Habitat for Honduras

Placing a ladle in a large steaming bowl of pho this August, Dave Hubert served me an extra helping of prawns, as well as an explanation for his latest endeavour.

“I guess I’m a starter,” said the 68-year-old Mennonite with a self-deprecating shrug and characteristic chuckle.

The former teacher and government employee has helped start many things: the Edmonton chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, the Edmonton recycle program, as well as a variety of education programs at Norquest and Portage colleges, where he spent several years as principal. He’s also not above starting a principled battle against the Canadian powers that be, withholding portions of his income tax destined for the war effort in Afghanistan.

A few years ago, Hubert started Christian Peacemakers International, a non-profit Edmonton-based organization dedicated to addressing the structural causes of conflict in Honduras and its central American neighbours. Essentially, the organization has adopted the Habitat for Humanity model, and transposed it onto undeveloped terrain of the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Twenty-five pre-screened candidate families receive 7.5 hectares, helping build their adobe house in the co-operative village named Tapiquilares.

But that’s not all CPI is doing… Hubert’s experience in cross-cultural and ecumenical work is combined with his passion for education and the environment (what Hubert calls “the elephant in the room”). CPI’s work in Honduras is partially funded by a tire-recycling initiative in the Maritimes, while Hubert’s played a hand in a similar small scale tire-recycling operation in Honduras.

An educational component of their work (providing jr. high curriculum for unschooled rural Hondurans) is the subject of an article by erstwhile food critic Liane Faulder in today’s Edmonton Journal. But Faulder only scratches the surface.

Starters, you see, occasionally get stopped.

Hubert was in Honduras at the end of June, on the verge of signing a $40,000 deal with the Honduran government (using Canadian government aid) to place computers with proven junior high curriculum in rural schools. Then there was a little incident where a cowboy hat-wearing fella named Zelaya was forced to leave Honduras… Suddenly, amidst the chaos of the reassertion of oligarchical power, CPI’s meeting with the education minister to finalize things was scuttled.

But what might normally mark the dead end of a project was actually the start of something new. The organization had to change plans and raise $60,000 themselves. They’re already more than two thirds there, with just under $20,000 left to raise.

Now that’s a start… to a start.