Dodging bullets to find peace
by Nadia Castro, World Vision Honduras
(Above: children of Honduras playing with World Vision staff. For his protection, the boy above is not Jose, featured in the story below.)
Dodging bullets. You read that correctly and it’s deadly serious. Jose is 16 and lives in El Progreso, Honduras. His mother works as a cook at a local cafeteria to support Jose’s education. “I can see how hard my mother works to support me. We are a family with very low income so in gratitude to my mother, I work hard to get good grades, I behave and go to church because in my neighborhood, if you don’t work hard, get an education or have the support of your parents, you can end up joining a gang,” he says. And sometimes, joining a church or youth group is the only way to prevent joining a gang.
People in El Progreso struggle every day to find a job. Most parents travel 20 miles to San Pedro Sula and work long hours for manufacturing companies, leaving their children unattended or under the care of a neighbor or grandparent. Unfortunately, gangs have moved into the community, recruiting children and youth, creating an environment of violence and crime in the neighborhood.
“It’s very hard for a teenager to say no and not join a gang. Gangs teach you how to sell drugs and make money. They take advantage of the youth who don’t have money and don’t feel loved by their parents. They lie to you and make you believe you have a family with them,” Jose says. “For gangs it doesn’t matter if you are part of their group or not, when they want to eliminate someone they don’t care who they are with,” he says.
One afternoon, he was with some friends and his cousin outside his house, when two boys came out and started to shoot everybody, trying to reach his cousin. “These two kids were hitmen, new gang members and rookies, they didn’t kill my cousin, but they injured some people. It was like living in a war zone,” he recalls. Jose didn’t want to live that life - a life with no peace or opportunities, a life where everybody gets used to violence.
One day at church, he found out about a World Vision project that needed young people to lead Peace Road Clubs. The clubs were developed to help reduce violence, engage the youth and keep them away from gangs. Through World Vision’s Fostering Hope At Home Project, Jose was trained in conflict resolution and self-esteem development. Jose is working to recruit other youth to become part of the Peace Road Club and create activities like sports, art presentations and plays that will attract others to change their lives. “This is what we needed in the community, a project that believes in the youth who are lost, those youth who need support and need to be heard.”
Through this project, Jose feels he has saved his cousin’s life. He wants to keep saving the youth from his neighborhood and guide them to a better future. “I know this is just the beginning, but I already have a bunch of youth who are interested and excited to start with the Youth [Peace] Road Clubs, …but first we need to dodge those bullets and finally have peace in our neighborhood. There is a lot of work to do, but I’m willing to do it.” he finishes.
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