Together with the Honduran nonprofit, Asociación Andar, and with the help of individuals, schools and churches here in the US, we are improving educational opportunities for children and young adults in Cedeño, Honduras. Our two main educational projects are:

The Center for Child & Family Development (Centro de Desarollo Infantil y Familiar, CEDIF) serving 36 preschool-aged children and their families

The Thomas Montgomery Scholarship Project, a program that has allowed 38 middle and high school students to continue their studies in 2005.

A New Beginning

As of February, a new school year is beginning in Cedeño. This will be the fifth year for the CEDIF and the fourth year that we have offered the scholarship program to exceptional junior high and high school students. Since its humble beginnings in 2002, the CEDIF has certainly grown. Construction of a permanent building is nearly complete, thanks to many generous donations and many dedicated hours of volunteer labor from community members. The CEDIF will begin the school year in the building that we have rented for the past three years, but we hope to be in our own building by April. The CEDIF has over 40 students enrolled for 2006. They will be divided by level (preschool and kindergarten) into two separate time blocks. Students at the junior high and high school levels begin their studies in February as well. We hope to offer the same number of scholarships as we did in 2005. This has been complicated by a new mandate requiring our radio education students to travel more frequently to Choluteca for review sessions and tests. We hope to find a way of working with this new challenge.

Leslie and Beth Roth, our wonderful volunteers for 2005, returned home in December after eleven months of service. Sarah Amman, our new volunteer for the 2006 school year, arrived in Honduras just after Thanksgiving, in time for Ben and Leslie to pass off the torch to her. This newsletter includes final reflections from Leslie and Ben on their time in Cedeño, and an introduction to Sarah in her own words. We are so grateful to all of them for their dedication and service. We are also grateful to all of you, who make this important work possible.

Staying Connected
by Leslie and Ben Roth

A new day at CEDIF

We have been back in the States for three months now, and in some ways Cedeño seems far away. In other ways, however, we continue to feel a close connection to that community, the CEDIF and the students that we grew to know so well.

First, Cedeño seems far away because, well, it is. And across the thousands of geographic miles that separate Cedeño from Western Massachusetts there is a serious change in climate – our recollection of the hot sultry climate in southern Honduras has been numbed by the cold and the snow that make New England in February so...enjoyable. Cedeño also seems distant because our lives changed drastically the moment we stepped off the plane in Miami last December. Many details of our routine here stand in sharp contrast to our experience of life in rural Honduras. We eat meals together less often, for example. And while we are flooded with information about the world thanks to cable and the internet, compared with our lives in Cedeño we know very little about the lives of the people in our community.

Now, 90 days later, we're about the daily business of life in Springfield. Leslie works with infants and toddlers who have developmental delays, infant mental health concerns or diagnosable disorders such as autism. As a social worker trained in infant mental health, she collaborates with a team of other professionals to help these children with speech and motor development, and to provide support and psycho-education for parents. Her work here is another iteration of the kind of work she was doing in Cedeño (except now she drives a car to people’s homes instead of her bike). Meanwhile, I’m working as a therapist at an outpatient mental health clinic in a largely Puerto Rican community, and running a therapeutic group for high school students. Although it is decidedly tame by U.S. standards, our routine here feels busy compared to our lives in Honduras. I miss evenings without the phone, American Idol or any pressing activity other than to finish my book in the hammock, kill a dozen mosquitoes foolish enough to alight on my arm or chat with our neighbor while drinking a semi-chilled orange soda.

But while we're far away from Cedeño in these ways, we still feel as if we have stayed remarkably close. Part of the reason we still feel connected to that community is because the year we spent living there changed us. We are not the same people now that we were in January 2005 when we first stepped foot in Cedeño, largely because of the meaningful relationships we created with families there. These are people who invited us into their lives and shared their resources with us. They welcomed us unconditionally and made every effort to make us feel like we belonged. For many years we have professed our belief in the power and importance of relationships. Eleven months in Cedeño deepened this belief and breathed into it added life and meaning.

We hope to go back to visit some day soon: to laugh with friends, to see how things are running at the CEDIF, to eat a plate of fried fish beneath Auxi's mango tree. Until then, while we work to make a difference in our corner of the world we'll keep in mind the difference the people of Cedeño made in our lives. It would be impossible to forget.

Special thanks to:

Michael Karp and AWISH, South Eugene High School, Robert and Marsha Olsen, Cathy Elofson, Jane and Chuck Drabek, Jan and Pete Brown, Rob and Jane King, Jose and Mayra Humphreys, Christopher Mendez, Corinne Hollister, Lynn Montgomery, Samuel and Evangeline Roth, Shannon and Charles Herzfeld, Archer Daniels Midland Foundation, Clare Beeny, Norma and Don Engleson, Dale and Carolyn Dietzman, Stephen and Carol Kuhn, Sibyl Frankenburg and Steven Kessel, Carter and Laura Baer, Gregg and Sally Bennett, Sara Burant and Eugene Johnson, Nancy Pendergast and Augusto Pichard, Melissa and Jason Fischbach, Helen Manaras, Reverend Todd Unger, Jane and Paul Fuglevand, Kris Beaver, Randall and Kathy Greenfield, Sean Beeny and Ann Medinger, Rose Shuman, Vikki Canfield, Debra Martin, John and Carrie Michel, Sarah Amman, and Leslie and Ben Roth.

Back Where I Belong
by Sarah Amman

It has almost been two months since I got off the plane at Tincontin Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It seems like years ago that I stood impatiently in the immigration line at the end of November as waves of excitement washed over me every time the thought that "You’re back in Honduras" would pop into my head. It seemed almost unreal that I was back in this country where I first realized that I wanted to focus a career on Sustainable Development. But here I am – back in Honduras – excited about this year and the new experiences that I will have working with Asociación Andar in Cedeño.

The first time I came to Honduras was with a Spring Term group from my school Alma College in 1999. As part of the requirements of Alma, each student must enroll in two Spring Term classes during the four years at school and one Spring Term must be off campus.

My junior year I partook in the Spring Term that spent two weeks in Honduras. We worked in collaboration with Sociedad Amigos de los Niños (Society of the Friends of the Children), building homes for people who had lost their homes in hurricane Mitch. It was an intense two weeks that planted the seed deep inside of me of a love for Honduras and a desire to work alongside of the people here.

The following February 2000, I returned to Honduras and worked again with Sociedad, this time for the entire year as an English teacher in one of their projects called Nuevo Paraíso (New Paradise). Nuevo Paraíso was a project for single mothers and their children. In this community I lived and worked creating lasting relationships with many of my students and the also with the mothers of the community. Although a year is relatively a short amount of time, that year changed my life. The seed that had been planted the year before was now growing and I knew that my heart now belonged to Honduras and the people here. I have been lucky to return to visit just about every year with my new family in Honduras, deepening the relationships that I started back in 2000.

After returning home I spent a year in an Americorps program called City Year Detroit. Here I was the Executive Director of the Young Heroes program, which was a service learning and leadership development program for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Although I loved my work with the middle school students, I knew that my heart belonged in Central America.

For that reason I decided to volunteer with Cap Corps International stating in September 2002. I worked for four months in Bluefields, Nicaragua and four months in Corn Island. During my time in Bluefields, I worked in the Beca office, helping translate letters from Spanish to English. The Beca office provided close to 300 scholarships to students from kindergarten to high school in Bluefields and the surrounding lagoon communities. The following four months when I lived on Corn Island, I worked in a newly established elementary school. I had a variety of jobs at the school, including teaching English and third grade science, plus dealing with day to day issues when the principal, who worked as a volunteer, was not around.

One of the greatest learnings that I came across in the last couple years working as a volunteer with a variety of organizations the importance of an education in a child's life. And yet, I also realized that especially from my experiences in Honduras and Nicaragua that there are many children who cannot afford an education. I can not count the number of students that I had both in Honduras and Nicaragua who have asked me if I could help them with their studies or if not me personally, could I find someone in the States that could help. After time and time of hearing requests for help, I decided that I wanted to establish my own or work for an organization that provides scholarships for the many children here in Central America that are unable to afford school.

With that in my mind I decided to apply to grad school. I am currently a student at the School for International Training in Brattleboro Vermont, working on my Master's degree in Sustainable Development, with a focus on education. As part of our curriculum we are to complete a six-month practicum with a NGO. With my desire to return to Honduras, I started to research different NGOs that work in the educational field here in Honduras. I was thrilled when I read about Andar and the work they do in Cedeño with both the Scholarship Program and the CEDIF. And I am extremely excited about the opportunity to work with Andar this year.

A Note of Sweetness

Christopher Mendez, age 9, made a generous contribution of 20 dollars and 40 cents to the CEDIF snack program last month. Christopher spent six months in Honduras with his mother, Lynne Davidson, in 2003 and has certainly not forgotten his friends in Cedeño. His whole family has done so much to support the CEDIF since their return to the U.S., in spite of the fact that they live in very limited financial circumstances themselves. Christopher had saved up all of his pennies for several months when he asked his mother to take the bagful to the bank and donate all of the money to the CEDIF Snack Program. Many thanks to Christopher and to everyone else who shares their generosity with the children of Cedeño!!!