Humanitarian context
Honduras, the second most impoverished nation in Central America, faces an unequal distribution of income and wealth, resulting in over 65% of its population living in poverty. In rural areas, approximately one in 5 Hondurans lives in extreme poverty. It is also the country facing the highest levels of economic inequality in Latin America. Corruption and violence are deep-rooted problems, and its fragile economy is based mainly on the export of bananas and coffee.
BENEFICIARIES
WORKERS
Our activity
In 2023, through the LIFE-Honduras Consortium we reached 68,050 people with protection activities, 13,955 people with nutrition and food assistance, 177,618 people with water, sanitation and hygiene activities, 12,400 children with education and 33,100 people with health services.
We also responded to the changing humanitarian needs of mobile populations in Honduras by providing water, sanitation and hygiene services, temporary shelter and multipurpose cash transfers to families in extremely precarious situations.
In Honduras, we likewise responded to flood emergencies caused by tropical storms, supporting communities that every year have to be evacuated and suffer human and economic losses due to these extreme weather events. We worked to stabilise basic household needs, particularly for food and non-food items, and contribute to restoring the livelihoods of populations suffering from a worsening crisis. The municipalities we have been able to provide with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) are San Manuel, Villanueva, Potrerillos and La Lima, in the department of Cortés.
We developed nutrition actions for the prevention and recovery of children with acute malnutrition in eight departments of the country, where we are supporting the updating and development of normative guidelines for the care of acute malnutrition in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (SESAL) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Through AECID's Climate Resilience Agreement, we contribute to the fight against climate change and the empowerment of women in 7 cooperatives, with 800 beneficiaries.
WHERE WE HELP
We help 24.5 million people each year. We work in 55 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, those most threatened by hunger.
EYEWITNESSES
JOEL: "I WOULD NEVER, EVER MAKE THIS JOURNEY AGAIN"
For months now, Honduras has become a transit territory for migrants coming from other continents and/or mainly from South America or the Caribbean, who decide to venture on a migratory route that exposes them to numerous risks along their journey north. According to the National Migration Institute (INM), between 1 January and 25 August 2022, 84,762 people (28%, 55% and 17% children) entered the country irregularly.
Of the total number of people reported by the INM, 83,623 came via the unauthorised points of Danlí (40,100) and Trojes (25,474), better known as blind spots, located in the border department of El Paraíso, in the south of the country. In both locations, hundreds of migrants crowd every morning at the gates of the National Migration Institute's attention centre. Coming from numerous different Latin American countries and even from Africa, they seek papers that will allow them to continue their transit through the country and continue their route to Guatemala, Mexico and, finally, the USA. Here they will have to pay a fine of more than $200 unless they can prove a circumstance of vulnerability, but far from being a reality, the fact is that the mere possibility has become a pull factor. A migratory situation that plagues the south of Honduras, endangering the social structure of the area, as well as the health and food security of migrants and locals.
One of the stories is that of Joel Yamil. Of Cuban origin, Joel decided to leave Uruguay to find better living conditions in another country, perhaps the United States. Joel says that wages in Uruguay are minimal and the price of food is very high. "Uruguayans are beautiful people, but life there is very difficult. I worked in a slaughterhouse in San Antonio Canelones and earned the minimum wage of 21,000 pesos, sometimes 30 or 36,000. I paid my rent, water, food, I didn't even have any money left for motorbike fuel. I could not support myself for the rest of the month. So I decided to emigrate. Mostly because I couldn't help my family. Because those of us who emigrate want to help our families".
Hope for a better life soon faded. "I would never, ever make this journey again," he adds: "They put a shotgun to our heads. 12 people, they took everything from us, ate our food in front of us and tore up my passport with a knife," he says. Crossing the jungle meant facing numerous dangers. "The Colombian guerrillas, together with the Indians, treated us as if we were dogs. They wanted to rape a pregnant woman". "They set us loose and the group member who was guiding us left us on our own, without knowing the jungle, disoriented. Like dogs. But dogs are treated better than we were treated. If you don't have money, you can’t go on."
"We kept being robbed. We were robbed of $900 as soon as we left. When we arrived in the jungle we spent $1,400. We didn't pay coyotes, we went on our own account, but they charged us more for everything, double. When we arrived in Peru one person offered to help us and swindled us out of $500. We had to jump on a boat because we had no money to keep spending. The boat we had to take in Colombia was one of the saddest days of my life. The boat hit a pole in the middle of the sea and it was loaded with small children, the boat began to fill with water, we couldn't manage to get it out... the next day just some of us were found alive at 10 in the morning because a boatman phoned and they came to rescue us."
