The GER3 team continues important recovery work in Honduras in response to Hurricanes Eta and Iota. The team is currently based in San Pedro Sula and will soon be transitioning to La Lima, a more remote community in the affected areas surrounding San Pedro Sula.
Over the holidays, the team worked in a community called La Canaán located along the river near La Lima. The community had been completely flooded and was left with more than 3 feet of mud in some areas. GER3 began work on the Calle Principal (main street) to create access to the community and allow residents to return home and begin the laborious process of cleaning the mud and debris from their homes. A backhoe and multiple dump trucks did the heavy lifting, while a team of GER3 local workers assisted the machinery to reach the mud near buildings and load the debris that was found in the street. GER3 was able to clear more than 80% of the Calle Principal, allowing more than 20 families to begin cleaning out their homes.
Prior to the intervention, the entirety of La Canaán had been displaced by the hurricanes. Of the 120 families, 35 are sheltered in an elementary school in La Lima and more than 80 are making do in make-shift dwellings along the divided highway that passes near their community.
GER3’s local team also worked in a community called La 23 de septiembre. Five local workers assisted machinery in clearing debris that residents had removed from their homes, clearing the Calle Principal. In one day, the team was able to clear the entire main street, more than 200 meters, restoring vehicle access to the street and allowing more than 30 families to have full access to their homes.
GER3 continues to assess damaged communities and develop program designs for prospective projects. One upcoming project will support an orphanage called Proniño. This orphanage takes in children who were previously living on the streets across Honduras. The campus in El Progreso is home to 22 boys and 7 girls aged 6-17. All were forced to evacuate as the storm arrived and none have been able to return as the flooding left behind mud in all of their buildings and eroded the driveway to the campus. The team is looking forward to kickstarting this high impact project in the coming weeks to allow the children to return.