Main

January 09, 2006

Why The KidSAKE Foundation Exists

Jenny Rogers - KidSake FoundationThe letters weren’t even written to her, but they changed her life forever.

Jenny Rogers, a single mother of three, read letters from her best friend’s brother. Chief Jones was in the Air Force and based in Honduras. He wrote home about the Honduran people and his experiences.

Jones’s stories made their way into Jenny’s hands. They were stories of desperate Hondurans accosting the airmen as they threw their trash and spoiled food in the dump... Stories of villages in the mountains where the poor Hondurans generously shared the little they had with the visiting airmen... Stories of shoeless children who waited for visitors at the airport to carry luggage and raise 10 cents to buy food.

“They were letters that would make you cry, and you would feel such compassion for the people,” Jenny said.

Four months after reading the first letter, she traveled to Honduras herself to see how she could help.

Continue reading "Why The KidSAKE Foundation Exists" »

January 07, 2006

10 Cent Meals

soupkitchen.jpgThere are numerous poverty-stricken families in Cane, Honduras. In a particular family of seven, only one of the little ones goes to school. He is seven years old. In a year or two he will have to drop out of school and begin working.

For them, childhood is over, Jenny Rogers, executive director of The KidSAKE Foundation said. They hope to be fed and to be warm and to get a pair of shoes if they’re lucky.

“They play, but they bear a burden that shouldn’t be the burden of a 7-year-old child,” Jenny said. “These children don’t have time to wonder and to imagine. They are hungry.”

Clementina, a 74-year-old woman who lives on a teacher’s pension in this third world country, runs a soup kitchen in her village for the poor children up to age 10. She used to feed 90 children two meals a day, but now she can’t afford it.

Continue reading "10 Cent Meals" »

Stealth Photography

matt_photog.jpgEvery member of our team has a camera. Not every member of our team has a degree in photography or the professional equipment to go with it...but one person has both. Matt Chenoweth's assignment on this trip is to capture the people, the places, and the mission efforts of the rest of the team. There are print production and presentation needs for the KidSake Foundation that will benefit from high quality film. Matt would be the first to tell you that he is much more comfortable with traditional film than he is with a file from a digital camera. The bad news for readers of Reporting from Honduras is that none of the images that Matt shot this week will appear electronically until he returns to the US for a marathon session of film processing and digitizing.

Continue reading "Stealth Photography" »

January 06, 2006

Born of a village teacher

hermes.jpgHe lived in a box of a home in a Honduran mountain village. He slept in a room partitioned by wood and plastic just like his brothers and sisters.

His father farmed beans and corn. His mother was the only teacher in the roadless village of Plazuelas. It took over two hours to hike up the mountain from the nearest bus stop.

He grew up around ten families scattered half a mile between each other.
It was uncommon to make it to sixth grade in his village, Hermes Machado said.

His mother did, and so did Machado.

Continue reading "Born of a village teacher" »

Weaving behind Honduran bars

men.jpgBy Nathan Baker and Chansin Bird

Through thin metal bars prisoners can see their work on display. Woven bags, hammocks and bracelets sway in the Honduran wind to entice customers.

Some items have little marks of tape displaying a price and a prisoner’s name. Working with their hands is a means to support their families and their livelihood, and it passes the time.

“Even though we are here, our families are still outside,” Leyonidas Garcia Carillo said in Spanish. “Somehow we have to support our families too.”

Continue reading "Weaving behind Honduran bars" »

January 04, 2006

Little boy’s paintings capture Americans’ attention

paintings.jpg
The 10-year-old Honduran boy smiled shyly as the Americans admired his artwork. Anytime villagers or visitors walked into his family’s carniceria, or meat shop, they could view three of his canvas-stretched paintings on the wall. Two were of colorful Honduran village scenes with people and animals walking along the streets. The last one was of a fruit bowl.

“I’ve never seen a 10 year old paint so well before,” one of the Americans said.

Juan Carlos Salinas Bustillo has enjoyed drawing for as long as he can remember. Last year, when he was 9, he enrolled in an art school in Cane, his village. An interpreter helped him tell his story to the Americans.

“Usually my mom sends me to the store to buy things,” Juan Carlos said. “One day I passed through the art school.”

Continue reading "Little boy’s paintings capture Americans’ attention" »

January 03, 2006

Connecting in the Honduran Hills

plane2.jpgThe pilot of the 757 has autopilot disengaged over these Honduras hills. He dips into a firm spiral above Tegucigalpa on New Year’s Day, 2006, then lands. A group from Belmont University and Middle Tennessee State University step off the plane. Their first few steps are down stairs, made mobile by a bright blue truck shinning from the heat.

“We are flexible and ready for adventure,” Jenny Rogers says just outside the airport to 27-year-old translator, Hermes Machado. Jenny knows Hermes from her trip last May. He wears frameless glasses and black and yellow Puma sneakers. His Razor phone is clipped to the right pocket of his jeans.

Continue reading "Connecting in the Honduran Hills" »