Microfinance Under Fire

Published March 21st, 2011 in the New York Times’ social change blog “Fixes”

Muhammad Yunus, center, outside the high court building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 6 where he contested the government’s decision to remove him from his post in Grameen Bank.

At Fixes, our focus is typically on implementing new or underutilized ideas to help those in need. But sometimes it’s just as important to protect institutions that are already working well. Which is why I’m writing today about the Grameen Bank, the Bangladeshi organization that won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, along with its founder Muhammad Yunus, for its work extending microloans to some of the world’s poorest, and has been crucial in global efforts to lift millions of people out of poverty.

Both the bank and Yunus, have come under attack by the government of Bangladesh and its prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed. It has taken 35 years of painstaking effort to build Grameen into a world-class institution that serves millions of poor people. That progress could be lost if the country’s leaders fail to appreciate what makes the Grameen Bank work.

Anyone who cares about international development, microfinance or social entrepreneurship should pay attention. The Grameen Bank is not just the largest microlender in the world, with 8.4 million borrowers (most of them women villagers) who received more than $1 billion in loans last year, it is the flagship enterprise in an industry that, in 2009, served 128 million of the world’s poorest families. It is also a leading example and inspiration for millions of citizen-led organizations that have been established in recent decades to address social problems that governments have failed to solve.

Yunus, the founder of the bank, is an entrepreneurial figure cut from the same cloth as Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. He has devoted himself since the 1970s to demonstrating, institutionalizing and spreading microfinance. Recently, the government issued ordersthat Yunus is to be removed from his post as managing director of the bank. Yunus has taken the case to Bangladesh’s Supreme Court.

Government officials initially seized on a Norwegian documentary that accused Yunus of improperly diverting funds in 1996 that had been donated by the country’s aid agency. The Norwegian government investigated and found that, while funds were transferred internally from one Grameen-owned affiliate to another, there was no indication that the funds were misused. Since then, government officials have engaged in attacks against Yunus and challenged the work of all microlenders in Bangladesh.

Legally, the government owns 25 percent of Grameen and has the right to appoint a quarter of its board members, including its chairperson. In practical terms, however, the government has little justification to intercede in the bank’s operations. Today, of the Grameen Bank’s paid-up share capital, only 3.5 percent comes from the Bangladeshi government. It is the bank’s borrowers who are its majority owners. They control 75 percent of the board seats and they have supplied 96.5 percent of the paid up share capital. And it’s the savings of villagers — about $1.5 billion — that now finances the bank’s activities and growth.

Nevertheless, the government is proceeding to remove Yunus against the objections of its majority owners and will probably succeed. The stated reason is hollow: Yunus, who is 70, is over the mandatory retirement age in government banks.

Talking to strangers

Adelante clients are fantastic, hard working women with amazing life stories! They endure challenges life throws at them with happiness and optimism. When I visit an assembly, I always wonder how all these amazing women ended up together. This is Angela’s story.

Angela Amaya

Angela Amaya is a very kind and timid lady. She is 64-years old.  She is married with one child and two grandchildren. Angela has a prosperous business in her home, which allows her to stay home and help her daughter by taking care for her grandchildren while their mother works. But life has not always been this easy for Angela.

Angela lives in Orica, a community in the department of Colon. Orica is a very rural community without stores, supermarkets, schools or hospitals, and most of the houses are sparsely located. The closest town with these commodities is Tocoa, which is a thirty minute bus ride. Since most people in Orica do not have cars, they depend on others for transportation.

Before having a business at home, Angela sold used clothing in her community, walking from house to house to sell her merchandise. She would also take the bus to visit other communities like hers to sell her products. She used to work extremely hard for minimal profit.  Angela also provided credit to many people in her community, which ultimately led to the bankruptcy of her clothing resale business.

One day, as she was taking the bus to Tocoa, a young woman, Mercedes, sat next to her. They swapped stories of their current jobs – Angela’s frustrations and Mercedes’ success.  Mercedes told Angela about her role as a credit officer for the Adelante Foundation and invited her to come to the next assembly in two weeks. The assembly was close to Angela’s community and she agreed to come.

Sacrificing Microcredit for Megaprofits

By MUHAMMAD YUNUS

Muhammad Yunus

Published January 14, 2011 in the New York Times

Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the 1970s, when I began working here on what would eventually be called “microcredit,” one of my goals was to eliminate the presence of loan sharks who grow rich by preying on the poor. In 1983, I founded Grameen Bank to provide small loans that people, especially poor women, could use to bring themselves out of poverty. At that time, I never imagined that one day microcredit would give rise to its own breed of loan sharks.

But it has. And as a result, many borrowers in India have been defaulting on their microloans, which could then result in lenders being driven out of business. India’s crisis points to a clear need to get microcredit back on track.

Troubles with microcredit began around 2005, when many lenders started looking for ways to make a profit on the loans by shifting from their status as nonprofit organizations to commercial enterprises. In 2007, Compartamos, a Mexican bank, became Latin America’s first microcredit bank to go public. And this past August, SKS Microfinance, the largest bank of its kind in India, raised $358 million in an initial public offering.

To ensure that the small loans would be profitable for their shareholders, such banks needed to raise interest rates and engage in aggressive marketing and loan collection. The kind of empathy that had once been shown toward borrowers when the lenders were nonprofits disappeared. The people whom microcredit was supposed to help were being harmed. In India, borrowers came to believe lenders were taking advantage of them, and stopped repaying their loans.

A Year After Elections in Honduras…

Even though North America is made up of the longest-lasting democratic republic and a parliamentary commonwealth with an outstanding welfare state, Central and South America have been a totally different story. For almost two hundred years, the region has been plagued by irregular transfers of power and military rule.  While it has been three decades since the advent of total democratic rule, democracy has not eased the rule of law; often, both institutions and people resort to force to solve political disagreements. Without clearly defined impeachment processes and effective justice systems, in Latin America ineffective or corrupt presidents can be forced to resign by a popular rebellion on the streets or be arrested by a military or police power without the opportunity of a fair trial. The latest acute example of irregular transfers of power is in a little country in the center of the Western hemisphere called Honduras.

On the left Zelaya and on the right Michelleti

Exactly a year ago, Honduras was in the middle of a political crisis after President Zelaya was ousted on June 28, 2009, and Michelleti was named the new president of Honduras. After the whole international community condemned this act and called it a coup d’etat, Honduras was isolated from the rest of the world, greatly impacting foreign investment, the tourism industry and the economy in general.  On November 29, 2009, general elections were to be held as an attempt to put an end to this crisis. The Liberal Party (to which both Zelaya and Michelleti belong) was completely divided and, as a result, the elections were won by the National Party candidate, Porfirio Lobo Sosa. The results of these elections were eventually accepted by most countries and Lobo Sosa took his place as the president of Honduras on January 27, 2010.

Since then, Honduras has only taken baby steps in reinstating its democratic process. This democratic baby, unfortunately, started limping and falling down at the same time it tried to start running.  The 1982 Constitution does not reflect the real needs of the Honduran people and often panders to selfish interests and yet there have not been any attempts to review and improve it. In addition, those who committed human rights violations, political prosecutions and various assassinations have yet to be tried and punished for their crimes.

As politicians fight over who was right and who was not, who needs to be tried and by whom, and the future of the political arena of Honduras, the Honduran people are the ones suffering.  Zelaya currently lives in a luxurious resort in the Dominican Republic and receives an $8,000 monthly check for his job at the Central American Integration System (SICA) Congress.  Michelleti is permanently escorted by about eight bodyguards and lives in a luxurious mansion in El Progresso. While these former leaders sit in their mansions with air conditioners and private cooks, more than half of the Honduran population lives in poverty.  After this political crisis, the world economic recession, the earthquake last May, the decline in remittances sent from family members in the U.S., and a drought that affected the entire region, the Honduran economy has experienced a fast decline.

Two children in one of the most impoverished communities in Intibuca

According to the latest report on the Millennium Development Goals that was presented last week by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Honduran government, the social indicators of unemployment rates, distribution of wealth, and population living in poverty have significantly worsened. Currently, 60% of the Honduran population lives in under the national poverty line of $2 a day and 39% lives in extreme poverty, which means that their monthly income is insufficient to cover the cost of the most basic living necessities.  Not only is Honduras the second poorest country in the region, second to Haiti, it is also one of the most disparate. According to this report, Honduras is the fourth country, after Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua, with the most unequal distribution of wealth – the top 40% of the population holds 81.31% of the wealth, while the lowest 40% holds only 7.46%. Unemployment has also risen dramatically. While in 2009 the unemployment rate was 27.8%, the current rate is 36%.

A year after the most watched elections of recent times, the situation has worsened. Lobo Sosa has not yet signed an agreement with IMF and the fiscal budget has an enormous deficit. Honduras continues to be excluded from the Organization of American States (OAS). As a result of the widespread poverty affecting Honduras and the lack of employment opportunities, the crime rates have skyrocketed and more people are resortingdrug trafficking or other associated jobs.  Currently, the work of nonprofit organizations and other international cooperation institutions is more important than ever.   Adelante Foundation continues to work to provide opportunity to the Honduran people during these extremely challenging times.

By: Marcela Reyes

Cartoon from a local newspaper

A world of extreme poverty

As an invited volunteer of Fundación Adelante, I was welcomed to a world only before imagined in my wildest fantasies. A world of extreme poverty, adverse conditions, and improbable odds met me head on as I stepped into the field to conduct research of social impact of Adelante’s micro-credit loans. I had seen this before many times in my experiences living in Colombia and conducting research in other Central American nations, but one notable aspect differed in this scenario than any other. There existed, in Adelante’s clients, a sense of pride, hope, and potential for financial independence on their own terms.

Seeing the women of Adelante’s communal loan groups come together gave me an insider’s look on the efforts of Adelante and other micro-credit institutions in the area to mitigate poverty in many areas of Honduras by empowering women to run their own successful micro-enterprises through business education practices and through availability of credit, affording a hand – not a hand-out – to needy women in the nation. While the true impacts of the loans made by this foundation have not yet been able to be measured in statistical terms, it seems evident that the women involved in this organization are afforded a grasp of independence through hard work and collaboration.

It was particularly exciting to see local Hondurans employed by Adelante acting as loan officers in the rural and semi-rural settings, holding their compatriates accountable for their financial debts, educational obligations, and responsibility to the other women in the collaborative. Unlike many pro-poor organizations, one rarely sees marginalized peoples held to such a high standard of conduct, which only serves to embolden the mission of Adelante.

From an outsider’s perspective, the organization, dedication, and inspiration of the local marginalized women and Adelante staff, seems to serve many steps necessary to mitigate extreme poverty in the world’s most underdeveloped nations. I look forward to the coming years as Adelante and other micro-credit institutions further their reach throughout Latin-America, uprooting a higher proportion of its poor to reach independence and financial stability through micro-lending efforts.

Additionally, I am excited to see tangible evidence of Adelante’s efforts, as quantitative statistical data is collected and analyzed within the organization through systems I put in place, as was the initial purpose of my visit. Hopefully, Adelante’s efforts will be shown through positive gains in development indicators as it tracks its clients through various loan cycles.

Marc Mitchell, in blue, at an assembly in Jutiapa, Atlantida

By: Marc Mitchell

In memory of those deceased in the massacre in Tamaulipas, Mexico

Last week, the news of a massacre that took place in the northern region of Mexico shook the Latin American population.  On August 25, authorities found 72 immigrants murdered three days previous in Tamaulipas, Mexico, by the criminal group, Los Zetas.  Los Zetas are former Special Forces of the Mexican army who – at one time – were trained by the United States, Israel and France[1]. These highly trained individuals were once recruited by very powerful criminal organizations that specialize in kidnappings, extortions, assassinations and drug trafficking. Today they form their own criminal organization, focusing on illegal drug trafficking. From accounts of the few survivors, the immigrants were murdered by Los Zetas because they refused to work as assassins for $4,000 per month. Out of the 72 immigrants brutally murdered, 14 were women and 58 were men. The victims have now been identified and repatriated to Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras. The horrible massacre of these individuals has caused horror, indignation and rejection from not only the countries who are mourning their countrymen, but also the rest of the world.

Out of the 72 who were viciously and systematically murdered, 23 were Honduran. Most of the bodies have been repatriated to Honduras and delivered to their families.

The victim's family saying farewell at his funeral in Triunfo de La Cruz, Atlantida

The evening news has been filled with reports of various funerals and burials. On September 8^th the Mexican authorities reported that besides the one Ecuadorian survivor, there was also one Honduran survivor but his information was withheld for his security. The Mexican authorities also informed that the investigating prosecutor of this massacre and the security secretary of the Tamaulipas department were found dead yesterday morning. The authorities suspect Los Zetas are responsible for their deaths.

Our Credit Officers

Part of the credit officers of Tocoa receiving a workshop.

As a supporter of Adelante, you may not be aware of the important role credit officers play in our operations. Credit officers have many responsibilities. They are in charge of assisting the biweekly assemblies and drafting the meeting report with the assemblies’ board. They are also in charge of managing and handling the loan pool that is assigned to them, granting and declining loans, recovering and collecting loan payments, follow up on clients that have bad debt, doing credit evaluations with each assemblies credit committee, delivering loan and savings disbursements, giving educational lessons on business topics, solving problems within the assemblies whenever they arise, making credit renovations when the clients need them, marketing in new markets to obtain new clients and form new assemblies, and so much more.

Adelante currently employs seventeen Hondurans for the role of credit officer. Trying to convey just how much this small group of Hondurans gives to Adelante’s program is very hard.

Credit officers and the motorcycles they use to get to their clients.

This brave and admirable group gives their best efforts to help us achieve our goals and stay true to Adelante’s mission: to improve the standard of living for extremely poor women and their families in rural Honduras. To reach the communities Adelante serves, which are mostly isolated and rural, the credit officers go to great efforts. In an underdeveloped country like Honduras, the simplest of things, such as getting from one community to the next, can require arduous work. To help the Adelante supporters understand just how much work this really requires, the biggest difficulties and obstacles credit officers face are listed below:

The Benefactors of Our Program

The Benefactors of Our Program

Upon entering an assembly, the event at which Adelante’s loan recipients gather for educational purposes, I immediately notice the loan recipient’s children, who accompany their mothers to this communal event. They look too innocent to be carrying the weight of poverty on their shoulders. Poverty, however, doesn’t discriminate and anyone can be victimized by it. I look at them, and I wonder: Did this child eat breakfast? Does she know how to read? Why is she here and not in school? Do they even have a school in this community?

Seeing such realities in person made me wonder what the actual situation of these children was in terms of development indicators, such as: Average schooling years, infant mortality rate, access to health services, etc.  The information I found indicated what I already assumed to be true. The only difference was that now I had the actual statistics from a reliable source to back my assumptions. The reality of most children in Honduras is truly sad. Although the government, international organizations, and non-profit organizations have made progress in alleviating the situation of more than two thirds of the population that lives below the poverty line, widespread poverty is still the biggest problem in Honduras. The Adelante Foundation is doing its part by helping the women of rural Honduras work their way out of poverty through microloans to start small businesses and indirectly benefiting these women’s children. Other organizations such as UNICEF work directly with the government to improve laws and policies on social spending. There are also many non-profit organizations that work with the children directly. Despite the work done by all these organizations and the improvements that have been achieved, some issues persist and are even worsening.

Illiteracy is one of the issues that continues to haunt children. In Honduras, something as basic and essential as receiving an education is a huge challenge for them. The average number of years of schooling stands at only 4.3 in rural areas and seven in urban areas. The main causes of these low numbers lie

in inadequate teachers’ competencies, scarcity of teaching materials, poor physical learning environments and limited interaction between schools and communities. In rural and indigenous areas, the curricula, materials and teaching methods are not adapted to the cultural context. [1] Some children do not even get a chance to go to school at all because there are not any schools in their community. Besides not being able to receive an adequate education, these children do not fully enjoy their childhood because they are forced to leave the schools and the playground at an early age and start working to increase their family income. Those that are lucky to find jobs, work. Those that don’t, go to the streets to beg for money.

Another issue a great number of children in Honduras face is the threat of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Sex tourism seems to be one of the only parts of the Honduran economic sectors that is booming. At various times throughout the year, one can find in the local newspapers the usual story of a foreigner found in a hotel room with a number of children. Foreigners, though, are not the only ones that contribute to this horrific danger. Many Hondurans that are involved with gangs and drug trafficking have now become interested in this new line of commerce and have begun to invest in it.

And as if these issues were not enough to deal with, these children do it all on an empty stomach, without receiving the adequate number of daily nutrients or without receiving any sort of medical attention. In recent years, chronic malnutrition has decreased from 38 per cent to 25 per cent. It remains high, however, due to limited availability of food, inadequate nutritional practices and the impact of disease. Over one-third of infants are malnourished. To make matters worse, some 18 per cent of the population has no access to basic health services, 10 per cent of the population lacks access to safe water and one-third of the population lacks access to sanitation. As a result of this, infant, under-five and maternal mortality rates remain stubbornly high. [2] Infant malnutrition completes the vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment, binding together and serving as a direct root cause of all the rest of harsh realities faced by these people.

Sex tourism, child labor exploitation, child trafficking, illiteracy, chronic malnutrition, no access to basic health services, and high infant mortality rates are only some of the issues the Honduran children deal with on a day to day basis. I must make note however, that when I say Honduran children I am excluding, for the purpose of this article and not any type of bias, the children of the middle and upper classes that control with great authority the greater part of the Honduran economy. This information applies only to the children of that bigger group, the faceless mass that accounts for 70% of Honduran population that lives below the poverty line. This leaves no doubt that the work Adelante and similar institutions are doing in Honduras is greatly needed. It is motivating to see that there have been some improvements in social expenditures on behalf of the children and that some numbers, such as children who suffer from chronic malnutrition, have decreased. But there is still much to be done. These children are the future of this country. They are the main benefactors of our efforts. As a Honduran myself, I cannot tolerate to see my compatriots face such arduous struggles. Something must be done, and thankfully much is being done by the Adelante Foundation and other pro-poor organizations to alleviate the strain of extreme poverty. As my personal mission, I seek to do everything within reach to give our nation’s poor a fighting chance, while still offering a route to their own independent realization of a worthwhile life.

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[1] Source: UNICEF’s State of Honduran Children

[2] Source: UNICEF background information on Honduras

By Marcela Reyes

A new author

The Adelante Foundation weblog has a new writer! But before I start going off about my journeys and experiences with Adelante, I will start by introducing myself. My name is Marcela Reyes. I recently started working for the Adelante Foundation as the International Development Coordinator.

I was born and raised in La Ceiba, Honduras. I went to a private bilingual school and then moved to the United States for college. But although I had what some might call a privileged life, I have always been aware of the poverty and inequality that is lived in Honduras. Being the daughter of two leftist activists frozen in time, I grew up hearing talks about social justice and injustice, income inequality, socio-economic development, poverty, and corruption. Growing up in this very political environment, I wanted to develop a political career to bring change and progress to the Honduran people. But too soon found out that politics is a dirty path to take, and that I alone would not be able to bring change in the political system of Honduras. I’ve always felt the urge to do something for the most desperate in need but I didn’t know how I could help.

So I went off to college not knowing what I was going to study, changing majors every week. Then I obtained an internship in the USAID office here in La Ceiba and discovered how great the emotional gratification of helping others is. I went back to college convinced I had to explore this field and enrolled in various economics and economic development courses and discovered that I could do more for the Honduran people than I thought. In my Intro to Economic Development class, I was assigned a presentation on the Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus, and that is when I learned about the microfinance system and about bringing development from the bottom rather than from the top. And with hints from life like those, my way into the international development field successively happened.

I had heard about the Adelante Foundation many years ago, back when I was in 10^th grade. My economics professor brought in someone from the Foundation to talk to us about it and the microcredit system. We also had a field trip to one of the assemblies that was being held in a small town in the outer skirts of La Ceiba. Back in 10^th grade, I was not able to grasp the greatness of this institution and what it does. Soon, I would be able to.

I finished college and moved back to La Ceiba, and as many Hondurans have experienced, found out that the opportunities for employment here are very few and limited. I moved to the capital to try luck, but found nothing. Then I moved to San Pedro Sula, the industrial capital of Honduras and had no luck either. So, defeated and demoralized I headed back to La Ceiba. One of my closest friends gave me the Adelante’s manager’s email and told me to try my luck. Fortunately, I already knew her from highschool and she had a good reference of me, I interviewed, and here I am today writing my story for you folks.

So that’s the story of how a Honduran woman ends up in an organization like this one helping other Honduran women out. I hope I can bring my stories of the field and Honduras soon to you so that you can too experience the beauty of this great country and its people.

By: Marcela Reyes

The Education Crisis in Honduras

This article by Jorge Gallardo Rius was originally published in HondurasWeekly.com on January 16, 2010. It is an informative account of the current state of public education in Honduras. It is great to know the parents are organizing to improve the education of their children. We should do everything we can to support them.

Education and Development

One of the indexes used to measure the educational level of a population is the average amount of years of formal schooling. In Honduras, that index is 6.5, that is, the average Honduran has 6.5 years of formal schooling. It grows one school year every 10 years.

In the early 1960s, this index was similar for Honduras as for Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other nations known as the Asian Tigers for their rapid economic growth. Since, these countries have advanced the education of their people and their index is now above 12 years.

If you make a graph of the average years of formal schooling and compare it to a graph of the people’s income in that country, you will find that both follow a similar pattern. The close relationship between education and economic development is unquestioned today.

Public education is a form of wealth. In Honduras, many people still don’t see it that way. Yet many parents pay private schools that do nothing better than complete the public study plan, because usually the public schools don’t complete it. In developed nations, the quality of public schools has even been linked to the value of real estate: properties are worth more in districts where the quality of public schools is higher.

The quality of public education is not only a matter for the parents who have their children in public schools, but a matter that should concern all Hondurans interested in living in a better country.

Education and the Political Crisis

In Honduras, we have a saying that “It’s not the same thing to see her coming, as talking to her.” When Zelaya boosted the minimum salary by 62%, teachers’ salaries, which are a multiple of the minimum salary, skyrocketed. But not only did their salaries jump, also the side benefits, like the contribution that the government makes to the teachers’ pension fund, also skyrocketed. So it didn’t come as a surprise that, when Zelaya’s government went to the bank, there weren’t enough funds to pay the new salaries.

Before Zelaya’s ouster on June 28th, it had already been a conflictive year between the government and the teacher unions. Not only was the government behind on payment of their salaries, as usual, the government was also withholding both the government portion and the amounts deducted from teachers’ salaries as contribution to the Teachers’ pension fund, something which had never happened before. The Pension fund (IMPREMA) faced a lack of liquidity with which to pay the pensions of retired teachers.

Teachers had been on and off strikes for months and naturally, the children’s education suffered. Suddenly, 5-6 days before the illegal referendum of June 28th, the government made a partial payment of teachers’ salaries and the major union leaders came on national TV announcing their support of Zelaya’s illegal Constituent Assembly. No one doubted they had been bought off.

After June 28th, the teacher unions called another national strike, as always with suspension of classes, but this time for indefinite time, until Zelaya was reinstated as President, they said.

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Parents rose in anger, tired of teachers making their children the victims of politics. They demanded that politics not be mixed with education and that their children’s human right to a quality education be respected. The Interim Government and the Human Rights Commission assigned inspectors to witness teacher’s absences and threatened to deduct missed school days from teachers’ salaries. In the end, most teachers, conscious of their rightful duty, returned to the classrooms and the government backed away from their threat.

ASOPAFA – Asociación de Padres de Familia

The rebellion of the parents was spontaneous. They were disorganized and lacked the resources to sustain greater actions. Recently, they have become a legal NGO and are struggling to implement coherent actions to protect and advance their children’s education under very tough circumstances.

Once again, the teachers are rebelling against the start of the new academic year, refusing to follow the calendar established by the Ministry of Education. Currently, they have postponed the start of school activities from January 18th to February 1st under the pretext that they don’t recognize the Interim government (although they accept the government’s paychecks). But they threaten to not start classes even then, if the government is not fully up-to-date with their payments, which has never happened before because it’s a new year under new contracts. In other words, they’re making unreal demands.

ASOPAFA is facing enormous challenges for the present and the future of education of Honduras. They must find a way to break the interference of politics in the national school system. For years, the administration of public schools has been left in the hands of inefficient government and union appointees, who use the public school system as a means to hire their political activists, with no clear-cut rules of accountability for their misdeeds and mismanagement of national resources.

In many schools, they face serious social problems with drug-trafficking, prostitution and gang violence. They face serious health issues, such as the lack of drinking water, food and epidemics. Some schools are in such dire physical conditions that they pose a threat to safety of the attendants. There is a lack of materials, such as textbooks, desks, blackboards, and computers, even chalk, pencils and paper are in short supply and hard to acquire by poor parents.

The parents need instruction on how to plan and manage a school budget and how to assist their children’s school in better ways. The Parents Association has 15,000 registered members of about 2.5 million possible, but their contact data is stashed in cardboard boxes. They receive calls from towns outside the capital with hundreds of parents who need help and want to join up, but don’t have the means to visit and assist them. They lack the organizational know-how and resources, yet they recently sponsored a televised forum of the presidential candidates speaking on their public education programs, with no other resources than a concentrated effort and a strong will to do everything in their power to better their children’s education.

Personally, I have always believed that a good public education system is a key to achieve progress and development in a country, and that the key to advance the public education system is that parents become involved in their schools. We now have the opportunity to promote progress and development in Honduras by strengthening ASOPAFA. I encourage all of you to search for ways to support this group of concerned parents with your time, efforts, ideas and resources, whichever way you can, to advance their cause for a good quality education in the Honduran public school system.

We are currently working to get their website up and running, and will continue to keep you posted on the progress they make.