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“Cardinal Rodríguez is incredible,” said Byrne. “He keeps in the forefront that the rights of the poor are respected by the government. He’s a huge voice for change in the country. He’s helping the disenfranchised live in dignity.”
Byrne has been employed with CRS since July 2000. Prior to his post in Honduras Byrne served as head of office for CRS in Azerbaijan from 2002 to 2005, where he managed a staff of 16 and oversaw the implementation of programs in civil society, peacebuilding and education.
In addition, he also served as chief of party for a multi-year USAID-funded good governance project called the Azerbaijan Civil Society Development (ACSD) program.
Byrne said CRS has been in Honduras since 1959, working primarily in food distribution. However, over the last 10 to 15 years CRS has shifted focus, from providing direct relief to working through partners on specific projects.
CRS efforts are separated into four sections: health, emergency aid, agriculture and peace and justice issues. The organization concentrates its work in two of the poorest areas of the country, located in the rural, mountainous south and southwest regions close to the border with El Salvador. “We work with the poorest of the poor,” Byrne explained.
The country representative was in San Antonio last month to help reinvigorate the Texas partnerships, exchanges begun following Hurricane Mitch between dioceses here and in Honduras.
A health care initiative between the Archdioceses of San Antonio and Tegucigalpa to promote medical missions was presented by CRS Southwest to bishops at a Texas Catholic Conference gathering at Oblate School of Theology on April 16.
“It’s more than doctors going for one week, more holistic,” said Byrne. The project will incorporate advocacy meetings, educational exchanges between parishes, pastoral care involving church professionals and a catechist element. “The bishops were very positive in their reaction to the proposal,” he added.
While in San Antonio, Byrne also met with representatives from Catholic Charities, the University of Texas Health Science Center and Oblate School of Theology to discuss the project, which is slated to begin this summer.
The Catholic University of Honduras will coordinate logistics with medical schools. Currently, some issues are still to be decided, such as if the doctors will work in rural or urban areas.
According to Byrne, recovery from Hurricane Mitch has been uneven in Honduras. The country’s economy is growing 5 percent annually, and mini-cities have been built in safe zones, but some sections of the nation’s infrastructure have not been repaired.
That’s why projects concerning water and sanitation are of special significance to CRS and its donors. Miguel Flores, water and sanitation project director for CRS, developed a model in the 1970s and 1980s that gives local water boards ownership of projects, dealing with maintenance and sustainability. The goal is to make all water potable for families. Byrne said, “Different systems for water and irrigation greatly impact communities.”
CRS’s largest efforts in health and education focus on maternal child health to decrease infant mortality and respond to obstetric emergencies. In one region in which CRS works, there are 554 infant deaths per 100,000 births. Nationally in Honduras, the rate is 108 infant deaths per 100,000 births.
“That number has been reduced in half, to about 248 infant deaths per 100,000 births,” said Byrne.
People living with AIDS in the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa are assisted by Dignidad, which helps with education, worker rights, anti-discrimination efforts and small business loans. Honduras has the greatest percentage of AIDS in Central America, especially in its border regions.
Justice and peace initiatives from CRS highlight child labor protection, hoping to keep children in school as long as possible. Most people in Honduras leave school after the sixth grade.
“The government knows our work and respects our work,” Byrne said. “CRS and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are doing work the government should be going. We pick up the slack of what the government can’t cover.”
CRS leads an alliance of NGOs called Alianza, which work together to make sure relief organizations don’t duplicate efforts. That group includes CARE, Save the Children, Plan International and World Vision, among others.
CRS receives 60 percent of its funds from government grants and the other 40 percent through private donations. Those private funds recently provided the resources for a pilot project documenting unaccompanied minors across four countries. Youth between the ages of 12 and 17 were tracked as they made their way illegally through Central America.A report to be published will make recommendations to governments. “For many of them, getting caught one time is nothing,” said Byrne.
The country representative, who came to CRS from the business world, said remittances from the United States are huge to the economy of Honduras.
“We need to look at the root causes of poverty. Why are people leaving? We want them there instead of going to the states or Mexico,” said the New Jersey native.
Byrne then listed a litany of challenges facing the Central American country. “In Honduras, half the population is under 19 years of age. Maquiladoras are huge and spreading. There are problems with maras (gangs). There is a spike in violent crime, such as carjackings. There is a fundamental problem in the future in that there is a new government every four years. There is no capacity for civil servants, so there is no institutional knowledge. Many things are begun but are not implemented,” he said.
“Honduras doesn’t have a resource America wants. It is not on our list of priorities. The country needs more political will, more leadership, more local groups that can advocate for change. The hospital system doesn’t work, teachers don’t get paid, there is no performance based system, no evaluations. Jobs for life are ingrained into the culture, similar to the old Soviet system,” said Byrne, who served as the peacebuilding program manager for CRS in Albania from 2000 to 2002, as well as the head of office for the Fier, Albania, field office where he managed a staff of 12, overseeing projects in food distribution, school rehabilitation, community development and conflict transformation.
“CRS is in Honduras at the invitation of the church,” said the country representative, who, before starting his career in international relief and development was a casting director and producer of television commercials for large advertising agencies in New York City.
“We are there to partner. We want to work toward the same direction. We want to see partners strengthened where they can fund projects on their own and be responsible for reports to donors. We want to strengthen our partners’ ability to work with the poorest of the poor.”
Byrne, who holds degrees from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and the School of International Development in Battleboro, Vt., said that CRS needs to raise the awareness of who they are and what they are doing in order to tap into the Catholic population of the state.
“There is great potential here for help and support,” he said. “Being in San Antonio has been an eye-opener for me.” |