ACTS (Americans Caring Teaching Sharing) was established
in 1986 in response to concerns for peace and justice in Central
America. Our mission is community development in partnership with
farming villages in the remote mountains of Honduras in the Yoro
region.
For the first 15 years ACTS concentrated on the village of El Rosario
to improve their health standards, promote community involvement,
and provide help with sustainable agriculture.
Grant for Regional Library received! ACTS was awarded a $15,000 grant from The Children’s Initiative... read more.
ACTS accomplishments in El Rosario:
- Medical clinic established including nurse training and visits
from ACTS volunteer physicians 5 times/year
- Dental services from ACTS volunteer dentists once a year
- Bunk house built for volunteers
- Fresh water tap to each household from new water system
- Concrete latrine at each household
- Stove pipes installed to improve air quality
- Agricultural education for over 100 families from Sustainable
Harvest International
- Local Health & Development Committee established and Medical
Clinic Board
Regional Education Center Becoming a Reality
Celebrating the new renovation.
With a proud gathering of community members, local teenagers, Dartmouth students, and an ACTS team in attendance, on March 27, 2009 completion of a major phase of rehabilitation for the “new” Region Education Center and Library was celebrated. It was the culmination of an intensive week of hard labor, a year of renovation work, and several years of planning and negotiating. What had once been a dream was now becoming a reality.
In small mountain villages like El Rosario, local schools go through the 6th grade after which students have to go to a larger city to continue their educations. The other alternative available to some village teenagers is to stay at home and take classes by radio. In El Rosario, Radio School students had weekly meetings in the old dilapidated two-room school with its leaky roof, broken windows and cracked walls.
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Back of building before renovation. |
Local men and teenagers building a needed retaining wall behind the building |
Resourceful minds went to work and in November 2008, ACTS became partners with TCI (The Children’s Initiative) to rehabilitate this building into a regional education center. The TCI grant of $15,000 was a guesstimate of the costs to take the old cement block building from its rundown state to one where it would be safe, attractive, and useful. Over the winter, the local Center Committee, chaired by Osly, supervised the installation of a new roof, and manufacturing of doors, doorways and windows.
Then in March an intensive work week took place as part of La Fuerza para el Futuro (Force for the Future), a five-day leadership training program for teenagers across the region being delivered by seven Dartmouth students. They scraped, painted, dug, lugged, cleaned and weeded in a great burst of collective energy to bring the project to a new reality. By midweek it was no longer the old school, it was the New Center.
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During renovation with cracked walls and broken windows. |
Local teens spent an intensive work week. |
The hope is to use this building for a regional library for continuing education for adults and students who have finished primary grades. As a Regional Library and Educational Center it will serve the needs of the surrounding areas in addition to El Rosario. The local Center Committee is finding out what the community wants to learn and what the community can teach. Potential teachers will then be given a course on how to run classes. Other ideas include computers, teaching aids, instruction in English, kindergarten and the Radio program.
Future needs: one more door, new fence, curtains, repair of cement apron around the building, moving the latrine, and building an outdoor kitchen.
New Regional Education Center and Library is ready for the next phase of renovation.
Copyright
2008 ACTS |
