NORWICH — More than 30 years ago, a small group of volunteers from New Hampshire’s White Mountains began supporting a rural village in Honduras.
Since then, more and more Upper Valley residents have become involved with Americans Caring Teaching Sharing, or ACTS Honduras, a nonprofit group now based in Norwich that serves about a dozen communities surrounding El Rosario, Honduras.
Recently, the group helped Cesar Rivas, a resident of El Rosario, participate in a language education program run by Dartmouth College’s Rassias Center. Rivas taught himself English and approached ACTS three years ago about providing language training to other residents.
“He is a self-taught instructor with an enormous amount of enthusiasm and drive,” said Dean Seibert, one of the founders and past president of ACTS who has been making trips to El Rosario for more than 20 years. “His English is marginal, but pretty darn good considering the circumstances.”
At the language program, Rivas was able to strengthen his English, a skill that he can then pass along to his students in El Rosario.
Rivas said speaking English gives Hondurans more job opportunities, including at call centers or at the international airport. That allows them to remain in their home country, rather than leaving the Central American nation in search of work.
ACTS Honduras has seen success because of a unique partnership between Upper Valley volunteers and residents of Honduras, said Helen Whyte, secretary for ACTS.
“The imagination of the villagers for programs to promote a better life for themselves and future generations is limitless,” she said. “The villagers set the priorities and do much of the labor. ACTS provides a diversity of skills, guidance, material resources and hands-on help. The result has been a remarkably successful example of community development on a scale that is sustainable.”
Seibert, an 86-year-old retired professor at Sartmouth college’s Geisel School of Medicine, explained that ACTS is starting to place an emphasis on giving young people in El Rosario and the surrounding villages the language and computer skills they need to find employment.
“If they have some skills in English, their prospects of getting a much more reasonable job are much, much greater,” he said.
Employability is especially important right now, since the region that ACTS serves has experienced a series of crop failures. This means more young people are moving toward larger cities in order to find work.
“With the population expanding in these villages and crops failing, inevitably there is going to be exodus to cities,” Seibert said. “We want to prepare young people who will have to make that transition.”
ACTS supports broad community development by connecting villagers with resources for health, education and economic growth, according to Whyte, the nonprofit’s secretary.
“ACTS addresses immediate needs of the community, and transfers skills to help people become more independent,” she said.
In order to continue helping the people of El Rosario, ACTS is looking for additional volunteers, both to work from the Upper Valley and to participate in ACTS trips to Honduras, which happen about five times each year.
Given recent crop failures, the organization is especially in need of volunteers with expertise in sustainable agriculture and drought management. ACTS is always looking for medical, dental and teaching professionals to volunteer, especially if they are fluent in Spanish.
Closer to home, ACTS is seeking volunteers who can help with website development, grant writing, administrative tasks and fundraising. In addition, ACTS is looking for an indoor storage site for goods and equipment that will be transported to Honduras. People who are interested in volunteering should email info@actshonduras.org with a bit of information about themselves and how they would like to become involved.
Although ACTS has a dedicated volunteer base, more help is critical right now to address major challenges in the region brought about by crop failures and political unrest.
“Things are bad in Central America and they are going to get worse,” Seibert said. “ACTS is doing what it can to help to prepare the young rural villagers for the reality to come.”
However, he said he’s seen firsthand the difference that volunteers from a world away can make.
“We and the people of El Rosario have made a lot of progress,” he said. “It’s different in so many ways now than it was 30 years ago.”
Valley News staff photographer James M. Patterson contributed to this report.