Project 2020-023

Funded October 20, 2020; Completed February 11, 2021

Every year the Honduras Hope Mission (HHM) volunteer team of doctors, nurses, dentists and facilitators travel to La Villa de San Francisco, Honduras to run medical/dental clinics for locals.  As part of their normal mission trip every February they hand out 500 water filters funded by Ingomar Living Waters.  Each water filter lasts two years and can handle water needs of a family of four.  So 1000 families are covered by this hand-out of 500 filters every year.

With the COVID pandemic in 2020-2021, the plans changed for the February 2021 trip.  The trip became “virtual”.  HHM set up a telehealth clinic at the Hope Center in the La Villa de San Francisco area and had a handful of local medical professionals on a video conference with the volunteer doctors in the US supporting the flow of patients.  They handed out water filters at the telehealth visits and distributed the rest door-to-door in the La Villa de San Francisco area.  In this way, 307 filters were distributed in the La Villa de San Francisco area.  They then took 193 water filters to Suyapa where the local church distributed them.

Thank you to Ingomar Living Waters for continuing to provide 500 water filters every year to provide clean water for 1000 families in Honduras!

Although water is usually abundant in Honduras (even thought they did experience a serious drought this past year), the drinking water in this area of Honduras is contaminated with bacteria and parasites. Water is pumped into pilas (cisterns) close to most homes, but is not safe to drink. Consequently only contaminated water is available. As a result stomach and intestinal illnesses are endemic throughout this area of the country, and adults and children miss an inordinate amount of work or school. In this part of Honduras missing work is quite costly because the laborers in the sugar cane and watermelon firlds are only paid when they work, the harvest season lasts only six months, and there is no government safely net. Additionally, if workers miss too much work they may be immediately dismissed from their seasonal jobs.