Amor, Fe, Y Esperanza (Love, Faith and Hope)
The School at the Dump

While living in Honduras, we often visited Tegucigalpa, the capital city of this Central American country. We heard of the desperate plight of impoverished children and their families who live in the city’s garbage dump and collect recyclable trash, which they then stuff into plastic bags to make ready for sale. The city dump is a vast landfill covering several acres where the garbage of this sprawling city of 1.3 million people is dumped every day.
      To learn more about these children’s predicament we visited the dump. Without a first hand look we could never have envisioned such an appalling place. It was early morning but already adults and children, the poorest of the poor, scrambled over and around mountains of garbage in an unswerving determination to find trash they could sell. Two youngsters no more that 5 years old loudly disputing the ownership of a tattered jacket they considered a prize find. Large black buzzards swooped in to compete with their human scavengers for food scraps. Paid only a few cents per pound, a child might with luck make a dollar a day. Malnutrition, disease and exposure to bio-hazardous material are commonplace. Many live within the confines of the dump while others live in surrounding shanty towns. Makeshift "houses" consist of scraps of cardboard or metal the luckier homeless find among the refuse.
      Unrelenting human misery and poverty set in a place of disease, filth, and stench was everywhere. The Tegucigalpa city dump and its trash is all that most of these children know; the world outside the dump is totally unknown to them. Many spend their entire lives working and living amidst the grime of this place. However there is hope thanks to people determined to give these children a chance.
      Pastor Jeony Ordonez, already experienced in working with street kids, decided to make a difference in the lives of the Tegucigalpa city dump kids. In 2004 he founded the school Amor, Fe, y Esperanza ( Love, Faith and Hope). The school’s modest start began under a tree in a field near the dump. With a government approved home-school curriculum and an increasing number of volunteer teachers the school flourished. Today 150 kindergarten through eighth grade kids attend classes in two, two-story school buildings. Plans include increasing the number attending classes and soon a cafeteria and vocational school will be built.
      The school’s founder, teachers, mentors, and supporters not only provide education for these kids, but they also give the kids hope and the opportunity that one day they will leave the dump, find employment and lead a normal life. This is something they could never have dreamt of before the development of the school.
      Communication with kids from other schools in other cultures through Adventure Classroom's program "Kid 2 Kid Talk" will help these resilient students expand their horizons and ambitions. Surely they deserve no less!
      To learn more about this remarkable school and its students, go to Armor, Fe, Y Esperanza web site at: www.afehonduras.org
To view photos from the school - Click Thumbnails