Las Capucas

Honduras

On April 5, 2008, Team Little Feet delivered soccer balls to Las Capucas, Honduras. Thank you to the sponsors listed below and everyone else who donated, we were able to bring huge smiles to children all over the village. We encourage you to sponsor another group, as you can see in the photos below, one soccer ball can truly make a diference.

Las Capucas, San Pedro de Copan, Honduras, Central America is a small coffee growing community located in the highlands of western Honduras. The community, with a population of about 1500 individuals, sits between 1300 and 1600 m above sea level and is in the foothills of the highest mountain in Honduras, Celaque. The people here enjoy comfortable temperatures year round, but August through December can bring heavy rains. The livelihood of the community depends on the production and sale of Arabica coffee beans. The zone is known for its friendly folk and its love of soccer!

The soccer balls will be distributed to children ages 6 to 17 that meet to play pick-up ball most afternoons in different parts of the community on the new field, on the grounds of the Cooperative and behind the middle school. The younger boys (up until about age 13) attend school 8 months of the year and spend the other 4 months helping their families to maintain the farm and cut (pick) coffee during the season's harvest. The older boys dedicate their time entirely to working the coffee farms to prepare for each season's harvest.

Rebecca Stygar, the community's Peace Corps volunteer, will be responsible for distributing the soccer balls to the youth. As part of her work in the Capucas she has educated over 500 people on the importance of dental hygene, planted tree nurseries with 5 elementary schools, helped to educate and prepare the farmers for certification inspections with BioLatina Organic and Rainforest Alliance sustainable agriculture. She has also helped to establish a coffee cupping laboratory at the Cooperative. The cupping laboratory will be used to experimentally evaluate the quality of the communitys coffee and identify flavor defects, a knowledge that gives the Cooperative more leverage in its demand for better prices for the coffees sale