Honduran child migrant workers have new opportunity for education

CARE
Thursday, 10 April 2003

CARE, Honduran Education and Labor Ministries, the US Embassy and local communities partner to offer night school in Nacaome

Life is hard and harsh for migrant farm laborers in Honduras. Many began working at age 11 -- often at the expense of learning to read and write. But a CARE pilot project in the southern part of the country is working to change that. With support from the Honduran ministries of Education and Labor, the U.S. Embassy and local communities, child migrant workers now have an opportunity to complete a basic education at night school.

Makeshift huts of shrubbery, cardboard and driftwood line the Nacaome River in the second poorest part of the country. From November to May, hundreds of people, including children, migrate from their home communities to this unnamed location to work 11-hour days, seven days a week. In one of the hottest parts of the country, they pick and package melons for 65 Lempiras (US$4). Adults and children do it because there is no alternative. They are poor, and it is the only work they can find. Now, however, 40 children from this river community sit inside candle-lit huts each night, learning through textbooks, radio programs and tapes with the support of two volunteer facilitators.

"To work a full day and then attend class tells us that these children desire something better and are working to achieve it," says Miguel Lopez, CARE's education coordinator in Nacaome. "Through this pilot project we hope that migrant worker families and their seasonal employers come to place a higher value on education and help these children aspire to more in life."

A half-hour drive down a bumpy dirt road to the town of El Espino is the Jose Trinidad Reyes School. In its classrooms sit approximately 100 child migrant workers. The community has provided the school space and volunteer facilitators to direct classroom lessons.

"These children have to work to survive," says Francisca Dominguez, the school director. "Finding an opportunity for them to go to school has been a dream for many years. Now that we're able do something about it, we hope to set a positive example for other communities to follow."

CARE is one of the world's leading humanitarian organizations fighting global poverty. CARE began work in Honduras in 1954 and today with a staff of 175, oversees development programs in 10 of 18 departments that include basic and girls' education, risk management, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, agriculture, microcredit and municipality strengthening.

For more information, or to contact CARE, see their website at: www.care.org