trip Report – August 3-11, 2013

The August 2013 NY/HELP trip to Honduras had four participants: "Profesor Jeff" Mason, "Dr. Gordon" Comstock, Ginger Comstock (all from the Arcade United Church of Christ), and translator Dan Beyer, whose family attends the Tabernacle in Orchard Park. 

NY/HELP's  mission for this trip was "meetings."  After a number of preparatory meetings here in New York, we arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras on Saturday, August 3.  At the airport, we were met by Yovany Munguía, our coordinator in Honduras, and later met the pharmacists at the SuperFarmacia Simán in SPS, where we arranged for medicine orders to be sent to the clinic in La Laguna.  Sunday involved riding the "Directo" bus to Yoro (with our bags piled on top), where we stayed at the Hotel Marquéz, the best hotel in town (at $30 a night for a double room!).   There we met our old friend Bill Briggs, who, along with his wife Susie, was a main founder of NY/HELP in 1989.  Bill now directs Honduras Hope, which is working with several Indian communities on the far side of Yoro.  He gave us some useful advice, and drove us to  the "Student Boarding House," where we reunited with our old friend Petronida, the "house mother" there, and her husband Pastor Jose Feliciano.  Following was a short visit to Plan Grande, an Indian community about an hour's walk from the city of Yoro, where we had interesting discussions with several students who live there.

Monday, Yovany joined us at the hotel, where we met with a delegation representing  the Tolupán tribe of Mataderos ( the indigenous people in the twelve villages around La Laguna). Those present included Antonia Amaya, President of the Tribal Council; and Jorge (Joel) Ramirez, president of the Tribal Development Committee.  We had a second meeting on Thursday, held at the Catholic church in La Laguna, where 36 representatives from the Patronados of the  twelve communities on the mountain were all in attendance, along with us four NY/HELPers.  Also attending was a representative from FETRIXY (the umbrella group for all the Tolupán tribes of Yoro).   Yovany was there for most of the meetings.  He is highly respected by the community, and helped to keep discussions on track and to summarize the conclusions and suggest plans of action. The meetings were chaired by Joel, who demonstrated excellent leadership skills.

The agenda for these meetings covered a half-dozen points.   These included discussion of the organization, goals and work plans of the Tribal Council, including plans for workshops for the community leaders in basic accounting, planning skills, and organizational principles.  The discussion then turned to ways to improve the organization and maintenance of the Medical Center.  A Health Committee is to be formed, which will manage the affairs of the clinic and support the nurse in her efforts for the next year.   The committee will also investigate sources of outside support for the clinic.  At the end of a year, this committee will be re-evaluated.   We also discussed ways to improve the clinic's outreach to the various rural communities.

The Tribal Council and Development Committee plan to obtain more information about the conditions in the various communities, and to use this as a basis to select community projects.  NY/HELP will use these recommendations as the basis for the projects we will support.    This information should help improve the welfare and living conditions of the families in the communities.  Training to meet family needs such as natural medicine, public health, nutrition and education is to be a priority project for the committees. 

Finally, we all had a spirited discussion about ways to improve student attendance at the new Centro Básico (middle school) which was recently built (with NY/HELP assistance) in Mataderos.  The school currently is less than half full, due partly to the distance many potential students would have to walk (and climb!) to get there.   The committees will be looking into ways to promote the Centro Básico in the communities.  NY/HELP will continue to support these efforts as best we can. 

In between these meetings, on Tuesday we hired a pickup truck to take us and our supplies up to La Laguna – this turned into a VERY cosy three hour trip!

We also had some time for our usual projects.    On Wednesday, Jeff and Yovany walked miles to visit the schools down in the valley on the other side of the mountain.  They visited the schools in La Kiloma and  El Paraíso, and saw the site for the new Kinder (kindergarten) building that NY/HELP wants to help construct in La Kiloma. Thursday, Jeff, Dan and Ginger visited the two schools in Mataderos.  They planned to visit the La Laguna school on Friday, but it was closed as one of the teachers was ill and the other teacher was away on school business.  Gordon stayed in the clinic, and, working with our nurse Mirtila Garcia, saw 54 patients.  He had invaluable assistance from Dan, who has turned out to be a superb medical translator!     And Ginger took lots of pictures for our reports.

We felt safer in the clinic, surrounded by friends, than in San Pedro Sula, which unfortunately has a high crime rate.  We had delicious meals at the clinic, often with Aracely's delicious vegetable soup, made from local produce.  In the city, we were introduced to baleadas, tortillas stuffed with refried beans, cheese, and eggs.

Friday we walked down the mountain.  Arriving in La Habana, we caught the "Directo" to San Pedro Sula, where Yovany met us at the bus terminal.   Saturday morning, we had a final meeting with Yovany, and developed a contract with him to cover his duties and responsibilities as our NY/HELP coordinator in Honduras.  He will be paid $150 a month, less $50 to go toward his debt to us.   We feel this is our best path, as Yovany has demonstrated his concern for the people of the tribe and his ability to get everyone to work together for a common purpose. 

Several months ago, we found out that Mirtila had not been paid her salary for the past year.  In spite of that, she had kept the clinic going.  Prior to our trip, we purchased MoneyGrams to be sent  to Honduras for her last year's salary of about $3600.  We are now making arrangements to pay her by MoneyGram on a quarterly basis.

Sunday, August 11, gave us an uneventful airplane trip back to Buffalo.

NY/HELP owes its existence to the grace of God, and to the work, donations and prayers of all of you.   Muchas gracias!


Gordon & Ginger Comstock
August 27, 2013