NPH Honduras: A Safe Haven
A thriving, bustling community less than an hour from the nation’s busy capital, Rancho Santa Fe is the second oldest of the NPH homes, opening in 1985. Over 300 hundred boys and girls make their home in this vast wooded oasis in the hills—a metropolis in comparison to the surrounding quiet pueblos—while an additional 100 youths study and live in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
NPH Honduras operates a Montessori-based preschool and elementary school, junior high school and vocational workshops. Each student is required to take courses in a specific trade; carpentry, electricity, shoe making, seamstress, tailoring, hairdressing and welding, as well as a life skills/home economics.
The farm has dairy cows and pigs. Cheese is made on-site along with tortillas and bread. Aside from the farm, NPH Honduras also boasts a model greenhouse, vegetable gardens and fruit orchards which provide the children with well-balanced, nutritional meals. Unique to the Honduras family is Casa Eva, a rest home for elderly adults who previously had no one to care for them until coming to NPH. These loved grandparents are included in Ranch activities and add a wonderful balance to our growing family.
Three other important components of the NPH Honduras family are located in the capital. Our home Casa de Los Ángeles provides 24-hour care for 16 children with severe disabilities. Pasos Pequeñitos, a children’s daycare center, helps single mothers in difficult circumstances who need extra assistance in caring for their children. Casa Esperanza, a home in Catacamas, is for children in emergency situations who are awaiting family reintegration. Additional community service programs include a children's soup kitchen in the nearby town of Talanga which provides daily food and vitamins to 30 impoverished children who would otherwise go unfed. NPH Honduras is led by Stefan Feuerstein, along with over 170 dedicated staff.
Milestones
1985: | Congress approved NPH Honduras’ legal status | 1986: | NPH Honduras received the first four children | 1988: | Primary school and vocational workshops opened | 1989: | Casa de los Angeles opened, home for special needs children | 1992: | Casa Eva opened, home for abandoned elderly | | External clinic opened to serve the community | 1998: | Preschool and kindergarten Montessori program began | 2000: | First pequeño, Marlon Velasquez, graduated from university | 2003: | Hermanos Mayores, or Big Brother and Sister program, began | 2005: | Pasos Pequeñitos opened, day care for single mothers | 2009: | Holy Family Surgery Center official opened | | First pequeño in the home graduated from medical school | 2010: | Assumed managed of community Soup Kitchen | | External scholarship program began | 2011: | Youth in Action Leadership group began | 2012: | Bakery and cheese making facility opened | 2013: | Special needs boys’ home opened | 2014: | Creation of Strategic Plan and evaluation of all programs | | Expansion of “Powerful Girls” program to the community | 2015: | New gravity-fed rainwater system for irrigation | | Home remodeling creating room for influx of new children | 2016: | Converted school educational system for new government standards | | Expansion of scholarship programs for mothers | 2017: | Increase of critical surgical care for Honduran population with partnership through One World Surgery’s Holy Family Surgery Center | | Awarded highest rating for operating homes for children in the country | | Opened transition home for children |
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