House building projects in Honduras
| country: | Honduras |
| departures: | 2009: 14 Dec |
| price: | From £425 - £1125 (1-8 weeks) excluding flights. Includes homestay accommodation, breakfast and dinner, airport pickup, in-country orientation. Excludes insurance, visas, return transfers, lunch. Minimum age 17 |
| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
the amazing things you'll be doing
The lack of travellers to Honduras is surprising given the warm welcome you get from the people and the dramatic natural scenery. Everyone else’s loss is your gain though, as you explore this gem unhampered by the hordes. The building projects in La Esperanza help people to literally make a better future for themselves and their families by building homes and schools in some of the country’s poorest communities. These are real hands-on projects where you help with everything from making sun dried bricks, to painting outside walls. You’ll know it’s worth it though, when you see a family move into the house you built and students attending their first day in their new school. The project is based in the small town of La Esperanza (pop 13,000 ) in the Western Highlands of Honduras. It is about 3-4 hours by bus from the capital Tegucigalpa. La Esperanza is populated mainly by the indigenous Lenca people, and is best known for its traditional Sunday market.
The local area is blessed with magnificent scenery and is fantastic for hiking/cycling. There are natural hot springs nearby where you can bath and will make a change from the cold showers you will have at the homestays. This is a great base to travel across to the Mayan Ruins at the weekend which is one of the major tourist attractions. Accommodation is in very basic homestays with a local family. You will need to arrive into Tegucigalpa on your specified arrival date.
the project
On our building projects in Honduras you will work alongside the local families to provide more stable and comfortable living conditions. The native Lenca people of the Western Highlands often live in poverty stricken conditions, sometimes with three families under one roof. Volunteers are desperately needed to help provide better homes for people who really need them as well as helping the communities build homes of their own. Aims: To provide an extra pair of hands for local Lenca communities that desperately need bigger houses for their family, which often exceed 10 members. Family members have to work all day in the fields or travel into town to work and do not have much time to build a new home. As a result, volunteers are highly appreciated and usually half the amount of time it takes a family to build a new house. We aim to complete another 50 adobe brick houses by the end of next year.
a day in a life of a volunteer
You would be involved in fairly labour intensive work, including different activities such as renovation, labouring, painting, decorating, making bricks, building walls etc. During the dry season you will mainly be making bricks which involve taking straw and mud and getting into a big vat and mixing it altogether using your feet. You need beginner Spanish for this project, though you should aim to learn as much as possible before you go. You should be in reasonable physical shape as you will be getting involved in building work, be willing to get involved in hard work and be very 'hands on' and willing to get involved in anything that is asked of you. You have a love of the outdoors and not mind working in any weather. You will need to be easy going and to work alongside the local community as much of your time will be spent with the families. Building experience is not necessary but specific skills will be welcomed.
volunteer travel - what's it all about?
Are you looking for an adventurous trip with a purpose, or on a gap year or career break? If you want to make a difference in some of the world’s most important conservation areas - and in community projects - then volunteer trips are for you! Volunteers tend to have a sense of adventure, and come from a range of different backgrounds and from all over the world. Edward Abbey said 'sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul'.
how this holiday makes a difference
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We believe that travel can change lives! Travelling can change you as a person and, if done responsibly, can have a profound effect on the people that you meet and the places that you visit. We want as many people as possible to experience the heart and soul of another culture in the way that we have, and in doing so, help them to make a positive and lasting impact on our world.
The biodiversity of the Honduran countryside is renowned for its beauty and diversity, with its numerous types of plants and animals. The climate in La Esperanza might not be the hottest in the country, but the welcome visitors receive more than makes up. Honduras is one of the ten poorest countries in the world, income is low and national unemployment rate is extremely high. Many people are without shelter and that is where you dedication and hard labour is needed. We have teamed up with a locally run project striving to help local families build houses to live in and buildings for educational purposes. As a volunteer on this project you will find yourself working alongside local families desperate to build a home for themselves. Building work is hard labour, but there are a variety of activities you could get your hands on such as making bricks, painting walls, renovating buildings or decorating houses to turn them into homes. Whatever volunteers discover as their hidden talent in the building process, it will give them an opportunity to support the local community and help them achieve their goal of fighting homelessness and giving as many people a home as physically possible. You’ll stay in a shared room in a homestay ensuring that you directly support the local community while you’re there. You’ll also be supported by your local in-country coordinator; Elisa who with her team is best placed to understand the specific economic, social and developmental needs of Honduras. On average 48% of your placement fee is distributed in-country for the services included with your placement (i.e. Local support, Food, Transport & Accommodation) meaning that the local communities are directly benefiting from your travels to their country. The remaining funds are required to cover the administration costs associated with sourcing, training, marketing and coordinating your travel experience. We do not give a financial contribution to this or any of our projects as we believe that money is rarely the answer to complicated development issues; if it was, the poverty problems in the world would be getting better! Short-term aid relief can cause aid-reliance and financial instability and the corruption seen in many developing countries means the guarantee of your money going to the heart of the cause is massively reduced. From our experience (and by learning from our mistakes) projects benefit far greater more from a sustainable framework to ensure they develop rather than short-term financial aid relief. If money is paid directly to projects then they may become dependent on that income. If that country or project becomes unpopular, or through restrictions in the opportunity to travel to that country, the money dries up and they are no longer able to continue with their work. Supplying projects with enthusiastic volunteers creates a constant supply of helpful hands and as they are not reliant on an income can continue without the assistance of the volunteer travellers, although significantly slower in achieving their goals. Instead of giving money direct we operate a grants scheme from our Helping Hand Foundation. This is designed to allow all our partner projects to submit applications for funding to achieve a specific objective. In 2007 we have supported a number of partner projects including the installation of 20 toilets at a school in India, the construction of a community centre in Brazil and providing a radio communications unit for a turtle conservation project in Costa Rica. |
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