FOCUS
Alleviating Hunger
Creating Economic Opportunities
Promoting Health and Fighting Disease
Rebuilding Communities

MDGs ADDRESSED
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
MDG 5: Improve maternal health
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
MDG 8: Create a global partnership for development

OVERVIEW
Honduras is a country of 6.5 million people on the peninsula of Central America. Two-thirds of Hondurans live in poverty, and 27% of the labor force is unemployed. Honduras has become the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Central America, accounting for more than half of the reported AIDS cases in the region, even though it only has 17% of the population. Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras in 1998, leaving an estimated $2 billion in damage.

Our PARTNERS
Episcopal Relief and Development is partnering with the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras, one of the fastest growing dioceses in the Episcopal Church with over 80,000 people attending 146 parishes and missions. The diocese serves over 200,000 people through its social missions. In 2003, Episcopal Relief and Development helped establish a development office, known as the Anglican Agency of Development in Honduras (AAGLIDESH), which is now locally staffed. AAGLIDESH trains and coordinates the deans, priests, and lay leaders in best practices of development programming.

Episcopal Relief and Development is also partnering with Siempre Unidos to implement food security programs to benefit people affected by HIV/AIDS in three communities.

MAP International is another partner of Episcopal Relief and Development. The partnership works to eliminate the causes of sickness and disease by providing free medication, improving the water supply, increasing knowledge about health threats like HIV/AIDS, and establishing community directed health education and training.

Episcopal Relief and Development also works with El Hogar Projects, a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras, to support an agricultural school which provides young men from poor, rural families with education and skills training in the agricultural field.

Our CURRENT PROGRAMS
Episcopal Relief and Development’s work in Honduras encompasses all the aspects of our approach: alleviating hunger, creating economic opportunities, promoting health and fighting disease, and rebuilding communities after disasters.

Episcopal Relief and Development is improving people’s health in rural communities by building sanitation systems and providing health education, including HIV/AIDS prevention and counseling. Another integrated housing community, located in the Amarateca Valley, provides housing for 759 people who lost their homes in Hurricane Mitch.

Rebuilding Communities
Episcopal Relief and Development is building the infrastructure for holistic housing development in the Amarateca Valley, outside of the capital city, Tegucigalpa. The community will be equipped with roads, electricity, running water, and sewage facilities.

• Sanitation and urban infrastructure will be built for a community that will house 119 families (700 people). Residents will build the homes themselves in partnership with a government subsidy program.

Creating Economic Opportunities
Episcopal Relief and Development is providing long-term solutions to achieve economic stability in Honduras, by creating opportunities to develop small business to increase and diversify income. Several programs are focused on marginalized and vulnerable groups, such as indigenous women and people living with HIV/AIDS.

• Micro-finance programs, including loans and support groups provide opportunities for families to start small businesses and allow farmers to expand their crop production.
• The El Hogar Agricultural School trains young men from poor families to work in the agricultural industry. This program provides specialized vocational agricultural training that can be used with agro-industrial businesses as well as in rural communities.
• Bread-baking programs in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa provide indigenous Garifuna women with access to credit, training, and marketing support that increases their family income.
• A cement-block making cooperative in Villanueva provides employment for men and increases family incomes.
• Episcotours (a tourism company created in Tela on the Caribbean coast) allows local proprietors, entrepreneurs and employees to enhance their income generating opportunities through increased tourism.
• Employment opportunities such as sewing, handicrafts, and cleaning allow people who are HIV positive in San Pedro Sula, Siguatepeque and Roatán to support their families and remain productive members of society.

Alleviating Hunger
Episcopal Relief and Development is improving the food supply in rural areas around Copan in western Honduras through agricultural training and the introduction of new crops.

• Community gardens and fruit tree plantations improve the health of local residents and provide opportunities to earn income.

Promoting Health and Fighting Disease
Episcopal Relief and Development is providing health education, treatment, disease prevention, and improved sanitation to enhance the health of residents in several rural communities.

• Simple environmentally sound composting latrines provide adequate sanitation to prevent disease in rural Miraville in southern Honduras and in Copan in western Honduras.
• Smokeless cook stoves that use less wood and are vented outside the home prevent respiratory illnesses and conserve fragile mangrove forests in Copan.
• A training program equips young people in 46 congregations to teach HIV/AIDS prevention to their peers.
• A volunteer training program for HIV/AIDS prevention education and a HIV/AIDS curriculum prepares students at the Episcopal Seminary to effectively address HIV/AIDS issues in their ministry.
• Street outreach, HIV/AIDS testing, counseling and on-going support encourages vulnerable individuals, such as commercial sex workers, to seek available medical care and services in San Pedro Sula.
• Trained health promoters instruct community members in basic disease prevention, hygiene and sanitation practices that reduce respiratory, water-borne, mosquito-borne and parasitic illnesses in Copan and Miravalle.

Our PAST ACHIEVEMENTS
Episcopal Relief and Development’s commitment to Honduras began in 1998 in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch. In partnership with the diocese and with assistance from work teams from Episcopal churches around the United States, Episcopal Relief and Development achieved the following:

• Installed 238 water cisterns in 18 communities and trained residents in their use.
• Built 312 smokeless stoves in 12 communities.
• Constructed 203 hydraulically-sealed pit latrines and trained residents in their use.
• Planted 400 fruit trees and 40 home gardens to increase food production and income.
• Developed the Faith, Hope, and Joy community in San Pedro Sula which provided homes for 220 families. The housing project is largely self-supporting through homeowners’ mortgages which are put into a revolving loan.
• Constructed a school at Faith, Hope and Joy that educates 370 children.
• Rebuilt five churches destroyed by the hurricane.
• Created a community center at Faith, Hope and Joy to house integrated community development programs including trauma counseling, job training, micro-finance and community mobilization.