The Compassionate Traveler
Small Deeds – Big Results
Ordinary people, whether world travelers or armchair dreamers, can have a huge impact on world poverty, and it can be so easy.
From encounters in daily life, on the internet, on foot or on the wing, the compassionate traveler can see a world of opportunities, build relationships, ask questions respectfully, listen openly, ask more questions, and return home to network and connect the formerly unreachable for the person or group needing a helping hand.
Below is an amazingly simple, true story from Dr. Bill Roes, a family physician in Washington State that exemplifies this statement.
The Eleven Pencils Story
Dr. Roes was traveling in Honduras with a team of doctors moving from clinic to clinic seeing hundreds of patients a day. At one of the stops, a boys' orphanage, high in the mountains called Flora Azul, twenty four boys, between the ages of six to eighteen, were living in an old dilapidated tin building that looked ready to collapse. There was no running water or electricity. The boys survived by subsistence farming under the direction of a day supervisor, a local family man, who had made this his mission. They were alone at night.
A group of visiting missionaries had asked the boys, "what can we do to make your lives perfect?"
The boys replied, "Food, we need food."
So the missionaries brought them food.
"What else could we do to make your lives perfect?" they asked.
"Shoes. We really could use shoes., it would help us work in the fields."
So the missionaries brought them shoes.
"What else could we bring to make your lives perfect?"
"We'd like eleven pencils."
"Why eleven pencils, that seems like an unusual number when there are twenty four boys?"
"Well," the boys explained, "at any one time, twelve of us are working in the fields and twelve of us are in the classroom. We already have one pencil, but it slows us down because we each have to wait and take turns using the one pencil. If we had eleven more we could all work at the same time."
So the missionaries brought them pencils!
And now for the Rest of the Story.....
Subsequently, the missionaries have built a schoolhouse, dormitories and a kitchen/gathering place for the boys. This year they will install a water system and eventually will install solar panels.
You can check out the website: http://www.hopeforhonduranchildren.org/
The orphanage was originally established by Sister Maria Rosa who has set up multiple such orphanages across Honduras. She takes children orphaned by AIDS, war and poverty, off the streets and houses them wherever she can.