Scholarship Trip 2025: Giving and Receiving
HGW Scholarship Team in Honduras 2025
Four people from our Education Committee traveled to Honduras March 5-10 and joined with two of our Honduran committee members and were able to meet with most of our 247 scholarship students. The team is delighted to report that our scholarship funds are making a tremendous impact! Thanks to the highly successful fundraising efforts of Austin Liberal Arts and Science Academy student Elena Murguia, a new backpack was donated to each student, and three refurbished laptops were provided to two of the most underserved schools. The students were very thankful for the new backpacks-the pink ones were a big hit!
Scholarship Kids with New Backpacks
Upon departing from the airport in Comayagua, the team visited ITSM, a nearby technical high school funded by the Episcopal Church, where 15 of our scholarship students reside and attend classes. It is several hours from the villages we serve and so our students are boarding students. They are being given an excellent opportunity of technical education that allows them to easily find a job after high school. Over the next few days, the team visited five other villages in the El Paraiso District and met with 227 students and their families. They heard from the students stories of incredible difficulties and perseverance, such as a 13 year old who lost her mother at age 4 and is being raised by her grandmother. She hopes to continue her education and become a lawyer. Many of these students spend more than an hour going to school by bus but they are enthusiastic and have a persistent hope for the future.
The numbers speak for themselves:
135 students in 7-9th grade, all passed into the next grade level
96 students in 10-12th grade, all passed
10 Post high school technical students: 8 females, 2 males. Studies includeadvanced farming, nursing and automotive mechanics.
6 Students in University: 5 females, 1 male.
42 High school students, 1 University student and 1 nurse Tech School student graduated in November 2024. (The school year runs February through November).
The team summarized that about 1/3 of students would not attend school at all without our scholarship support, 1/3 would go, but the family would have great difficulty-and probably only one family member would be allowed to study, and about 1/3 would attend but still only with a great sacrifice to the rest of the family. Our funds cover about 40% of the cost of these students’ education; the rest is contributed by the family. This ensures families are truly invested in keeping their kids in school. The scholarship program could not function without the ongoing support of our donors-so a huge thank you goes out to all of you! You are changing the lives of these young people and helping them pull their families out of poverty.
