For Lack of a Helping Hand

Our roommate works in a school for the richest kids in town. I once visited the school and was in awe, there are nice buildings, a roofed-in basketball court, a cafeteria, internet, gardens everywhere, and all the other facilities you would find at a private school in the US. It is not only one of the most beautiful school I’ve ever seen, but also among the best education to be found in the country. Teachers like my roommate are brought from the states, all expenses paid, to teach at this school. They get paid the same salary they would at a public school in the US. The kids were all beautiful, nicely dressed, and completely bi-lingual; exactly what you would expect from the kids of bankers, business owners, and politicians, the richest people in the city. It was my first time around a group of kids in Honduras where everybody had shoes. While I stood there, taking all the images in, I wished I had gone to a school as nice as that one.

A couple of days later my roommate told me a sad story. As sad as the story is, it is a good representation of how little most (emphasis on most and not all) privileged Hondurans are willing to do to help their brothers and sisters who are not as privileged as they are, and why I decided to share it with you. In the school where she teaches, a scholarship program was implemented so that three poor kids from the city could get an education there. All the parents who have kids attending the school were asked to make a yearly contribution to pay the education expenses of these three students, and so the scholarship students were admitted, a life changing opportunity for them.

Halfway trough the year the parents got tired of contributing for the scholarship fund, and wanted it ended. They did not care that it was the middle of the school year and that the kids would not be admitted at any other school so late. They did not care about the shattered dreams of these three kids that for the first time in their lives were experiencing the helping hand of their brothers and sisters. They wanted their money back, no more giving it to these students. When the teachers pleaded the parents to pay at least until the end of the year, they asked the teachers to pay themselves if they cared that much. And so, it was the teachers who paid for the kids schooling till the end of the year, next semester they are back to their schools in the slums.

None of the parents cared of course; their own kids have shoes anyways…