Participants Blog

Heartbreaking Realizations

My work placement in Tegucigalpa, Honduras involves teaching children in the cities street markets. Though my organization works with women and other target groups I have chosen to focus my attention on the 2-9 age groups. Through my time here I have met children who are unable to receive an education, who do not have enough food to eat, and who work selling things in the markets to help their families survive. Being around these children has taught me so much about the realities of child poverty, and what it means to be a poor person in Honduras.

Mostly it has taught me that the support I have received from my family and community throughout my life is not something to be taken for granted. The children I work with in the markets are not the worst off, and I see children suffering from even worse circumstances in my trips through the markets and city centre. On a typical day I get asked for money or food from several children, or alternatively get asked to buy something from them. I think about my own upbringing, and how I absolutely relied on my parents for things like food and affection and shelter. These children must find food of their own and have to take their survival into their own hands.

The most heartbreaking reality I have had to witness is that of what I will refer to as the ¨glue kids¨ - the children who inhale toxic glue as a means of coping with their realities and staving off hunger. I have seen children as young as eight years old completely intoxicated holding pop bottles filled with glue up to their noses. I think about when I was eight years old and would pretend to run away from home or cry when my mom wouldn´t buy me candy - problems that seemed huge but pale in comparison. I knew when I began this experience I would learn not to take what I have for granted, but I didn´t know how heartbreaking that realization would be.