WHAT
WE DO
We work everyday to improve the health and education system in the south of Honduras.
VISION & PROJECTS.
SElf-sustainable pharmacies
C.A.R.E. provides the initial $2,000 that enables the pharmacy to purchase medications. The pharmacy owners take a small mark-up, which allows them to continue stocking their shelves with much needed medications. For example, amoxicillin in the city pharmacy, two hours away by bus, would cost $3.25. In a self-sustaining pharmacy, the medication costs $1.55. The self-sustaining pharmacies sell approximately $625 of medicines per month, and demand has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the next two years, C.A.R.E.’s goal is to increase the pharmacy count by 14 for a total of 40 pharmacies. For an investment of $2,000, C.A.R.E can provide low-cost medicines to a community of 1,000 people, and at the same time help a responsible small entrepreneur get started in a small business in their village. This initial $2,000 investment keeps producing on-going benefits to the Hondurans in rural communities.
Wheelchairs Donations
Since 2008, we have been able to distribute more than 10,000 wheelchairs thanks to the generosity of Free Wheelchair Mission. ​The wheelchairs are a donation to Honduras and transported unassembled in shipping containers from Free Wheelchair Mission factory overseas. C.A.R.E. (Central American Relief Efforts) ensures that the container enters the country via customs promptly and without incident. The wheelchairs are assembled, calibrated, and delivered to the users by our network of local supporters. ​In Honduras, one person with a handicap resides in every 100 residences. Most of them are males between the ages of 16 and 64. (Data from OPS Honduras)
Encourage volunteers in the United States and Central American Countries to collect humanitarian aid for distribution.
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Foster positive relationships between the United States and Central American countries.
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Collect and distribute donated items, including medical equipment, medical supplies, clothing, etc. from North America
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Work with current non-profits that collect and make available humanitarian aid materials to volunteer missionaries.
Supporting, stabilizing and growing the health and well being of populations in abject poverty in areas of Central America through volunteer medical brigades and endemic self-sustaining programs targeting hunger, medicine and healthcare.
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Mission trips
Our medical brigades are an opportunity for those interested in travel for a humanitarian cause, such as church members, NGOs, humanitarian groups, or college teams looking for spring/summer break travel options, etc. We run medical and dental clinics in rural, under serviced, and neglected communities in southern Honduras. We have been working in this region for over 10 years and have a wide network of contacts who support our mission in-country. ​We set up mobile clinics in rural areas, usually in a school or church, to which patients will walk hours. We see typically between two to five hundred patients at each clinic, and provide basic medical and dental treatment. C.A.R.E. hires Honduran doctors, nurses and dentists to see patients at the mobile clinics and our volunteers distribute prescribed medicines, administer dental care, among many other activities at clinics. Spanish and medical skills are not required. Trips require 10-12 volunteers. The cost is all-inclusive upon arrival in Honduras (food, lodging, transportation, activities) and a large portion of the cost goes directly to the medicines that volunteers distribute at the medical clinics. Trips run year-round on a 7-day schedule, multiple week trips are available. want to know about future travel options?
School food program
With the help of a partnership between Rise Against Hunger and Central American Relief Efforts (C.A.R.E. ), children of school age had access to food security thanks to the "Schools Free Lunch program," which offered a daily meal to students in kindergarten through sixth grade at distant schools. During COVID19 outbreak, we had to modify our food distribution strategy and continue to serve more than 400 households in the southern part of Honduras by giving them family food baskets. ​In 2023 we were able to return to the classrooms and provide a nutritions meal to kids in schools age in the South of Honduras. ​About 50 schools to feed more than 2,000 kids a meal a day.