Making Poverty History: On the Ground in Honduras.
“I had the privilege to live and work with some remarkable people, with wisdom and understanding that never cease to amaze me. Some of my friends have never had a formal education, but I’m learning more from them than I could ever learn from books or college courses. It really is a very humbling experience.”
Gill Thurgood, a native of Gateshead, arrived in La Mosquita (or Mosquito Coast), Honduras in April 2001. Her job was initially to advise on the Community Health programme, but she was later asked to provide advice and training for national staff so that the developments programmes could become more integrated. The idea is that the indigenous peoples of La Mosquitia make the transition from a subsistence to a market economy without losing their cultural identity. In this hot humid climate, malnutrition, poor housing and infant diseases are widespread; and poverty is endemic.
Gill worked with ‘Mopawi’, a local organisation working in partnership with Tearfund. In order to help make poverty history, Mopawi has set up a micro finance system that gives loans to groups of people, often women, so that they can set up small businesses. One of these projects makes ‘Batana’. Batana is a hair product made from the oil of the Uhun palm tree, and is now marketed world wide as a very exclusive hair product, “Ojon” (for more information go to www.ojonhaircare.com). The Batana is transported from the outlying communities where it is produced by river to Puerto Lempira – about six hours by boat – from where it is transported abroad.
With the Batana sales income, the women are able to educate their children, make improvements to their houses and buy food, which they were unable to do before.
This sort of work is one example of what can be done; other small businesses set up with the help of a loan from Mopawi have been butcher shops, bakeries, small restaurants and tailors. Gill has worked hard to ensure that such work can, and will continue. Gill has now returned home and, while she has not ruled out a return to La Mosquitia, she currently works as Tearfund’s regional manager for the North East of England, coordinating almost 200 volunteers who represent Tearfund locally (for more information, see www.tearfund.org).