Reflecting on 45 Years of El Hogar

November 26, 2024

If you walk through the elementary campus at El Hogar, you’ll notice a wooden, neon-colored building standing prominently right next to our recently remodelled residential building. Brand new bathrooms collide with our aging classrooms. A teacher that just stepped on campus for the first time talks to a director who has devoted 35 years to El Hogar.  A 32-year-old graduate shares his testimony with a class of sixth grade students.  

These are the visible signs of change.  Some are less visible, but equally notable. 

A year ago, our El Hogar team gathered to identify and select our core values. We held long discussions to narrow them down to five. No one would be surprised to find Love, Faith and Integrity at the top of this list, in fact, these appeared immediately in the early stages of conversation. But one value that we embrace deeply, and now seek out intentionally, is the value of “evolución” which doesn’t translate exactly in English (as is often the case with culture overall) it could be better translated as “dynamism or in constant growth”

Therefore, this year we aren’t celebrating 45 years of operating, we are celebrating 45 years of evolving.  Forty-five years of the deep humility and vulnerability that is required to remain open to learning and to redefining our roles while steadfastly pursuing an unwavering mission to serve Honduran youth from the most underserved communities. 

During these almost five decades we’ve grown from serving five young boys in a home, to providing fully licensed residential and educational services to 250 students.  We’ve evolved from being an all-boys program to a co-ed facility at every level. Students now graduate from 12th grade with an academic high school diploma and an electricity degree.  And while in Honduras it is estimated that less than 3% of citizens attend university, around 50% of El Hogar graduates attend university.  We hope to contribute to our country’s growth by supporting youth so that they can transform their country one generation at a time. 

At El Hogar, we’ve made profound shifts to to see ourselves as partners throughout the organization.  We now serve more students in our day program modality than in our residential one, while still seeking to keep students safe, nurtured as a whole child, and empowered to seek out their own dreams. 

Evolución to us means using the word “and” more frequently than the word but; “we offer a Christian education and entrepreneurial STEAM skills”.  “Our students live on campus and experience a family-environment”. It also means, as many people around me hear me say, that we add the word “yet” to any sentence that starts with “We can’t” or “we don’t”. “We don’t offer a Computer Science degree – yet”.  “We can’t enroll more students- yet”. 

Thriving for 45 years in a country where uncertainty is served for breakfast is an astounding achievement.  El Hogar has survived government coups, devastating hurricanes, global pandemics, rising gang violence, drug trafficking, massive migration, massive currency shocks, aid shifts and youth policy transformation. 

El Hogar has thrived through leadership changes, internal restructuring, shifts in locus of management, working more closely with families, working more closely with adolescents in a co-ed campus, and empowering our own selves to engage as partners. 

And the international community, most notably our Episcopal friends, have offered their continuous support through decades of change up close and from afar. 

We are preparing ourselves to emerge stronger and bolder for our 50th anniversary and our plan for the upcoming half-century anniversary is to mark a joint commitment from students, staff, families, and supporters to ensure that El Hogar will continue thriving and evolving for another fifty years.  

Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.  Let’s all partner in being agents of transformation for Honduras, in dreaming together and creating the necessary opportunities so that more Honduran children will have a dignified, stimulating education and a nurturing home, and why not, perhaps the will and commitment to change their world.