Spring Appeal 2021
April 28, 2021
Every day since March 1st when the school year in Honduras started, one of our 11th graders wakes up at home and goes to work hoping to make enough money to purchase a daily internet allowance so he can receive his assignments from his El Hogar teachers. Some days, he doesn’t earn enough for both food and internet access, so he is forced to make an impossible choice. This is just one example among many of the sorts of challenges that El Hogar students face during this pandemic. These are hard-working students who want to learn and who we want to support.
For many in North America, after more than a year of COVID restrictions, a liberating sense of hope is building. Vaccinations are being produced and administered rapidly. Activity in our communities is beginning to open up. The feeling is that within the next few months and certainly by the end of this year, there is a very good chance that life may return to something resembling normal.
Unfortunately, in Honduras, it is more difficult to see the light at the end of this long tunnel. Vaccination acquisition and distribution is slow, and the healthcare system struggles to keep up with the pandemic. The two hurricanes that ravaged the country at the end of last year have had a devastating social and economic impact. Add to this the difficult reality of an unpredictable and tense political climate in the midst of an election year and it is easy to understand how most Hondurans are not feeling that same sense of liberation.
Within this challenging environment, however, El Hogar remains a beacon of hope for our students and their families. Now, as another school year is underway in Honduras, and COVID restrictions remain in place, we are striving to connect remotely with as many of our students as possible. The incredible ingenuity and hard work of our teachers last year enabled us to maintain connection and deliver curriculum to many of the students who had to leave our campuses. However, despite the best efforts of faculty and staff, our students—like that hard-working 11th grader—continue to face daunting obstacles.
To overcome these challenges, we must build our capacity to connect with students wherever they are and to use our experience successfully managing the realities of COVID as a launching pad for the future.
Our big, ambitious goal this year is to put a tablet device into the hands of every student in the 4th through 12th grades, and to provide all of them and their families with a monthly internet account.
The need to provide this service is urgent.
Each and every school day matters for the young child who is learning to read, the teenager who wants to feel like he’s part of a group, or the student who is so close to graduating but also wants to help feed his family.
We must be able to more efficiently and effectively connect with every student. We also hope that this project will become a model in Honduras for the use of and access to technology so that even more Honduran students have the opportunity to become technologically fluent throughout their years at school.
We feel strongly that this is an important commitment that we must make to our students and their future. We also know, however, that such a commitment requires a significant investment while still managing our operating resources. That’s why today we are asking you for your support.
We hope that you will consider making a generous donation to El Hogar today. Not only will you be helping us to put El Hogar students on the path to tech fluency, but you will also be enabling us to continue providing a home, an education and a future to so many children living in vulnerable conditions in Honduras.
Thank you for your continued support of El Hogar!
