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Sponsors & Donors
Principals & Teachers
Lunches for Learning has come full circle with Jhosselyn (pronounced "Jocelyn") Vazquez. She is the 30-year-old Principal of the school named José Cecilio del Valle. She lives in the El Amatillo community near the Honduran border with El Salvador, which is where the L4L program got its start. She was actually a student at the first school in the L4L program and received daily L4L school lunches herself in 2005 and 2006. She later attended the National Pedagogical University in Tegucigalpa where she earned her baccalaureate degree in Elementary Education, then earned her Master's degree in Elementary Education from the Escuela Normal Mixta del Sur in the city of Choluteca. Jhosselyn is married to her husband Pedro, and their two children are named Ángel and Pedro, Jr.
Jhosselyn is pictured here in 2018 with a very special student she has taken under her wing. This student's name is also Pedro (unrelated to her husband and son who happen to have the same name). The younger Pedro's story of an amazing physical transformation, resulting from the nutrition in daily L4L school lunches at a pivotal time in his life, was detailed on the cover of our 2018 InRoads newsletter. There is no better story to show the impact our sponsors and donors are having on the children in rural Honduras!
... stay tuned for more teacher and principal profiles coming soon!
Students & Communities
The reality of life in rural southern Honduras is one of constant struggles. Most families in this region strive every single day to find ways to feed their families on less than $2 per day. Children as young as 7 or 8 years old begin to feel pressure to drop out of school simply to find food for each day. The struggle is real. And there is absolutely no social or governmental safety net to help these families. They are completely on their own.
Lunches for Learning has brought a new sense of hope to the Valle District of Honduras by providing lunch in school to more than 2,000 students in 46 schools in the region. Our goal is to keep these children in school as long as possible - through 6th grade graduation at a minimum, hopefully even further beyond that. Once they graduate, they have a much greater chance of becoming gainfully employed in the Honduran economy and supporting their families - breaking a multi-generational cycle of poverty.
Consider siblings Kelyn and Kevin Oseguera. Both graduated from 6th grade in an L4L-sponsored school. Kelyn graduated in 2014, Kevin in 2016. Because they wanted to continue their education, they moved in with their grandmother in the town of Nacaome to live near a middle school. Both were able to complete the 9th grade. Kelyn works as an office accountant - earning money to help support her family. Kevin works with his grandmother in the afternoons, helping her manage her small store in the town market to help with school expenses. Kevin’s dream is to continue his studies and become certified as an auto mechanic. Kelyn’s dream is to one day study mathematics in college.
Both Nancy Oneyda and Juana Padilla, from two different communities, graduated from 6th grade in Lunches for Learning schools and then were able to complete the Honduran ISEMED training program and become certified as Teacher’s Aides in the pre-school programs at the elementary schools in their communities. These two girls are now employed by the Honduran Education Ministry, were able to continue living at home and are able to support their families because they remained in school and graduated. The lunch program helped make this happen.
Jose Amilcar, who grew up in the desperately poor and mountainous Moropocay region, (which has no high school near his home) is currently attending high school in the nearby town of Nacaome. He was able to move in with his uncle, who lives in Nacaome, to continue his education into high school. He was in the L4L program through 6th grade and never would have been able to attend high school if he had been forced to drop out to search for food in his younger years, something his elementary school Principal confirms would likely have been the case without the lunch program.
Carlos Medina's mother credits the L4L program with keeping Carlos in school. Carlos developed a love of learning through his elementary years. He found a way to continue his education through 9th grade at Instituto Dania Torres in the nearby town of Nacaome. He attended the Electrical Technician program in a vocational institution in Nacaome and graduated in 2019. He attended classes in the afternoons and early evenings while his mornings were spent working the cornfields of a local farmer. He wants to attend college and become an Electrical Engineer.
Carlos and his family of 7 live in the home pictured here.
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