AHMEN's Community Empowerment Program - Agentes Comunitarios de Salud Integral - 2023 Report

 If you follow AHMEN on Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube, you get a glimpse into our regular interpretation of our community involvement initiatives in Honduras.  However, what you don't always receive all the time that we are working to provide more of is the viewpoint of the end user.  It doesn't really matter what we think about how our donations and the way we use them on local education efforts function to the benefit of Honduran families.  What counts is how they are important to the community members who attend and receive training at our quarterly empowerment seminars.  Take a look here at how two attendees sum up their training and how it contributes to their capacity as leaders.

If this side of the story interests you, then why don't you join us in Honduras next summer to meet the individuals attending AHMEN's community agent training program?  Contact me here to learn more!  If you are not the traveling type but want to see this program continue, why don't you begin contributing to our efforts today?  Email me here when you do.

Together, we are the difference!

Yorito Tornado Relief

One of the benefits of AHMEN's community agent training program is that AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team receives regular, up-to-date information from local sources.  It's not always good news.

Last fall, a tornado struck Yorito, Yoro, Honduras and severely damaged many buildings and homes. 

AHMEN is not currently equipped to fund rebuilding projects across the town, but we can with your help.

Tornadoes have followed me my entire life.  One landed in my backyard in Smyrna, Ga when I was six-years-old.  Another hit St. James Elementary in Montgomery, AL just an hour before the bell was to ring on spring morning.  I remember seeing paper falling from the sky hours before the 2011 Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornadoes.  I knew something weird was about to happen.  Yet another followed me to Nashville, TN in the spring of 2020.  If you have similar tales of storms invading your personal space, or have even lost everything due to one, you know how vulnerable and exposed storm damage can make you feel.

AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team would like to establish a rebuilding fund for cases just like these so that during unpredictable times we can help.

Would you consider taking our message to your Sunday School class, church, local organization, and family?  A one-time or regular donation will mean the world to families left without rooves, walls, and windows.

Visit AHMEN.org to donate.  Email me when you do.  Then, share this blog with others so we can amass a relief fund for Yorito's recent storm damage and other towns which experience weather loss in the future.  Maybe you would even like to lead a building team to go repair the dozen or so houses left in disrepair.  Contact AHMEN today to learn how to get started!

Without friends and family to help, we are all alone in times of need.  However, with your support, together we are the difference.

Women's Empowerment in Honduras

AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team and those of us involved in community empowerment find ourselves working with women on a regular basis.  Oftentimes, there aren't any men in the room other than ourselves.  

This is not because men are not appreciative of education and do not want their communities to thrive.  No, we do not discriminate on invitations.  In fact, we wholeheartedly believe that every classroom functions better with a variety of opinions and backgrounds.

One reason that AHMEN's community empowerment workshops tend to boast a majority female participation rate is that women in Honduras can be said to be left out of traditional educational spheres.  So one might make the argument that where society's machismo leaves women out of education for the sake of learning, AHMEN makes up the difference!

I remember hearing from the adults around me when I was a teenager back in the early 2000s that the reason that we did not see a lot of men at the free medical clinics our brigades supplied was because the men were out working.  With authority, the male leaders of our medical staff would say "The women had to bring the kids in to be seen by our teams."

While this may have been true, could we also not say that the men did not see it as their job or role in a patriarchal sphere to walk the family five miles to see the only physicians available locally for months?  Feminists understand that the domestic chore of caring for the children is considered "women's work" by the dominant culture.

On the other side of the patriarchy we understand that society prioritizes the education of men because men belong in the public sphere.  After all, what is a woman to do with an education when dinner needs preparing? 

Such regressive attitudes prevail in our modern society even in the most cosmopolitan countries.  However, their prevalence in Latin America leave women without the ability to truly care for themselves or their families. Gibbons et al. (2022) write: 

    Education is the key driver of women’s empowerment. Education reduces women’s poverty     (McCarthy, 2015), allows them better employment opportunities (Spierings et al., 2010),

    empowers them to have the number of children they desire (Poelker and Gibbons, 2018),

    improves women’s health (Alsan and Cutler, 2013), and increases their political

    participation (Fanny and Oluwasanumi, 2014; Bird, 2019). 

AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team believes the woman at the well, Mother Mary, and Mary Magdalen were deliberately given a voice in the Holy Bible to crumble the façade of misogyny.  We therefore work with purpose in educating women so that they do not need to wait on society to change so their children may have a better life.  Women can be the change they want to see in their communities right now.

If you agree with us, why don't you consider a monthly donation toward community empowerment in Honduras through AHMEN by visiting AHMEN.org?  Email me when you do so I can get your gift to the right cause!  If you are a more "hands on" type of activist, why not join our June 1-8 team to go work directly with the women we serve?  Either way, contact me today to learn more!

Together, we are the difference.

Red de Mujeres Represents!

 The Women's Network of Jutiapa is on fire.  They recently demonstrated in Jutiapa for women's rights.

"Don't accept crumbs from anyone.  You are a woman not an ant."

"Gendered violence can by symbolic, psychological, political, physical, sexual, economic and patronymic."

"No more murders of women in Jutiapa, Atlantida.."

AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team is proud to work with the Women's Network of Jutiapa to help end sexism in Honduras.  Not only does unequal, violent treatment of women hurt women, it cripples the entire community.

Would you like to work with the Women's Network (Red de Mujeres) with the Rio team next year?  Sign up with us today by sending an email or visiting us on social media.  You can also send a message via AHMEN's new website.

When even just one of God's creatures' integral worth is compromised, we are all alone.  Together, we are the difference!  

The Gang is Back Together

When a group of trained community leaders gets back together with their teacher after a long hiatus, they have a lot to say.  Of course, they do!  Much changed in Honduras over the last several years.

While it really was always the case, the women are in charge of Honduras now.  Honduras overthrew the coup dictator Juan Orlando Hernandez and elected its first woman president, Xiomara Castro.

Indigenous leaders are now well-positions throughout the government from top to bottom, and the youth of the country see that they are the ones who will lead the nation's transition from banana republic dominated by the hegemonic powers that be into an environmentally-conscious, justice-based round table where criminals do not corrupt with impunity.

AHMEN's community agents are back together again with high hopes, positive aspirations, and forward-leaning postures not ignorant of the fact entire families and neighborhoods are daily abandoning their precious country.  No, they march forward inspired to preserve and prosper the best of Honduras.

ACSI-Jutiapa 2.0 wishes to fill the hearts and minds of those around them in order to ensure the next generation of Honduras no longer lives in exodus but brick-by-brick rebuilds the temple.

To begin, their goals are brief but powerful.  They are centered in liberty.  

Goal #1: Look for more men to join the program.  Just because women and children keep the nation alive does not mean that men should not be a part of the conversation, the solution.

Goal #2: Ensure the participation of the mayor and local health department.  This group does not want to function in a vacuum.  They do not want to be a pet project of AHMEN.  They desire to be a self-sustaining cog in the wheels of progress throughout their community.

Goal #3: Increase communication and interaction at each subsequent meeting.  ACSI-Jutiapa wishes to do more each time they get together.  This means taking over the responsibilities of the group chat, organizing meeting times, and contributing to lesson plans.  The previous ACSI community agents remember what it was like to be recipients of education.  They are ready to be contributors!

When AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team began working with leadership across Honduras 15 years ago in an organized fashion with the explicit goal of empowering local Hondurans to take ownership over their own development, we never knew the challenges that we would face.  Today, we understand the road behind us was just iron sharpening iron.  In the road ahead, with your help, we pray to make steel.  Together, we are the difference.  How can you help?

His Truth Is Marching On

Don't drop the ball.

Stay after it.                          Keep going.

 

                  Don't stop now.

These are not just motivating phrases but the bread and butter of development work.  The tedious zigzag pattern from A to B wears out even the most hopeful Pollyanna.  Truly, the time and effort of long-term planning for short-term goals, translation, and interpretation of results wears on me like a 3rd-generation hand-me-down.  Nonetheless, the garment that l would like to wear as well as my predecessors does not always stand up to the test of time in that way.

Sometimes we have to remove the sleeves from a dress shirt, cut out the neck of a t-shirt, or tie-dye our undies for a new purpose.  This fall, AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team began to repurpose its former community empowerment program for the modern era.  We are determined to give everything we can out of this life and God's purpose for us.  When our former community development coordinator reached out to us this summer to mend our socks, if you will, the decision was made not only to re-start our sustainability seminars, but to ensure former graduates were front and center.

Agentes Comunitarios de Salud Integral is back, baby ...  And better than ever!  We need to start fresh but freshly start.

Instead of relying simply on a single top-down approach, we set out to rely on the former community agents who stayed in touch, continued replicating their training, and vowed not to be overlooked.

During the September reanimation meeting, The participants were highly participative and commented about the training subject, specifically those related to women’s rights and entrepreneurism.

All of them were convinced of the value of the training program to improve their quality life and contribution to holistic community development. They are ready to restart as soon as possible and expressed a dire need for methods to meet local economic need through socio-emotional learning.

As we rise from the ashes of the past like the phoenix, I want to remind you that you once prayed for the success of our program.  You once donated.  You once held a fundraiser, and you once joined the Rio team to teach your sisters and brothers in Honduras.  I ask you now to find that spark again and rejoin our efforts.  Alone we may make remarkable progress, but together, we are the difference!

An Opportunity for Sustainability

Being a long-term, short-term missionary for the last 25 years has been a rewarding experience.  I have learned many important life skills along the way.  One of the most valuable personality traits which grew in me from the ebb and flow of successes in Honduras has been being able to see the silver lining.  Making limonada out of limones isn't always my first response, but God's strong hands help squeeze it out of me.

For the last few years, AHMEN's Río de Agua Viva team has been working with the Red de Jóvenes in Jutiapa, Atlántida.  This animated group of students trusts the Río team to help them plan and carry out many social projects in the area.  Recently, youth network asked us to donate toward a piñata fund for El Día Internacional de Juventud.  At first, I was not opposed as I am always down for a party.

For the last few years, AHMEN's Río de Agua Viva team has been working with the Red de Jóvenes in Jutiapa, Atlántida.  This animated group of students trusts the Río team to help them plan and carry out many social projects in the area.  Recently, youth network asked us to donate toward a piñata fund for El Día Internacional de Juventud.  At first, I was not opposed as I am always down for a party.

However, when we heard that the piñatas were going to cost $100 each, we knew that the party was going to be out of reach.  I mean, we might as well have brought in the fatted calf for that price!

In frustration and desperately searching for a solution, I requested AHMEN's community development coordinator explain that the group should learn to make piñatas on their own.  We made them in my Spanish classes without proper instruction or an immense socio-historical background with piñatas; why couldn't the very capable leadership of the Youth Network be able to learn to make their own party crafts.  They had surely busted dozens of piñatas in their lives, even at half my age!

Well, my Grinch moment turned into a valuable opportunity for sustainability.  AHMEN's community development coordinator found a local piñata maker who was thrilled to teach a lesson to our group.

Not only that, the decision was made to also invite members of the Red de Mujeres (Women's Network) and our new community agent training program.

In this way, the Honduran leaders we depend on to teach their neighbors valuable survival skills learned to make an essential party favorite just in time for the year's biggest festivities!

So what is the lesson here?  In mission work, be ready to say "no" to any request.  However, if you do, also be ready with an alternative and the people power to see the negotiation through to success.

Not a single one of us can quench the thirst of God's thirsty people without the Lord's provision of the sweet fruit of solution to juice.  Moreover, we are not supposed to go at it alone.  Someone has to slice and squeeze.  Someone has to mix.  Someone has to pour, and someone has to find cookies to enjoy with the ambrosia of our labor.  Alone, we will always look to the same boring model, but TOGETHER we are the difference.