From a College Class to Colorful Caribbean Homes.

Arguably, French Harbour has remained one of the hidden jewels of Roatan and while the town is not a tourist destination yet, a pair of young entrepreneurs, inspired by a University course, want to change that. “We want color to become an important facet in everyday life in French Harbour,” says Ronald Pozzi, who has been coming to the island for 32 years.

Ronald and Aksinia Pozzi, are the project’s originators. The couple decided it’s too complicated to set up a NGO organization in Honduras, and focused on the goals they want to achieve. Ronald was in private banking and in fashion photography and Aksina is an entrepreneur from Russia. The Boston based couple hopes to create a tourist experience that is off the beaten path. “We wanted to create a community driven tourist experience,” says Ronald. “The Caribbean islands are all the same. You have nice beaches, nice water and what really makes the island different and unique from one another are the people, the culture.”

“French Harbour, you just avoid it going on the main ‘Carretera,”’ says Ronald Pozzi. Ronald says he didn’t want to compete to traditional tourist attractions on the island like West End or West Bay. “We want to see something unique: a city of color,” says Ronald.

Appreciation of beauty can change the world.

“Once it’s all cleaned up and looks beautiful a tourist will want to take a picture with it,” says Ronald, he wants to create French Harbour into an Instagram destination. The project combines old ideas of making things beautiful and new ideas of social media. “Appreciation of beauty can change the world,” says Ronald.

Pineapples, bananas, flowers cover the exterior walls of the first two French Harbour painted houses. In three-and-half-days two houses were painted by a group of 12 volunteers and 12 paid workers. “Juanita and Melva were very, very open and gave us permission to do something crazy: paint their houses eclectic colors,” said Ronald Pozzi about the first two houses.

Ronald feels it is important to ask people not only for their permission, but for their vision. “We are painting it based on the colors these people love.”

Rachel White, 28, was one of the painting volunteers who hoped her own French Harbour house would be eventually painted. “Pink and white. I love soccer, so maybe with soccer balls,” she said. “This is my neighborhood. It’s nice to be a volunteer.”

Ronald got the idea for the project from his collage course professor, Doris Sommer, Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University. “She kept saying: ‘if you want to be a cultural agent, if you want to be an agent of change, especially in emerging communities you have to create projects from the ground up,’” said Ronald. He wanted to do something that was practical, manageable and low maintenance.

The main sponsor of the beatification project is The Buccaneer, a culture center and tourist destination at the French Harbour waterfront owned by Lizette Pozzi and Constantino Pozzi, Ronald’s parents.

In March 2020 the couple plans to return to Roatan to paint as many homes as they can. “Six to eight houses are already lined up. If we have five houses painted, we can have an impact on French Harbour,” said Ronald. “It’s ideally a project that never ends as we will be painting houses on top of houses, until all of French Harbour is painted.”

Utila NGO takes Care of an Endemic Iguana and Educates

Utila’s endangered and famous Spiny-tailed Iguanas’ Latin name is Ctenosaura bakeri, but they are known to the locals as “swampers”. They are one of five reptilesendemic to Utila including two anoles and two species of gecko. In 1994, Gunther Köhler PhD, a German biologist, came to Utila to study the endemic yet elusive swamper. In 1997 the Ctenosaura bakeri breeding program was launched eventually evolving into an educational and research station.

One of five reptilesendemic to Utila
including two anoles and two species of gecko.

In 2008 the center changed its name to ‘Bay Islands Foundation,’ a self-sustaining organization recognized by the Honduran government. “We have biology students form UNAH (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras) coming to do their master’s programs here,” says Geyvy Delarca, the foundation’s coordinator.

Today the center welcomes visitors, runs a breeding program, organizes workshops & provides educational programs. Thirty-two volunteers, all but three of them foreign, stayed there in 2018. The foreign volunteers pay 80 Euro a week to stay and work at the center where they care for the swampers, feed them a closely monitored diet, and get rid of their parasites.

Swampers live on a complex diet of hibiscus flowers, leaves, carrots, beets, oat meal and vitamins delivered to their cages twice daily. Two to three times a week the adult swampers are fed a violin crab, while their small offspring are given termites. “It’s to supplement their source of fiber,” says Silvia Núñez, foundation’s coordinator.

The life of the captive swampers, while not exciting, it is relaxing. The center’s 17 reproducing iguanas are housed in tall hexagonal wooden enclosures. Some swampers run away from human contact, while others jump forward in expectation of feeding or simply out of curiosity. Other than eating and sleeping, the swampers are only required to reproduce. As the resident swampers age, the research center catches their replacements. In 2019 the NGO intends to capture two males and six females. “The three to four-year-old iguanas lay between six and 24 eggs,” says Núñez. The breeding period takes place in February and March and incubation takes place in July and August.

Once-a-year the yearling swampers hatched the previous year are released onto a 4-acreblack mangrove forest where the swampers can begin their new life. About 200 are released each year after they grow to the size of a couple inches. No studies have been made on the survival rates of those specimens released into the wild, “The number of swampers has decreased, [over the years], but it’s holding steady [now],” says Nunez. “The young ones are vulnerable to ants, to brown hawks,” explains Núñez, but by far the biggest predator on Utila is humans. “Some locals hunt them for food,” says Núñez. “While rare, the swampers do become victims of local mischief. It tastes like bony chicken,” says Gunther Kordovsky, who has lived on Utila since 1970 and once tried the swampers cooked. “Times have changed, most Utilans respect the swamper and understand that it’s an element in attracting tourists to the island”, shares Kordovsky. “I have saved one. It was in a mouth of a snake, a big snake. I squeezed him out and he limped away,” continues Kordovsky, recalling the 6-8-foot snake that caught the swamper on the Utila’s north side a few years ago.

A Nonprofit Helps Kids in Crisis Neighborhood

It all started in 2006 on some old, unused, but well lit courts belonging to Anthony’s Key Resort (AKR).With support from the Galindo Family, Elmore and friend &co-founder, Brandon Raab, began encouraging the neighborhood kids to come gather on the courts in the late afternoon and play sports. “That’s the only thing I really knew how to do,” remembers Elmore. Today, the courts still serve as a gathering and play space in the early evening and as a place for skateboarding lessons after school.

Elmore come to Roatan from North Carolina where he had been working with children with emotional challenges. In 2004 he came to Roatan while backpacking in Central America. “I got really seasick on the ferry and postponed leaving. I started meeting people and fell in love with the island and decide that is where I wanted to be,” remembers Elmore. “I wanted to find something that would be fulfilling for my life and that is how SOL came about.”

“I had more than a couple friends die [from opioids],” says Elmore about the West Virginia town where he grew up and worked. “In the town I grew up in, Huntington, you have areas that fell into decay.” In US helping others is not an easy business. One needs insurance, certifications, approvals, training. “You can’t just have a playground and have kids start coming in there,’’ says Elmore. “There are programs in the States, but to get something going like we have here, you have to jump trough so many hoops and so many regulations that we could never do what we are doing here,” said Elmore. “It would almost have to be founded by the government. Here it’s much more organic.” In SOL, Elmore has recreated a place from his youth where one was free to roam through the neighborhood. “To me this place is a bit like where I grew up in 70s, carefree. In the US everything is really organized in structured programs.” Roatan is much more easy going, and kids life is much less structured. “Here you have your cousins and your brothers looking after you, it’s more of a sense of community,” continues Elmore.

The parents know that this is a safe spot for their kids to be at.

Over the years SOL has grown in leaps and bounds expanding its programs and broadening the community it serves. “It hasn’t been planned. It’s been an organic thing,” says Elmore. In keeping with its sports-based beginnings, SOL constructed a youth baseball field in West End aptly named the John J, Woods Field of Dreams. The facility now provides a home for several Little League baseball teams. In 2015, a beach volleyball court was added to support a growing volleyball program. “We are able to do a lot more with our sports teams there,” explains Elmore.

In October 2016 SOL opened its Havey Learning Center housed within the Center for Community growth in partnership with the Bay Islands Conservation Association (BICA) in a building just west of AKR. A year later a West End home was donated and the materials from the home were used to expand the building. “All the wood, sinks, toilets were donated form a West End home that was about to be torn down,” says Elmore. At the Havey Learning Center, SOL offers tutoring along with English, art, and science classes for the 40 to 70 kids that come in to take part in the programs each day. “They can come and they can go at any time, as long as they are getting along,” said Elmore. “We are not a bunch of expats, but a community,” says Kristy Doig, a New Zealander who came to the island in 2001 and is SOL’s Program Director. SOL estimates that in 2017 around 60 volunteers put in at least four hours of work each at the foundation. Over 1,000 children from all around Sandy Bay participated in some program throughout the year. “The community looks after us too,” says Elmore. “The parents know that this is a safe spot for their kids to be at.”

The “Happy Tummies Active Minds Program” began in May 2017. Two chefs: Brittany from Roatan Oasis and Ed from Blue Marlin kick started the program and stepped in to help. “It’s Pizza, Pasta, they learn how to cook and how to cook healthy. So the kids have a better understanding of the food that is going in their belly and how to prepare it themselves,” said Doig.

Most recently SOL purchased a piece of land behind the Center for Community Growth with financial help of some Canadian donors. Now a green space is planned that will eventually include an edible garden and playground space. “After 12-13 years people understand that what you are doing is with their best interest at heart,” shares Elmore.

In addition to the localized impact that SOL has had in Sandy Bay and West End, the organization also distributes school supplies and backpacks at the beginning of each school year throughout the Roatan Municipality. Approximately 800 backpacks should be distributed in the winter of 2019.

One of the countless individual success stories is Keylin, a young woman who attended SOL programs regularly when she was younger. Today she looks after the kids that come to learn, read, or play. “She has really taken ownership of everything. She organizes all the classes, knows which kids are sick, which kids are not going to school. She is our eyes and ears and knows what’s going on with them,” says Elmore.

SOL provides academic scholarships for students to bilingual private schools and also transportation scholarships because, as Doing explains, “transportation is the only thing preventing them from going to high school.” In 2018 the foundation gave out 42 scholarships.

Monthly donations, one-time donations, and in-kind contributions from individuals coupled with three yearly fundraisers help to keep SOL, a 501 (c)(3)U.S. registered nonprofit, running. “We don’t really solicit. It’s mostly people who recognize what we are doing,” said Elmore. In the beginning SOL started with an annual budget of $7,000. Today the annual operating budget is roughly $180,000. “A large portion of the budget is scholarships here and overseas,” says Elmore.

Children finish their lunch
at the ADLC.

A Kindergarten Assists Kids of Struggling Parents

“You can only leave a child here if you work,” says Nicole Schneider, the center’s director. The parents of the children are taxi drivers, single parents, municipal employees and, as Schneider admits, “even prostitutes.” “The reason that Judith Allred opened the facility was for struggling families to be able to find work and keep working,” says Nicole.

They know only anger and happiness

Judith and Bill Allred, a retired American couple who moved to Roatan in 2003, have left a lasting legacy on the island. In 2004 they helped to open the kindergarten, located right across from the municipal offices in Coxen Hole. ADLC also opened the La Rosa Language Center in Los Fuertes that teaches English to monolingual mainland born island residents. Nine years later Nicole Schneider took over the center’s management. “I found this place and fixed it up,” says Nicole looking to the space at a busy Coxen Hole corner right next to the Stadium Julio Galindo.

Born in Santiago, Chile, Nicole thinks of herself as British-Chilean-Swiss. With a degree in international relations and one in hotel management, she is more than qualified to run a daycare in a small town. Her parents came to Roatan in 1993 and built one of first hotels in West Bay.

ADLC’s rooms are filled with the chatter and laughter of giggly kids. Two to six-year-olds come to the center every day from 7:30 am till 5:30 pm. The parents can drop off and pick up their kids anytime they need to. Their children learn to wash their hands three times a day, brush their teeth after meals and develop their social skills. They have interactions in English and Spanish and also receive education in basic math and science. Here they are develop their first motor skills.

Children play at the ADLC.

“80%-90% of our brain is formed in the zero to six years of age,” says Nicole. “This is when our temperament is also formed.” The children here come from working, but troubled homes in Coxen Hole. “They know only anger and happiness; this is what they see at home.”

The center has capacity of 38, but 29 children are enrolled at this point. The parents pay monthly Lps. 1,000 per child and a matching amount is raised through donors and donations. There are six part time teachers, there is also an administrator, and a guard.

With solar panels donated by Vegas Electric the electric bill is kept below Lps. 1,500. There is a difficulty in finding and keeping ADLC’s sponsors. Anthony’s Key Resort, Paradise Beach Club and Markawasi Foundation have been helping, but several other sponsors have crumbled away and Nicole is always looking for new sponsors.

A teacher reads a story to the Allred Daycare’s children.

A special needs child receives one on one attention from Karen Romero.

Helping Disabled Kids with Attention and Education

The Honduran government doesn’t do it, and perhaps it’s better that way. Like many communities in the US and Europe did in the XIX century and first half of XX century, analyzing their own needs and providing their own solutions, Roatan’s parents of disabled children are doing just the same.

One of such non-profit grass roots organizations is CATTLEYA with a school component called CEDICA – “Centro Educativo de Desarrollo Inclusivo Cattley” (Educational Center for Inclusive Development) where five days a week children from all over the island come to receive specialized attention.

The school was launched as a support group for mothers on the island in 2012. The parents of disabled children and children with special needs weren’t getting help from local schools and some even moved to US in order to provide specialize care for their children.

“They wanted a program that would meet their needs and treat them with respect,” says Connie Silvestri whose son Loren, 36, suffers from Down Syndrome.

that special needs children need regular help they can count on

It started with a part time teacher and two volunteers and it grew to where 20 children with Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Autism and severe learning disabilities are being helped.“It’s a very challenging work of love,”says Silvestri, “As my son transitioned into adulthood we still face other challenges. Currently seven corporate sponsors, Rotary Club and Roatan Fishing Tournament help with financing day-to-day operations of CEDICA.

The CEDICA building is located in the Jackson Memorial Library in French Harbour. Two full time teachers, an intern, and a director run the day-to-day operations. Karen Romero is a schoolteacher doing the one-on-one teaching sessions and Mahely Gardado is a Honduran teacher working with the special needs kids. “In several years we’d like to be big enough to serve the entire island,” says Justin Romero, CEDICA Executive Director, who joined the organization in January 2018 from US.

Teacher Mahely Guardado with a group of older students study in a group session.

The sometime overlooked potential in many of the children is limitless. They can study, learn, be a part of community find a vocation and start a family. “A crucial part is to fallow up with consistency,” says Silvestri, emphasizing that special needs children need regular help they can count on. Sporadic teaching sessions just don’t help. According to Silvestri a government census team visited Roatan and registered 112 people with disability. Out of that 25 were children. With the total population of the island being about 100,000 people this is statistically quite low.

Still many island children with mental and physical challenges just don’t get treatment at all. They are left out from educational opportunities, recreation and support. They are hidden out of site and perceived as shameful and viewed as a liability. Thanks to efforts like that of CEDICA that is changing.

A young reader at Sand Castle Library that was once a resort dining are run by the O’Briens.

An Island NGO is Shaping How and How Much Roatan’s Children Read

The O’Briens came to Roatan in the mid 1990s to build a Sandy Bay resort: Bay Islands Beach Resort. Then, in 2009 they decided to retire and focus on something they felt passionate about. They told all their friends: “We’re done with the resort, it’s time for education,” said Cam.

They focused on showing Roatan’s children how to see life and build a vision of who they could become. PIER began doing this one book at a time.

PIER is tight organization. Camilla is the coordinator for programs, Ted does the accounting. There are two people in charge of bookmobiles, two education specialists and one librarian. While PIER staff is small, it is young and passionate. “Our goal is to expand kids’ brains via reading. To have them focus on pages instead of screens,” says Lindberg Valladares, the education specialist.

The PIER staff focuses on getting the kids reading. One of their strategies is reading stories to children out loud and showing them hands on science experiments. “Our dream is to create a technology, science, art and math center here,” says Cam. In fact PIER has been adjusting their goals and community involvement since it began operations in 2010.

We’re done with the resort, it’s time for education

Originally the organization focused on building a learning center and a library, foreseen as a vocational school, then it focused on getting the children “hooked on reading.” Now they focus on giving the children hands on experience with science.

Many children in Roatan are missing out at a chance at developing reading skills early and at education in general. Cam says that only 25% of school-aged Roatan children are enrolled in school, only 50% of children finish sixth grade and even fewer, only 10%, graduate from high school. “Our goal is to give teachers new ways of teaching,” says Cam.

Camilla O’Brien at her original Sandy Bay bookmobile.

The bookmobile project began in 2014 and now almost all public schools on Roatan get a regular visit from a mobile library, often the first and only interactions they have with books other than textbooks. Thirteen schools in Santos Guardiola have a regular visit from the book bus, and in Roatan Municipality 15 public schools and Solid Rock private school take part. Cam says that now 85% of all Roatan schoolchildren are Spanish speakers. “The biggest challenge is getting them books in Spanish,” says Cam.

With donations PIER’s annual budget went from $8,000 a year in 2011 to $55,000 in 2017, but getting continued support has been a struggle. The two mobile library buses used by PIER as libraries were originally used to transport schoolchildren in the US, and then they were used for transport on mainland Honduras. Finally, thanks to donations of expats Roy Schneider and Patricia Commel they were purchased for PIER at $12,000 per bus.

The O’Briens still leave their entire social security checks to fund their educational projects and they are living a dream that many retired baby boomers only wish for – a life of purpose.

Photo Roatan Olivia Munteanu Dog Shelter NGO.

Dogs & Cats Find a Temporary Home in an Island Shelter

Olivia Munteanu was once homeless in Italy and a man offered her a job. She remembers this as a life changing experience and now Olivia gives back to the abandoned and neglected creatures of the island. “I wanted to change the world and I changed a world for a few animals,” says Olivia, 51, who runs the only animal shelter on Roatan.

In 2006 Olivia, born in Rumania, and her business partner Marc Heffern moved from Cozumel to Roatan to start up a aquatic activities business in West Bay. Two years later they decided to launch a tourist photography enterprise that would employ young islanders interested in helping island animals. The profits from the photo business would for the running expenses of an animal shelter. Their Roatan Animal Shelter [RAS] was the first such facility that the island had ever seen.

Today, seven boys work with the photo business and one of them, Kevin Antunez, age 25, is receiving a Brazilian government scholarship to the Veterinary School at the University of Sao Paolo. He is half way through its six year program. “I want to perform surgeries on the island to stabilize the animal population there,” Kevin says. “It’s not just the animals, it’s about the humans. We are raising a new generation of compassionate Hondurans,” says Olivia.

In 2017 Olivia worked with Honduran Animal protection organization AHPRA to pass the country’s first animal protection laws. “Now dog fights are illegal. Police can intervene when there is abuse,” she says. “People who are compassionate towards animals are compassionate towards other human beings.”

Many dogs have scars from machetes, acid and other abuse

In 2017 RAS found homes for 17 dogs and 10 cats and since its inception over 100 dogs and 100 cats have been rescued by its volunteers. “A dog shelter should be a temporary place for animals,” says Olivia.

The most sick dogs end up first at Olivia’s house and when they are back to being healthy they are moved to the shelter. The shelter’s location remains hidden to prevent people from abandoning their dogs there. Olivia explained that many people contact her the evening before leaving the island ready to surrender their animal.

A shelter volunteer pick ups an abandoned dog in Coxen Hole. The rescued dog is examined for health issues, fixed and eventually taken to the shelter.

The shelter is a concrete building with two small apartments for volunteers and two running pens for dogs. The 25 sheltered dogs bark and howl seeing Olivia coming. The back fence has caved in from a mudslide and the conditions are primitive to say the least. “This is a hard core volunteer place,” says Olivia.

After a decade of helping the dogs and cats on the island Olivia have seen just about everything. Many dogs have scars from machetes, acid and other abuse, but they are well fed, with shiny coats and plenty of energy. “Helping Hondurans is an art. You cannot impose your values, but you still want to help, and you have to treat people with dignity,” says Olivia. “Dogs are amazing: once you help them they recover their strength quickly”.

There are other individuals helping K9s and cats on the island. Kathie Schupe has been helping to bring three to four veterinary volunteer groups to the island every year. “On a regular basis three people on the island give me some money or food,” says Olivia. “There is the $700 rent, veterinary bills, food. Unless we get help from the outside we will not be able to continue,” she says desperately.