Honduras

Quick Facts on Honduras:

Honduras is a beautiful Central American country which has maintained political stability and avoided civil war, unlike some of its neighbors. Its history and development have been prominently influenced by American-based banana companies over several decades.

"Honduras has a total population of nearly 7.3 million as reported in 2006. Honduras has a democratic government and currently follows its latest constitution of 1982. The majority of Hondurans identify themselves as Catholic, while a growing minority identify themselves as Protestant. While the official language of Honduras is Spanish, pockets of indigenous groups still use their native languages." (Wikipedia)

Honduras According to www.ruralpovertyportal.org,

"Honduras is the third poorest country in Latin America and the second poorest country in Central America. Although the government has achieved a degree of economic stability since 2000, progress has not resulted in improved living conditions or reduced poverty for the country's huge proportion of poor people. Poverty levels have remained essentially unchanged since 1997."

Partner Organizations:

Partners Worldwide is the global leader in business development services from a Christian Perspective, serving for 15 years on multiple continents. Their vision and mission is as follows:

Vision: "Business as ministry for a world without poverty."

Mission: "Encourage, equip and connect business and professional people in global partnerships that grow enterprises and create sustainable jobs, transforming the lives of all involved."

We are thrilled that Partners Worldwide has welcomed Entrust into their networks to work alongside them. PW has developed thriving partnerships in Honduras with a few indigenous development organizations. David DeYoung (pictured here) is the Partnership Manager living in Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras) who helps to connect groups like Entrust with local groups desiring mentoring partnerships.

Honduras

The organization that David has introduced to us is called Covenant Business Network. It is a group of small and medium sized business owners who desire to support fellow business owners within their Abundant Life Church network and beyond. They hope to see basic principles of business administration applied more effectively and to provide spiritual encouragement to fellow entrepreneurs, with community impact as the end goal.

Pilot Project Development:

CBN has 8 core leaders with assigned functions, led by Blass Huete who owns a thriving insurance agency. He has been introduced electronically to Entrust and plans are being laid to meet in person in the spring of 2011 in Miami and Tegucigalpa to develop the partnership. The hope is that groups of American entrepreneurs will begin taking Entrust Ventures to Tegucigalpa every six months in order to establish long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. We envision a cascade of mentoring relationships where each person is working alongside another to stir up entrepreneurial creativity to alleviate poverty.

Honduras Businesses

The following mentoring guides were prepared following the January 2012 visit by Evan Keller, and include information, observations, questions, and recommendations for mentors and mentee businesses. These documents are in Microsoft Word (.docx) format.

Additional articles and reports are available on the Articles page.