By Maria Nunez
Imagine that your school consisted of four twigs and a tin roof. No walls to protect you against the elements or a floor on which you could walk without getting dirt between your toes.
Imagine you were a child and had to go to school inside a bar, surrounded by empty beer bottles and crowded with kids, some older and some younger.
It sounds outrageous, right? Well this is life for many students in Honduras.
Thousands of children have to attend schools similar to the one just mentioned, others have to walk miles to reach the neighboring villages with schools, and others simply don't have the chance to go at all.
In recent years, we have heard about the abundance of problems that plague Honduras: coups, drug trafficking, corruption and poverty. One of the biggest problems is the prevalence of gangs in the lives of young boys and girls. Most of these children are born from a single mothers who work all day for less than a minimum wage, or approximately $150 per month. Due to a lack of proper care, children tend to skip school and instead seek out gang membership to feel as though they belong to a group.
To combat these problems, Students Helping Honduras (SHH) has set out on a mission to build 1,000 schools in rural villages by the year 2020. A few AU students had the opportunity to travel abroad this winter break and help construct some of these schools. These students spent a week mixing cement, shoveling sand and carrying cement blocks. Most importantly they made connections with the children who will study in the schools, and with other volunteers from across the U.S.
SHH Treasurer Gabriela Christie said that the most valuable lesson she learned was understanding how fortunate she was.
