DEVELOPMENT-HONDURAS: Small Town a Showcase for Sustainable Development

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 9 1999 (IPS) - The little town of San Ramon Centro has become a showcase for sustainable human development since receiving a solar power unit capable of generating electricity to homes and workplaces.

For the past three months the dusty town in the department of Choluteca has been virtually a development laboratory, the first village to run on solar power in Central America.

The project, funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) already has produced very positive results, according to both sponsors and residents.

Taking advantage of the high temperatures in the zone, the villagers of San Ramon Centro agreed to participate in the pilot solar project because providing power to the area did not figure in the government’s five-year rural electrification plan.

Among other benefits, it allowed a group of 300 children to learn how to operate a computer, and for local women to train themselves in sewing and pottery.

The representative of UNESCO in Tegucigalpa, Cesar Picon, said the project “has taught us that science and technology are just resources, tools and instruments that instruct us how to promote sustainable human development in Honduras.”

Picon, who since his arrival in Tegucigalpa a year ago has led UNESCO in a unique direction, asserted that the experience of San Ramon Centro was an example for the people of Latin America on issues of rural sustainability.

“I think that (the region) is waking up from a long sleep, and here we have learned that the people of this community are slowly coming to achieve their own development, with their own resources and exploiting the bounty of nature – in this case, the sun,” he said.

A delegation from the government and UNESCO travelled to San Ramon Centro last month to supervise the transition to solar power, only to find that local residents had decided to create their own organisational scheme to manage and maintain the project.

The vice minister of education, Armando Euceda, noted that the first solar project in the region was not only a source of national pride but also was a “lesson to us because it shows that, without a lot of fuss, a nation is being built.”

Euceda praised the spirit and energy of the 1,000 local residents, who have installed solar power in some homes, the school, the library, the health centre and the sole community cafeteria.

Educational authorities say the wiring of rural towns with solar power will intensify in 2000, as part of a community education plan that proposes to teach children and adults in the poorest, most remote zones of the country how to read and write.

The illiteracy rate is 57 percent among the 5.6 million population of Honduras, where eight in 10 people live in poverty, or extreme poverty and women and children are the most vulnerable populations.

To help alleviate these problems, UNESCO and the state Honduran Council on Science and Technology announced the installation of 50 “solar villages” around the country as part of a programme to promote education and sustainability in marginal rural areas.

In the case of San Ramon Centro, it is still a novelty for the residents to have electrical power 24 hours a day, a dream that they never imagined would come true because of their remote geographic location and high levels of poverty.

Juan Vazquez, a resident of the zone, said with emotion that his greatest satisfaction “is to see the town lit up at night.

“It seems like daytime, and I love to go to the park to look at this pretty place that is our village, where we are progressing and no longer use oil lamps for illumination,” he commented.

The president of the Association of Municipalities of Honduras, Arnold Sanchez, indicated that the solar villages project is something which “is benefiting towns and villages, particularly the poor, forgotten ones like San Ramon Centro in Choluteca.”

The southern zone of Honduras is one of the poorest in the country, and six years of efforts to improve the situation of residents in the departments of Valle and Choluteca were derailed last year by Hurricane Mitch.

In the context of this dire situation, the installation of solar power in San Ramon Centro gives incentive to its residents and provides hope and development for an area in need of greater state attention and international cooperation.