Rural Poverty in Honduras

Honduras is one of several Latin American countries dealing with poverty. The people of Honduras are hit especially hard by this because of the proximity of their general population. Most of Honduras’s population is centered in the rural areas of the country. With the majority of the population of Honduras living in rural areas more than 75% fall below the national poverty line. Honduras stands out tremendously as the western hemisphere’s poorest country for several reasons. The main reason Honduras has such great poverty can be seen by its population growth, social, and economic situations. These are some of the main contributing factors relating to the explosive poverty in Honduras that we see today.

Honduras has had tremendous has tremendous population growth starting from the earliest part of this century. The population has been doubling about every 25 years in rural and urban areas. This provides very unique challenge for the Honduran government. With its already limited supply of adequate healthcare, schooling, and even homes it is only going to get worse before it gets better. Rural families are specifically more at risk of living a life of poverty because of these inadequate accommodations.

Economic factors are also another big contributor to the rural population living mostly below the poverty line. There are in adequate jobs for the number of people in these areas. Most of the people work for the wealthy land owners who have taken advantage of the population and provide them little or no wage in return. The Honduran government has been working with USDAID and is teaching a lot of the rural community different types of micro business. These businesses have helped made some rural community’s more interdependent and helped raise the standard of living for a few. But there is still much more work to be done.

Another reason for the some of the rampant poverty is the lack of basic social infrastructure. One of the basic ones needed is education. When traveling through the country side of some of these rural villages some schools are so far away. The children or adult would need to travel quite a distance to get there and back. Also schools can be very expensive and since most government schools relay on the communities they are in for basic necessities most schools that open in the rural communities do not survive since most people cannot afford the basic 1-2 dollars a month it would take to send their children to school. Most children never learn to read or write which limits there potential greatly because most by a very young age are forced to work for their family in order to just survive.

These are some of the main reasons that there is such Rampant poverty in Honduras. People do many things to help they donate money, time and materials. These folks are helping bring many things that are not normally available to these rural communities, education, health care and supplies for schools and business. These people should be rewarded for their efforts because they go through a great deal of emotional and physical discomforts to help bring a smile on someone’s face. So if you ever get the chance please donate to Honduras Hope. Or if you have the means necessary volunteer yourself there are many great institutions that are willing to take in volunteers to help some of those that do not have what we have.

If you are interested in any additional information on Honduras or would like to get some more in-depth information on their Culture, History, Traditions or Expat living then please visit my web site on Honduras at http://hondurangringo.com