After drugs and gangs, a Honduran family starts again
Seven months pregnant, Odalis waits for a checkup at a clinic in Honduras with husband, David. In nine years together, they’ve overcome many struggles to become the happy family they are today.
“I got to know [David] on the streets,” Odalis, 26, says. “He was at the peak of his drug use at the time we met.”
“In fact, when she met me, I wasn’t in the best shape. And she still accepted me. When I went to rehab, she continued supporting me.”
Back then, David, 33, was a drug addict trying to leave a violent gang.
Over time, he managed to turn his life around and found work in a food-distribution warehouse thanks to USAID’s Metas, a job training program whose name means “goals” in Spanish.
“This leadership, his drive to move forward, to develop, to improve life for his family — It’s something I admire about him,” Odalis says. “And it’s what makes me fall more in love with him.”
The couple and their 7-year-old daughter Fergie live in David’s hometown of Rio Blanco, a neighborhood of 350 families in San Pedro Sula — a city in Honduras that has been called the “murder capital of the world.”
They live in a one-room apartment attached to the back of David’s mother’s house. Odalis, who also participated in Metas, has started a burgeoning pastry business out of their home.
“My daughter is sweet like a cake,” says Odalis.
Fergie helps her mother in the bakery. And she is the apple of her father’s eye.
She is growing up in a household full of love, stability and support.
But that wasn’t the case for her father.
Gangs were starting to become prevalent, and he admired how members would have each other’s back. They were a family, in a way.
He started doing drugs and got into a gang. But when people started killing each other, he knew he needed to get out. Usually, that is not easy. But since the gang leader was a childhood friend, David was given a rare chance to leave.
By his mid-20s, he had been using for 13 years.
“The world, on drugs — everything looks beautiful at first,” David said. “But after I reached rock bottom, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘This isn’t me. What’s happening to me? I had dreams. I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.’”
An uncle came to David’s aid, helping him sign up for a six-month rehab program.
When Odalis became pregnant with their daughter Fergie, David knew he needed to be there for them. Coming out of rehab, he was motivated to stay clean and provide for his family. “It was my turn to face life as a man,” he said.
Odalis urged David to join Metas, which connected him with an alternative education program.
“My brain wasn’t like it was in school,” David said. “But my motivation to push forward was at 2,000 percent.”
David specialized in food handling and event organization. When he interviewed for the job at the warehouse with his certification from USAID and Project Metas, the human resources official was impressed.
“You’re just what the doctor ordered. I was waiting for someone like you,” David recalls him saying.
The couple hopes that their children will have a better future someday. Their daughter, Fergie, aspires to be a doctor.
“We’ve always thought that to leave something for our children for their future is the best we can do,” Odalis says. “I want the best for them, to be able to see that they don’t suffer from the same things we’ve seen.”
“We’re a very united family,” Odalis says. “We’re a family that protects each other. And like Fergie once said, ‘We’re a small but beautiful family.’ ”
Honduras is one of the most violent countries in the world outside a war zone.
To reduce the lure of crime and gang life, the USAID project Metas provides unemployed youth with job training in the skills needed most by private sector employers.
Metas, implemented by the Education Development Center, partners with schools, universities, NGOs, businesses, communities and the Government of Honduras to help develop this emerging workforce.
Some Honduran youth face the additional hurdle of being unable to find a job because they have an arrest record or live in a community known to be controlled by gangs. Having the Metas certification on their resume, however, gives employers confidence they will be good workers.
The Work Readiness Skills Training and Certification Program, the Metas program that helped David, targets about 22,000 Hondurans between ages 15 to 35. USAID programs deter at-risk youth from joining gangs and provide support once they are out.
Photos and video by Thomas Cristofoletti / Narrative by Nic Corbett, USAID
