Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America, with an extraordinary inequity between the rich and the poor and high unemployment. It has been estimated that 65% of its people live beneath the poverty line. The rural poor live in subsistence conditions with inadequate sanitation and little or no access to medical care. From January 21-29 I will be traveling with the Friends of Barnabas Foundation to participate in their Impact Honduras Project. I traveled before with the FOB Mountain Mission team in 2010 and found it to be a very rewarding endeavor. 

The Impact Honduras project has targeted twenty-four communities located in remote areas of the mountains of central Honduras. The goal is promote sustainable change among the poor by providing basic healthcare, with extended healthcare services for special needs children and pregnant women. The program designates community health care providers, assists in water purification, health education workshops, trains midwives and promotes leadership development. 

Our team consists of 15 people, two pediatricians, one surgeon (me), two nurses, an optometrist, four translators and pharmacy specialists and team leaders. Each day we will be visiting one of these targeted communities to screen for health problems among the children, educate about health issues, and provide basic care to all that request it. Children with severe problems are referred elsewhere for more complex treatments. The Friends of Barnabas also provide cardiac surgery to children with congenital heart conditions and plastic surgery for children with cleft lip and palate.

The Friend’s of Barnabas Foundation’s mission is to improve the lives of the Honduran poor by providing high quality sustainable medical care and enabling communities to become self sufficient through health related training and education.

You can learn more about Impact Honduras or make a donation by visiting the website www.fobf.org.

I will be documenting my trip with my daughter Sarah, my Spanish translator, on my Facebook page in January 2012.