humanity's kitchen roatan
El Suampo, Roatan, Honduras
humanity's kitchen roatan
El Suampo, Roatan, Honduras
It started with three friends, a world pandemic and Roatan, Honduras - an island in the Caribbean.
Months into the pandemic, three friends came together across an ocean to start a soup kitchen in El Suampo (The Swamp). The Swamp is a community tucked away inside Coxen Hole, the capital of Roatan.
Roatan is an island of third world country Honduras. Although the island and the mainland are two different worlds - one thing they share is poverty and no government assistance. Children, sick, elderly and disabled struggle to survive the harsh economic realities of living in Honduras. The need is great. The strong, working age lack the education, encouragement and skills to gain employment - which pays below poverty level wages, but does provide the basics.
We chose to focus on a community that most have given up on - El Suampo. A community full of families that have lived there for generations. Family land that was covered with fresh water, fish and wildlife before it became an overpopulated flood area covered with concrete and make shift houses.
The soup kitchen is located in the heart of The Swamp and currently provides 250 hot meals to those in the community. Our goal is to be open daily for the children to grab breakfast before school, and a hot, nutritional community lunch every day of the week. Meals are not provided in the public schools of Honduras.
To date, we have been fully self funded. We recently opened Welcome Center Roatan to raise donations for "Operation Roatan" and have plans to open additional small island businesses that will not only help fund Humanity's Kitchen Roatan, but will also provide jobs and training for the working age islanders who just need a chance.
Most homes have multiple children living in them.
There are close to 5,000 people living in the community, with over 3,000 of those being children.