Beating the Odds: Education through High School and Beyond in Honduras

(Scholarship money for simple school items like the uniform, shoes and books in this picture can be the difference between a child staying in school or dropping out permanently).

Dear friends,

At Sea la Luz, we provide scholarships to kids and young adults in Honduras and Nicaragua to help them stay in school. If you are anything like me, you never questioned whether or not you'd be able to go to elementary school or high school. I never even second-guessed college being part of my future. I completely took for granted that I would have the opportunity to develop my mind in ways that would be personally fulfilling and prepare me for gainful employment. The youth we serve through our scholarship program do not take these things for granted.

I first realized this while living and working in Honduras as a teacher/missionary at the Farm of the Child, a Catholic children's home, school, and medical clinic. When I first arrived, I experienced plenty of challenges to education. There was the extreme heat in classrooms filled with sweaty bodies (especially after recess) and no AC or fans. And when it wasn't sweltering, it was rainy season and we might have to cancel classes because the bridges were impassable due to flooding or we had to fumigate the property because of an overabundance of mosquitoes. Tech (including printers and lights) was not to be relied upon because of frequent power outages and the basic incompatibility of technology with the hot, humid, sandy environment. We also had the unique challenges of educating both neighborhood kids and resident children who lived onsite in family-style homes because their own families were unable to care for them due to abuse or neglect. While our resident children struggled with the constellation of challenges trauma inflicts on the learning brain, many of our neighborhood children had their own family struggles with poverty and instability.

Sixty-one percent of rural Hondurans live below the poverty line, with 32% of the nation's poor living in extreme poverty. Depending the level of poverty, this means living on between $2.15 and $6.58 per day. For the rural poor, a school like the one at the Finca del Nino (Farm of the Child) offers an extremely low cost to free education within walking distance to several communities. Far from seeing the inconveniences of the basic, rural setting, our local families valued the chance for their children to achieve a 9th grade education in a nation where the average years spent in formal education is still 6.6.

In the area where I taught, there is no high school within walking distance. The nearest is about 25 minutes by car (an amenity the rural poor usually do not have). Families know that at the high school level, they will have to pay for everything: uniforms, books, transportation, copies, food, required events, registration, and even the documentation to process grades and diplomas. These costs become an insurmountable barrier for many families who are forced to tell their children that high school is just not in the budget. This is not a problem unique to the community where I lived. Across Honduras, school children rarely even make it to ninth grade. In fact, only 31% of all Honduran youth graduate from high school. The percentage in rural areas is likely far lower due to a dearth of high schools and higher rates of poverty.

While I knew that the resident teens living at the Farm of the Child would have their secondary education provided for by the organization, I worried about the neighborhood children. What would their future look like with only a ninth-grade education? What opportunities would they have? Statistics from the World Bank indicate that without a secondary education, 62 % will remain in poverty. Some teenage boys will begin to work manual labor jobs that are often unreliable, intermittent, and without any benefits. Many of the teenage girls become mothers at early ages. Honduras has a staggering 72% adolescent birth rate. Without access to reliable work, many undertake the dangerous path to the United States where they remain a more vulnerable immigrant group due to low education, lack of documentation, and low English skills resulting in Hondurans being the poorest immigrant group in the United States.

But...what happens when they do get the chance to complete high school? Sixty percent of high school graduates escape poverty. Their job options expand beyond basic occupations and the military to a wider variety of occupations including trades, service, government jobs, artisan jobs, machine operation, administration support, technicians, and mid-level professionals in numerous fields. The longer a student stays in high school, the less likely he or she is to migrate without a visa. In fact, a 2019 study showed even the probability of having intent to migrate is just 12% for high school graduates and only 9% for college graduates as opposed to 20% for those in the same age group with less education.

Of course, when I was immersed in Honduras, I didn't have these facts at my fingertips. But I did have a local mom who persistently asked me to help her daughter complete high school. I was already concerned by the fact that most students I was teaching would end up dropping out by ninth grade, so I wanted to help in some way. I looked for local scholarships and, finding none, consulted God, my bank account, and my boyfriend (now husband) Paul who all seemed to be in agreement that sponsoring this young woman was the right thing to do. One scholarship grew quickly to three and Paul volunteered to help me fund our first group of "becadas" (scholarship recipients in Spanish). When I returned to Honduras, we continued to sponsor them. Our first group of becadas graduated on time in December of 2020, despite a year of Covid-distance learning. While Honduras as a nation hemorrhaged students, especially high school students, during the pandemic, our becadas perservered.

As an organization, we continue to add more students to our scholarship rolls each year. To date, we have helped four students graduate high school, currently sponsor two university students (the first in their communities to go to college), sponsor four current high school students, and have helped over 30 elementary school students stay in school. Each year, we partner with the principal of the school at the Farm of the Child to identify students in need who are about to graduate 9th grade and invite them to apply for a scholarship. Although we are still small, we know that each student who stays in school dramatically increases his or her opportunities. We have already seen the ripple effect. Students see the success of our scholars and want to follow their lead.

We have great hopes to expand our scholarship program for the next school year, but we need lots of help! It costs about $80/year to sponsor a K-9th grade student. High school students receive a scholarship of about $100/month which covers tuition, transportation, lunch, supplies, and other school necessities. Our college scholarships are about $185/month for tuition, transportation and other school necessities. Any gift of any kind is so deeply appreciated. We currently spend just 1% of our income on operating costs, so you can be assured that any donation you send is going to directly support our programs. On behalf of our incredible scholars and their families, I thank you for reading this and considering supporting the youth of Honduras!

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post about the healthcare scene in Honduras and how we decided to add emergency health care assistance to the mission of Sea la Luz.

Dios les bendiga! God bless you!

Anna Gagnet

President of Sea la Luz