From Board Chair Mary Procter
To Friends of Sustainable Villages Honduras (SVH),
The view from an overlook in the mountains in El Tule.
In November 2021, the Honduran people elected a new President by a wide margin. Xiomara Castro is the first women president of Honduras and a member of the Libre party. She campaigned on an anti-corruption platform and on improvement of the lives of people in the impoverished parts of Honduras. This bodes well for SVH.
2022, our villages are reaching maturity in sustainability. Five villages, La Majada, El Tule, Tulito, El Zapotal and El Chol, have benefited from the training from Roy Lara and Vecinos Honduras staff for five years or more. Two villages, Barrio Nuevo and El Limon, have worked effectively with VH staff for three years.
Until the pandemic began in March 2020, my husband Bill Matuszeski and I and several of our SVH Board members visited the Chinda Villages for at least a week every year. With vaccines and boosters and a worldwide reduction in hospitalizations from COVID, four of us plan to go again to Honduras in February 2023.
By the end of 2022, we will have results of an evaluation of the VH work in the seven SVH villages. During our February 2023 trip we expect to celebrate the achievements in sustainability of the village leaders and residents.
This achievement has been possible because of the generosity of all our donors to Sustainable Villages Honduras.
Thank you, all,
Mary
By Winter 2023, the Honduran government will issue a protectorate for the El Zapotal Watershed.
SVH Facilitator Roy Lara at a waterfall in the El Zapotal Watershed.
Over the past five years, we in SVH and VH have had our eyes on a bold objective, to obtain Honduran government protection of the El Zapotal forest and watershed that supplies water to all seven of the SVH villages. After three years of slow progress, in winter 2022, we engaged a consultant, Cesar Sanchez, who had obtained protection for more than a dozen watersheds. Laying the groundwork for protection, Engineer Sanchez carried out an excellent mapping and detailed assessment of the watershed. More important, he also found a legal path to approval using a new Honduran law favoring support for projects that are Public Benefits. So we should celebrate the El Zapotal protectorate in early 2023.
Mayor Parades of Trinidad meeting with representatives from a group of NGOs.
Expanding to a New Municipality: Trinidad
In 2023, we plan to assist villages in the Trinidad municipality. As the Chinda villages mature, SVH is starting to help villages in another municipality. Doctor Allan Parede, a physician who launched the Trinidad Health Center and the recently elected Mayor of Trinidad, has assembled a team of representatives of half a dozen NGOs to work with five impoverished villages to improve their services to their residents and their sustainability.
Fernando leading a workshop.
Our Multi-Skilled New Facilitator—Fernando Pineda
SVH is lucky to have had Fernando Pineda join the Vecinos Honduras team for the SVH Chinda villages as a Facilitator. He developed his facilitator skills for Unbound a US-based NGO that uses donor sponsorships of $40 per month for families that are providing for better futures for their children. Fernando’s job was to work with the parents, youth and children of these families to increase their motivation and help them identify their own skills. Since joining Vecinos Honduras in April 2022, Fernando has worked with health committees to improve the management of medical brigades and health challenges for children and adults and members of the water boards, to better manage their organizations. What’s more, he brings other skills to the SVH villages—music (he plays four instruments), soccer (he is a referee and member of the National Football Federation of Honduras) and photography (he is a professional photographer.)
Orbelindo Ramos showing his milpa (at least two crops in one field) with corn and beans to other farmers.
Orbelindo: Pastoral Leader and Farmer
Orbelindo Ramos has been active for years as a church leader and more recently, as a leader in the local association of farmers. Like most others, he lives with his family in the La Majada village and farms land in the surrounding area. Read more.
Seen with her husband Mario Vasquez, Melîda Sorto is ready to sell her baked goods at a market.
Vasquez-Sorto: An Entrepreneurial Couple
After trying city life, Mario Vasquez decided to return to Tulito where he had grown up. He asked his father for a plot of land and began to grow basic grains. Then he met Melída Sorto. Read more.
Roberto Pérez, of El Zapotal, planting coffee seedlings in his organic nursery.
Roberto Pérez and His Milpa
Roberto Pérez and his wife Rosa Iris Lopez, chose to emigrate to the mountainous community of El Zapotal for the fresh air and because they found a plot to farm. Read more.