News & Updates

Wow!  What a whirlwind week in Honduras. Friday was full of festivities on our worksites in El Rosario.  We spent the morning laying several more courses of block on the homes we started.  At noon, the nearby school, Escuela de Juan Pablo II, fixed a bountiful lunch for us and entertained us with their singers, dancers, and school band.  We had a dedication ceremony to celebrate the week and then we joined the local community and our skilled masons in a game of futbol.  I think I'll stick to basketball, thank  you.

Today on our worksite we began to see block walls going up and much quicker than I thought. The local masons even let us lay most of the block. I wasn't expecting that. We learned today that the husband of our homeowner family would be able to attend our end of the week celebration tomorrow (Friday). He works in San Pedro Sula, the largest nearby city, in a chicken processing facility and is often away from home for two weeks at a time. Enma is a stay-at-home mom to their 3 year old daughter. We visited another orphanage this afternoon that houses young girls ages 4-18.

Our work continues on the home in the El Rosario village outside Santa Rosa here in Honduras. Enma and her daughter have been active participants. Her daughter has joined some of our team in games and coloring book activities and Enma has joined in helping to build. Most in the village work at daily subsistence picking up odd jobs here and there. There is not much education after age 12. We visited a school today that is a private non-profit that raises funds by selling loofa products grown and fabricated in the village. Those over 12 can attend this school on the weekends for free.

Our work continued today on Enma's house.  Still doing the same tasks.  Hoping that the cinderblocks will start getting laid tomorrow.  For us, I think that means carrying them to the local masons to lay them.  The work is extremely labor intensive--all manual, nothing at all mechanized.

Habitat for Humanity Honduras started work in 1989 and has completed over 10,000 houses in the country in that time! Very impressive for a country slightly smaller in population than North Carolina!! 53% of the Honduran population lives below the poverty level with an estimated unemployment rate of 28%. It is estimated that the deficit of adequate housing is 1,150,000 units among a population of 8 million. So housing is a huge issue here AND the opportunity to make a difference in a family's life is huge. A Habitat house only costs $4,500.

I'm hoping to send a few blog entries this week from Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras where I am spending the week working on Habitat house with 19 others from the Triangle area.  We arrived late Friday and began work yesterday.  Our group is split between working on two new homes.  Our group began by helping local masons mix mortar, pour footings, and tie re-bar.  The home is being built in partnership with Enma and her children on property owned by Enma's family and right next to her parents home.  This is a very common situation in Central America.  The ho

Since Habitat’s inception as an organization all affiliates (like us!) are expected to tithe to Habitat for Humanity International by giving 10% of all undesignated donations—not for administration and overhead, but for the building of homes in other countries. At Habitat Wake, we have tithed for the past 25 years, supporting the construction of homes for families in need around the world in addition to the 375 homes that we have built in Wake County.  This is something for which we are very proud.

Americorps, the domestic version of Peace Corps, is in the news lately.  It’s in the news because some lawmakers in Washington have proposed eliminating the entire program.  This past weekend the House of Representatives passed a measure eliminating the program as part of a deficit reduction strategy.

The Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative that Habitat has organized in SE Raleigh’s Long Acres and Apollo Heights neighborhoods is making great progress.  A resident-led coalition of over 20 organizations and city departments is meeting regularly to address the needs of the neighborhoods.  Habitat is getting ready to break ground on the first of nine new homes thanks to a City of Raleigh Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant.  There is a sense of positive change in the air.