Legión Honduras

Support vulnerable communities in Honduras

The goal in this project will alleviate the dental suffering of 2000 women and older adults in extreme poverty and live in rural areas of Honduras, Central America, the project will finance supplies, dental equipment, medicines, transportation for volunteer dentists. But as an organization and our work experiences in rural areas of the country, we have seen the suffering of many women and older adults who have never had access to dental treatments requiring extractions, orthodontics, dental fillings, etc.: our desire this year 2023 is provide free assistance to 2000 people, we respectfully invite you to cooperate with this very important project, which our organization cannot currently carry out without a budget. Achieving the goal, we will be able to acquire quality equipment, tools, dental materials, transportation to rural areas, food for beneficiaries and volunteers so that in less than 14 months we can execute the project The Honduras country's population of approximately 8 million people is divided evenlybetween urban and rural areas. However, poverty is essentially a rural problem. Poverty in the country affects 60 per cent of the population, while 36 per cent live under extreme poverty conditions. In rural areas, these figures rise to 63 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively.Poverty is prevalent in central hillside areas in the interior highlands of Honduras,which are home to about 75 per cent of the rural population, including indigenous The highest concentration of rural poverty is found in the western region,which also has the greatest concentration of extreme poverty. Lack of access to land and basic services, a vulnerable environment and low agricultural productivity areamong the problems at the root of poverty in the country. A lack of employment opportunities in rural areas has been a major driving force behind the country's high level of emigration. It is important to inform you that with your cooperation this project will be self-sustaining for the following years, since we will have the installed capacities to continue cooperating with thousands and thousands of people with free assistance to alleviate, assist, prevent, and combat dental treatments for vulnerable people, who never have had access to dental health in our country. A group of 5 volunteer dentists will be in charge of caring for a thousands women and older adults in extreme poverty; The funds will be used exclusively for the purchase of materials, equipment, dental medicines, transportation of dental specialists to areas of difficult access, our organization will support all the logistics to complete this project. Legion Honduras in its humanitarian mandate has different fundamental axes: 1. Education: through this educational program we performed intervention and early stimulation to children with Down syndrome to strengthen their development and inclusion in society, important to mention that we have directly benefited more than 90 children in recent years. We provide training to their parents, transportation expenses to meet the work schedule dictated by our specialist and ensure the welfare of each beneficiary, receive between 7 to 10 children weekly. This program is systematized and coordinated by our volunteer psychologist and master's degree in special education from the University of St. Johns-NYCIn addition it has more than ten years of experience in special schools of the State of New York.Our organization has the installed capacity and possesses all equipment, work tools, didactic material and with its exclusive workplace for its beneficiaries. This project is executed by two volunteer specialists and the organization is an active member of GLOBAL DOWN SYNDROME FOUNDATION based in Denver Colorado, this membership provides us, webinars, scientific research and update the organization on the best recent practices in favor of minors with Down syndrome.In 2023 our mission is to expand the coverage of our program, to execute an advocacy project for the occupational inclusion of young people and adults with down syndrome in the private and public sector. 2. Human Rights; In relation to this fundamental axis, our organization in past activities provided temporary accommodation to migrants in transit through Honduras with special emphasis on women and children, we have benefited last year 16 families from Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian headed to the United States of America, however our resources are very limited. Legion Honduras has benefited more than 240 women and girls who have been victims of any kind of gender violence, organized crime, maras and gangs, drug trafficking, displaced by violence; with a comprehensive program that provides shelter, food, medical, psychological and legal assistance, transportation, security, access to and leisure and entrepreneurship activities. Based on our experience and lessons learned, we were invited to the Latin America and the Caribbean Forum on Shelter and Human Settlements in Bogota, Colombia, Invited in coordination with the Interaction organization based in Washington,. As a future activity, the organization aims to expand prevention and response mechanisms for women and girls and any other vulnerable group due to an emergency or crisis due to the alarming rate of femicide every 20 hours in our society. Legion Honduras works in coordination with the office of the Attorney General of the Republic, since in Honduras more than 90% of crimes against women are in impunity, in the very short term we will have a memorandum of understanding between both institutions to strengthen and adopt precautionary measures for our beneficiaries once out of the program to strengthen monitoring and follow-up. Legion Honduras has achieved important alliances with other organizations such as ; International Safe Shelter Foundation based in Las Cruces, New Mexico for the exchange of best practices. The organization has 6 permanent members who require salary; but most importantly we have more than 38 specialist volunteers who do not require salary to implement programs and projects with positive impact in favor of the most vulnerable; the organization has achieved at local and international level through its transparency, accountability and importance of its projects a great support, our strategy for 2023-2025 is to make our core axes completely self-sustainable. Legion Honduras as a local organization are in great growth as a key actor with a short-term goal of increasing the network of municipalities, local leaders, organizations to strengthen the capacities of the most vulnerable and improve living conditions. Our organization also has membership in the international organizations civicus.org and pmnch hosted by the World Health organization. For more information about all the assistance that we carry out through other projects or would like to participate more directly in a project of your interest, you can visit us on our website or write to us by email: informacion@legionhonduras.org https://legionhonduras.org/en/