Located just north of Lago de Yoga, Honduras’ largest lake, lies a town called Rio Lindo, where you can find Eagles Academy, a small bilingual school with big personality.

The Honduran school year usually runs from February until November, but many bilingual and private schools run from late August until June, similar to schools in the US. This Monday, Eagles Academy celebrated the first day of the 2018-2019 school year with the inauguration of their new library, now complete with murals, posters, and new books to add to the growing collection!
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​Normally, when we inaugurate a library, we ask for teacher and parent volunteers to help us run our seven different literacy based stations, but Eagles Academy chose to call upon a group of their 10th graders to take on the leadership role.

We know what you might be thinking. “You put high schoolers in charge?!” And you would be correct; we put a group of capable, imaginative, and hard working high schoolers in charge of showing their young counterparts just how much you can learn from a book.

When we asked some of our helpers to tell us about their dreams, we received so many different answers. From teachers to biologists to graphic designers. Each one with special talents to share with the primary schoolers. Thanks to their support, the library inauguration was a huge success!

Congratulations to all of the students, parents, teachers, and community members in Rio Lindo who put in the hard work to make the inauguration day a success. Now, time to get reading!

Located high in the mountains outside of Tegucigalpa, Colonia Mirador del Oriente is found on a rocky hilltop with a steep drop on both sides, a chilly wind breezing through the buildings, and stunning views of the valley below. Centro Básico Tim Hines (named after an American missionary) sits on top of the ridge, and opens its door every day to almost 500 students between 1st and 9th grade. On the day of their library inauguration, students had the opportunity to explore their new space, and their new books, for the first time. You would think that at 13 and 14, some of the 9th graders would be “too cool” to snuggle into the new reading corners with a good book, right? But at the end of this day, students, anywhere from the ages 6 to 13, were curled up on their brand-new cushions. They were completely absorbed in the stories in their hands. 

​Prof. Jackie, one of the administrators at CEB Tim Hines, is a force to be reckoned with; she and the other educators at Tim Hines are intensely proud of their school and of their new library. The walls of the school and library are filled with color, and now each classroom has its own reading corner. Chispa Project worked alongside the educators at Tim Hines over a months-long process to provide training for parents, school staff, and the students on how to take care of their new library space, and how to integrate literacy based learning into all aspects of teaching. The students and their families now have access to over 500 different titles, each an adventure waiting to be had! 

Interesting in sponsoring your own library? Contact us here. Interesting in joining us for your own short term volunteer project? Check out past projects and ideas here. 

Grandmother's house" may have been quite a trip in the popular children's song, but she's got nothing on this school in Santa Maria, La Paz.  The beautiful but steep road leads us from one mountain top to another, crossing a river in the bottom of the valley to the Jose Cecilio del Valle School, grades 1 - 6 with over 150 students.

This school was chosen by our co-sponsor Leifheit Campus, in Germany, where one of the German teachers, Diana Klein, had previously worked as a volunteer in this Honduras school.  Now, after months of planning, it's time to inaugurate this school with 650 new books of different titles!

After a school applies with Chispa, the school forms a committee of teachers and parents who then create the policies and layout of the library program.  This school decided they wanted a central library, and they worked with the parents to mount a division wall in a previous storage room. 
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We also decided to create reading corners in each classroom.  Every week students will go to the library and then borrow books to bring back to their classroom and share throughout the week. Parent and student volunteers helped paint the reading corners, and assembled bookshelves.

The inauguration is always a favorite part, where the students rotate through reading activity stations all day.  The students received a "passport" and then proceeded to each station to receive a stamp. Each station presents a different kind of book and a craft or activity.  Here, the students explored the virtual world of the night sky and Greek mythology, science experiments about static electricity, and even made their own snowflakes.

Congratulations to all the students, parents and teachers here in Honduras, but as well to all the teachers, students and parents in Germany who helped make this dream a reality for these students to have access to their school's first children's books!

Have you ever asked yourself how you, as an individual, can make a life-changing difference in the world? The question can be intimidating, especially since our culture promotes the heroic narrative of one single person making a world-changing impact.

It’s a question I ask myself as I ride along with volunteers from the Chispa Project, a charity my daughter founded in 2014 to start children’s libraries in Honduras.

Today, we head for Rancho Santa Fe, a 250-acre campus an hour out of Tegucigalpa. It’s one of several children’s homes maintained by NPH Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH), literally meaning “our little brothers and sisters.” Started by the Rev. William Wasson in 1954, the charity embraces Catholic values, but remains an unaffiliated private institution.

We bounce along dirt roads for about five minutes until we arrive at a group of buildings set on a hill. Each building contains four dormitories. There are about 260 boys and girls who make their home in this vast wooded oasis.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the children are not sad, starving orphans. They dance about our car while others stand aside and giggle incessantly. However, most give us a respectful distance as we unload.

We’ve come to deliver a 900-book library to this campus, possibly a life-changing thing. Yet first, Sara assigns me the most laborious task — using my laptop computer to enter every book title onto a spreadsheet.

My seemingly meaningless task leaves me feeling dwarfed in the shadow of NPH. The charity has made a huge difference all over Central and South America, caring for thousands of orphans and abandoned children. Chispa means “spark” in Spanish, but I feel more like a small speck than a spark.

I begin my task on an outside patio where a few kids stop for brief moments, leaning over the boxes, yearning to pull out a book. However, I wave them off, like a cook not finished with his creation.

Nevertheless, 12-year-old Maria persists, so I offer her a book I’ve already cataloged. She reads the entire book aloud in Spanish.  I offer her another. She does the same. I feel like I’m hand-feeding a famished man. Each time I pass Maria a book, she takes it with both hands. Her big, brown eyes pull me in like a tractor beam.

Inventory was not a task I wanted. I wanted to do something that would produce noticeable results. Perhaps like some of you, I tend to think charity must be something big and life-changing. We all like to think that our charitable actions result in a big jackpot of human change. But what if the rewards of change most often come just a nickel or two at a time?

Maybe it’s time we shift our difference-making efforts in another direction. Maybe we should be asking ourselves, “How might I make a little difference today that will matter to at least one person in the slightest way?”

Perhaps we need to challenge ourselves to give without needing to know what the difference will actually be. We must work to write our charitable stories without featuring ourselves as the hero.

I tire from my inventory task in the dimming light, but Maria doesn’t tire from reading.
“Por favor.” Please, she says, pointing to another book. “Una mas.” (One more.)

I began my day by asking myself if I could make a difference. I’m not sure I did, but I’m blessed to know that Maria seems to think I did.

But equally important perhaps, Maria made a difference in me.

Consider coming to Honduras with Chaplain Norris Burkes and inaugurate a library!
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Write Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or Twitter @chaplain or call 843-608-9715.

Check out all the reasons why we all think libraries are important, and that this non-profit, educate., is making the ultimate effort to get our newest library in Honduras sponsored all the way from Europe.

educate. is a small, Scottish-registered non-profit that works to support education in Honduras through scholarship programmes for excellent but underprivileged students and projects at schools and orphanages around the country. They believe that education lies at the root of sustainable development in Honduras. A key part of education is of course literacy, and with books so hard to come by in Honduras, many children are never provided with opportunities to read, which not only helps develop their literacy skills but can also spark a love of learning.
 
educate. came across Chispa Project via a tweet from the director’s father, suggesting educate. have a look at Chispa's work. Inspired and impressed not only by Chispa's mission but also by the community-driven development approach used to create the individual library programs, educate. contacted Chispa to see how they contribute and decided to sponsor a library.

One of educate.’s board members spent a year living in El Progreso, working at a nearby children’s home, and was drawn to the idea of starting a library in this area. All of the educate. board members deeply believe in the value of education and the impact that access to books can have. “I was a voracious reader growing up,” says Antonia McGrath, educate.’s Chair, “but only because I had access to books. Reading isn’t just about deciphering letters, it’s about imagination, it opens your mind to other worlds and possibilities. And for children in public schools in a country like Honduras, that is invaluable.
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educate. is excited to be providing children with access to books in their own language, and teaching them, their teachers and their parents how to use the library effectively.  They know this will give them the chance to learn and the opportunity to grow as students, thinkers and dreamers.   Thanks, educate., for helping sponsor a library!

For more information on sponsoring a library, contact us here.  To read more about educate.'s project and/or donate, read here!

We are constantly amazed at how people from around the world are connected with Honduras, and Diana Klein’s story is no different.
 
Diana lived in Honduras as participating with the Germany Society for International Cooperation in 2015.  There, her discovery is the same as ours: books in Honduras are inaccessible to the general population.  Books here are often expensive, hard to find, and of low quality.
 
Now back teaching in Germany at Leifheit Campus, she took advantage of her new connection to Honduras to pass her knowledge along to her students.  In June 2017, Leifheit Campus carried out a charity day called “Movement for Honduras.”  The students cooked and sold typical Honduran food, played children’s games, and sold handicrafts painted with Honduran and Germany motifs.  The day taught participants a little of the diversity and beauty of Honduran culture while raising a sum of $4,000.
 
Diana then found and reached out to Chispa Project as she felt our mission matched what she envisioned in a book donation.  Chispa Project works with organizations like Diana’s to help sponsor particular reading programs or benefit a chosen school.  The money will go towards creating school library the José Cecilio del Valle School in Santa María, La Paz.  Chispa Project will match the donation’s value in order to donate a total of 650 children’s books and provide the trainings and follow-up throughout 2018.
 
Chispa Project started working with Santa María and this past week met with the school’s newly formed library committee who will run and maintain the library program.  Thanks, Diana and Leifheit Campus for reaching out, and to Santa María for being a community excited and ready to work for a new library!

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to be a dentist.  She had been on medical brigades in Honduras twice before, but wanted to find a preventative measure for all the rotten teeth she was seeing.
 
The girl worked all of her senior year in high school to write a story for beginner readers about how to take care of your teeth and designed a coloring book with the story.  She collaborated with friends to get beautiful drawings and add Honduran sayings.  

​Then, she flew to Honduras and drove all across the rural Honduran countryside talking to 450 children in one week about why they should brush their teeth.  Armed with several real rotten teeth samples and a handy dad in tow, she gave each child a coloring book, a pack of colored pencils, and a new toothbrush.  
 
The girl’s name is Elise Blackburn, and this is her story of working with Chispa Project.