Homeless Child works with battered, abandoned, and vulnerable children and women who lack opportunities in Honduras. The foundation works directly in support of local development projects and organizations in Honduras. In the Netherlands, we raise funds as well as awareness for our international collaboration between local professionals and volunteers.
In 2002, we started supporting ‘Fundación Proniño’, an initiative designed to offer street children permanent shelter and support. Since 2002, Homeless Child has supported Fundacion Proniño to provide Honduran boys between the ages of 6 and 19 with the resources and opportunities necessary to improve their lives. Proniño then consisted of “Las Flores” where boys between the ages of 6 and 15 were cared for and “Les Grandes Heroes” where boys of 15 to 19 were cared for. Since 2017 all the boys are taken care of at “Las Flores” and the “Les Grandes Heroes” location can be sold for the benefit of sustaining care at Proniño.
In recent years, we’ve envisaged more personal care on a smaller scale, with more attention for each individual child, and the number of children admitted to Proniño has decreased considerably. The oldest boys have since completed the program, others were given permission to leave and live with relatives, while others unfortunately ran away and even left Honduras to seek out family.
In 2004 Homeless Child decided to also support the foundation, Hogar Suyapa, giving younger children from 0 to 3 years old access to care and nourishment before being lost to street life. This project is now self-sufficient and independent.
Three years later it was decided to begin collaborating with ‘Asocación Hondureña de la Mujer y Familia’ (AHMF) to support the poorest women in the city, with a program to provide much needed contraceptives and information about women’s rights, female health hygiene. Our shared vision is that women who have a choice will have fewer children and can offer each child a better chance at a decent life.
Nevertheless, young girls in Honduras remain at high risk of sexual exploitation; usually by relatives or family friends who are either perpetrators of serious and long-term sexual abuse or sexually exploiting the girl for financial gain. In 2012 the foundation, in collaboration with Proniño, was able to open a girls’ home called ‘Bellas Princesas’, where these girls are offered safety in a stable and caring, living environment.