The Story
Students Helping Honduras Hosts Annual Walkathon
Students Helping Honduras (SHH) is hosting its annual walk-a-thon on April 19 at the University of Mary Washington. This year’s walk-a-thon will specifically address the needs of the older girls of Copprome Orphanage.
With the proceeds raised, SHH hopes to build a transition home and set up an endowment fund for scholarships for these girls. “When a girl graduates from high school,” Wendy Chan (’08) said, “they have to leave Copprome, and often times they do not have the independence and preparation to enter the world. As a result they end up on the streets [or in] brothels.”
According to the organization’s website, www.studentshelpinghonduras.org, when these girls leave Copprome “without any emotional, financial, or educational support, they often end up living in sub-standard housing or on the streets.” Others become pregnant or turn to prostitution.
“These girls are part of a larger socioeconomic endemic in Honduras” where educational opportunities do exist but “are reserved for select individuals who can afford many additional costs such as books, housing, transportation, and the inability to work full-time,” according to the website. Through this year’s walk-a-thon, “Faces of the Future,” SHH aims to raise $250,000 to build a transition home for students leaving Copprome and to start a scholarship fund, thus offering the girls a chance to pursue a college education. Next year, five girls in the Copprome Orphanage are scheduled to graduate from high school.
SHH is a non-profit organization which “seeks to mobilize and connect students throughout the United States and cultivate the spirit of volunteerism and global respectability,” Chan said. It was founded two years ago by Cosmo Fujiyama (‘07) and her older brother Shin, who graduated from Mary Washington.
Several times during the year, students travel to Honduras to take part in different service projects. “Our main projects include Copprome Orphanage, Siete de Abril [a refugee village] and Por Venir school,” Chan said.
Those interested in “Faces of the Future” should contact Wendy Chan at wychan@wm.edu. “We will provide rides to the walk-a-thon and the event is free with a T-shirt, food and music,” Chan said. If anyone is interested in making a donation, it can be sent to Chan’s CSU, 2236.
In the past, Students Helping Honduras has had great success in raising money for its specific projects. “Last year we raised $288,000 to build 72 homes for the refugee village of Siete de Abril,” Chan said. The organization has also grown from two to 10 chapters since its inception two years ago.