📸Snaps of the month

👨🏽‍🏫 Former UPH shining in Copán
Carlos Chacón and Walter López are now teaching at the Bridges Institute in the Agua Caliente community. Both have been trained by the different programs of the organization and now they are leading other teens and youth.

🤝🏽UNAH x UPH

Last year we received a visit from a group of students and professors of various careers from the Autonomous University of Honduras in Tegucigalpa. After this visit we continued in communication for possible alliances with both institutions. This month we received the donation of more than two hundred school kits to distribute them in the communities of Santa Rosita, Brisas de San Juan and El Zapote. University volunteers have organized to collect materials and continue supplying these educational centers. They have chosen UPH to distribute the materials when they ship.

📚 Back to School after 2 years

Walking towards the discipleship of his church, Londin Velásquez, our UPH Operations Director, was talking with Karen and her sister Marcela, both teens from his Church. He asked how they were doing at school. With a broken voice, they said, they haven’t attended school in the past two years because their parents were unemployed. Little time passed before Londin talked with a couple of UPH local sponsors and they jumped to the opportunity to support Karen and Marcela.

💒 Training with local Church

Local Church “Renovación Cristiana” has been leading a weekly workshop with UPH for the past year. For 12 months we learned together about how to improve day by day as professionals, with human touch in the work we do.

Misión Carácter is a program that consists of 4 Character, Vision, Courage and Leadership modules, which are carried out in weekly 1-hour meetings, in which 44 principles are developed, analyzed and internalized, through the round table, a methodology interactive and playful for work groups.

🌎 UrbanPromise Charlotte x UrbanPromise Honduras

Benjamin Jadiel Hernandez and his family made a surprise visit. He is a teacher and Trekkers participant at UrbanPromise Charlotte. Our friends up north drew little inspiration from UPH and know youth like Benjamín now have a clearer goal for their lives. We received beautiful words, and were encouragedto keep investing in the youth and children of Honduras.

🙊 English Classes

More than 15 youth and several staff are receiving English classes, many of the participants have stated that it is a good opportunity to learn a second language that will serve to open opportunities in life. Copán Ruinas is often visited by English-speaking tourists, surely we are going to practice with these groups of visitors and bilingual schools. Sofia Coto is the assistant of the UrbanTrekkers program and from Monday to Thursday she is an English teacher, we are grateful to her for the courage and passion they have for teaching.

💰 Global Trust Partner Alliance

Global Trust Partner’s CEO & Founder, Gary Hoag traveled to Honduras with his team to train more than 70 pastors in San Pedro Sula. UPH was designated as coordinator of GTP in Honduras and as a bridge for other organizations and continue with training on generosity and standards in the ministries.

💙💚 Staff Time

Once a month, on the final Friday, we stop all activities and gather all our staff. During the whole day we enjoy each other, lunch together, have training sessions, highlights, and obviously, fun games.

👩‍👩‍👧‍👧Meeting with parents

It is essential to establish direct communication with parents to socialize all training processes, commitments, benefits and common agreements in favor of the integral growth of the youth, for this reason we had our first meeting with parents. We shared our vision, goals and objectives, the agreement was read and how each activity, assignment, and commitment relates to the goals of the program. Parents commented that they feel motivated, interested and willing to collaborate so that their children continue participating in the program.

⛺ Youth Program x UrbanTrekkers

Every year, together with the UrbanTrekkers program, we traditionally carry out a short-term retreat with the youth who have been selected to be part of the school camp teams. The purpose in which we focus is: Introduce the youth to outdoor activities promoted by the Urban Trekkers program at the same time sensitize each participant about the importance of the Christian faith in our lives.

🌄 Youth Afternoons

Weekly, we train youth in topics related to the spiritual and social area while living together mixing fun and educational activities. We share the topic of effective planning with the purpose of equipping them. They are about to start a challenging year with many activities on their agendas and it is necessary for them to obtain the knowledge to carry out all the responsibilities as facilitators in camps, students and personal commitments.

🏅Aprentince facilitators training

The youth program, with the purpose of achieving a training process adapted to age and individual development, works with the group called apprentice facilitators, they are 12 and 13-year-old boys who mostly come from being participating children in our camps and are aiming to become leaders in their camps. Every month we make a special time to affirm, thank them for their voluntary work. On this occasion we share the theme 'Being' relating it to identity, an intrinsic, natural and permanent condition that every human being possesses. They shared what their biggest challenges have been, outstanding moments (achievements) and learning obtained, it was an incredible moment where each teenager expressed themselve with sincerity and confidence.

💊Supporting local families

Once you enter UPH, you never leave. Diana, a former UPH youth has her mother ill. Thanks through our hollistic approach, follow up and down-to-earth leadership we are still in the loop of youth’s lives. We still provide support to the family in their spiritual, economic, psychological and emotional needs.

💞 Community service activity Santa Rosita

The strategic alliance with UNAH has expandede our reach beyond our urban circle. At the beginning of the month we visited two communities in the rural area, to take notebooks to the schools of the Santa Rosita and Las Brisas de San Juan. In addition, alcohol was donated to health centers in the sector, UPH fulfills the function of being the delivery entity for donations provided by the university.

🚵🏽‍♀️Speed bike tours

We keep adding miles and miles in our weekly tours, we reached more than 36 miles in total! The most valuable thing about all this is to create spaces to learn ways to intervene in the lives of those who participate, wherw dialogue is always welcomed.

🌞 AfterSchool program Parent’s meeting

We held our first meeting with parents from the different neighborhoods near the camp site located in the Roca Eterna Baptist Church. We provided information about AfterSchool programs, exposing our vision and mission, and gathering an initial enrollment of 31 children .

🎋UPCEL Fellows at camps

The UPCEL Fellows visited our camp to soak up our model and thus be able to be included in their vision. From leading activities such as games and joyful options time, they asked the kids to write something they’re grateful for and built a Thankful Tree of Prayers.

🎭AfterSchool camps have started

We welcomed all the children, general cleaning of the place, we explained the rules and we did our first tutoring sessions, Options and Bible, Mathematics and Language classes.

🤝🏽Alliance with CEPI (Psychomotor Stimulation Institution)

A visit was made to CEPI with the aim of adding a new child to this organization, his name is Angel Isaac Castillo, he is a very bright child, at 5 years old, he knows the alphabet, vowels, numbers up to 10, but shows minor difficulty in his learning curve. CEPI is a local NGO specialized in accompanying cases like this to ensure the growth of our kids in Copán Ruinas.

Diving deep to the clouds📡

Do you know how the internet works? No, really think about it. We have normalized something quite impressive. How is it possible that someone in Argentina sends monthly newsletters with photos from Honduras to people all over the world?

If you try to answer the question: “Where does the internet come from?” The first thing that comes to mind is Wi-Fi, right? And its waves. Yes, those old-fashioned radio waves, all connected by those huge towers that we always see. And maybe from there, we leap, thinking there must be mountainous towers in every continent linking everyone. 

Let me enlighten you. Stop looking up and stare down at the oceans. 

Simply put, millions and millions of miles of cable connect us all over the world, branching out to every side of our continents. There are cables with super-duper high-speed data that contains all our work docs, family pics, cat videos, and complex info like the dark web.

Yes, the cloud is in the sea.

When I realized we were still physically connected, my heart did a little leap of joy. The cables in the ocean are like bridges, highways, doors between every human being on the planet.

You are part of a similar worldwide network. Our UrbanPromise family, over the past 35 years, has expanded in three continents: America, Europe, and Africa. We support 33 sites in countries like Malawi, Canada, England, Kenya, and our lovely Honduras. 

You are just as connected as we are connected. We are the same in Nigeria and Honduras, both working with kids and youth thanks to firm supporters around the globe. 

We have some hotspots, such as  international summits or when we visit each other's site, but daily, we're connected by the same drive to change the world around us. 

You, our community of supporters, represent more than you imagine and you serve as an example for others to step in. In the UP international community, we inspire each other with ideas on engaging with our network of donors and inviting people in our area to support sites overseas.

Thanks for hooking up to our network. For connecting. Staying online. Be sure that you support this worldwide vision.