Notes from Honduras – March ’22
April 4, 2022
A Typical Day at El Hogar
by Karen Amador
Coordinator of the Residential Program
The days at El Hogar are wonderful, extraordinary and innovative as they turn the monotonous into something important, satisfying and necessary for the significant development of our children and adolescents, so that each day marks their lives forever.
We start our day at El Hogar with routine activities including taking our vital signs as a form of biosecurity and then we enjoy our delicious hot breakfast. Having our bodies fed, it is time to feed our spirits with a morning devotional.
From 8:00 am to 11:00 am, primary school students go to class. The high school students have rotating classes to avoid large groups at school, for biosecurity reasons; One group stays at El Hogar for a month, participating in activities from our transition to adulthood program where they hold workshops about legal education, visits to local centres where they receive workshops on emotional, sexual and entrepreneurship education, and they always do homework for their academic classes. The other group goes to the technical institute for in-person classes. At the end of our academic day, it is time to have lunch. After eating, we have a time to rest where we can play, do crafts, have some downtime to relax our bodies and minds. Then, we continue with homework and study time that starts from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm to end the educational part of our day.
Our afternoons continue at 3:00 pm. We begin our instruction in values and life skills as we practice hygiene, cleanliness, self-care and environmental protection habits. During this time, we carry out activities from home such as bedroom cleaning, laundry and property maintenance and garden care, organized by assigned group in different areas. After this time there is a special time of family strengthening when we have time to call our family members every day. Also during this time, we have recreation activities where we can play soccer, listen to music and talk with our friends. At 5:30 pm dinner time begins. After eating, we have half an hour to relax our body through the exercise routine that helps strengthen us day by day to grow healthy and strong. Every night we have a devotional time where we have a conversation about everything we need to acknowledge and what we need to improve from the day. Before going to bed, we take some time for leisure: watch television and have a snack. We always shower and prepare our uniform for the start of the next day. Before going to bed we talk with our peers and counselors about how our day went. Then, we say a prayer and go to sleep.
Although our routine seems monotonous, it is special because every day there are things to learn to practice and improve. A day at El Hogar is special because every second that the clock ticks our story is strengthened.
Thank you for your continued support of El Hogar!
