AHMEN SIFAT Initiative of Honduras is into it’s second year. AHMEN (Alabama Honduras Medical Educational Network) and SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) joined forces last year to explore how we could use the contacts and network of AHMEN with the “modus opirendi” and techniques of SIFAT to help local communities develop leadership, identify community needs and facilitate implementation in Honduras.
What started as a vague idea is blooming into an exciting new era for many of the AHMEN teams.
Byron Morales, SIFAT representative, has been working with 50 community agents, self selected, from the Cosuna, Honduras area for one year. They have been meeting for 3 - 4 day workshops quarterly. They will complete this part of their program in August, 2011.
What happens to the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative then? Two things.
These trained community agents move into the second of three phases of their training.
But, the second thing is what I would like to describe.
Several AHMEN teams have asked Byron to go on their team for 2011 and look into the possibility of starting a workshop in their area. Others have asked him to go with them and invite the local community agents he has been working with to work with their team. Still others have invited his community agents, without Byron, to work with their teams.
Some examples.
- April team to La Moskitia has invited Byron to go with them and explore the possibility of having a future workshop somewhere in that area. Will it happen this year? Probably not, but Bruce, Tom, Jesus, Bud, et. al. are looking further than just what we (week long medical teams) can contribute to communities.
- A team with Carolina Honduras will be going to Limon in June and is exploring developing a relationship with the “community agents” trained by Byron in the workshops over the past year. What we hope will happen is the promoters will become an active part of the team, showing the team not only what they are doing, but also identifying areas of need they can work together. Byron will not be physically there, this will potentially be the first time the community agents have an opportunity to interact with a team other than AHMEN’s. They will, in essence, be “ambassadors” for this first time experience of reaching beyond the AHMEN organization to other American missionary groups.
- After the graduation of the first years community agents, Byron will travel with our August team to Palacio and explore the needs and potential there at Cruzadas’ mission compound. He will also have an opportunity to reconnect with the potential future community agents in Moskitia he met in April.
- In June, our La Esperanza team has invited Byron to go with us as a member of our team and to help us explore how we might best interact with a new area of 3 or 4 Indio villages in the mountain region near La Esperanza, Honduras. This will be the first time AHMEN has initiated a medical mission area with Byron being in on the early planning.
- Belaire teams, including the Guffeys, Greg Rushton, have asked Byron to meet Evelyn and explore Byron setting up a workshop in that area.
- Finally, Micheal Franklin, CD and Linda Tripp are “pushing” for one of the next workshops to be in the Yoro area.
Lots of good things going on with the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative in Honduras. If you have a team in Honduras that would like to explore a relationship with Byron and the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, let Byron know. We are in the early stages of what potentially can be a positive force for grass root changes in the communites many of us serve in.
Contacts:
Byron Morales: byromen@yahoo.com
Michael Franklin: frankmj42@gmail.com
Benny Rowe: bennyrowe@bellsouth.net
Tom Camp: llamacamp@gmail.com
Rev. Ray Crump:RayLCr@aol.com
CD and Linda Tripp: CTripp@bellsouth.net
Mary/Hugh Guffey: hjguffey@earthlink.net
Update on AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, Honduras April ’11
ReplyDelete“Feed My Sheep”, team leaders CD and Linda Tripp will be branching out from Yorito this year to La Ermita, a brand new area for any AHMEN team to go. As I have been told, it is near Tegu, so will have an entirely different “flavor”.
CD and Linda have been in on the ground floor with the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, supporting and encouraging the leadership of Yorito to attend and be a part of A S Initiative. The folks in Yorito are considering organizing their own workshop in the future. They have talked to Byron and are making preliminary plans re. where, when, financing, etc.
Here is some more big new
Byron Morales, from AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, and the representative in Honduras, and Bullie, Ivan Romani, regional director for SIFATd, have been invited by CD and Linda Tripp to join their team to La Ermita in July. CD and Linda ware some of the first grasp the idea of this program and envision how AHMEN and SIFAT are moving into a new paradigm re. their work in Honduras.