Think Creative - Issue 1

being affected by situations that lead their young people, their men, their women to carry out acts of vandalism, criminal acts, and that concerns us,” says Quevedo. The work of Proponte Más in the Garifuna community is part of a pilot program, working on violence prevention in communities that do not yet have high homicide rates but nonethe- less exhibit risk factors for violence among their youth. “We do not want to wait to be part of the national statistics, to appear on the front pages of the newspapers, for attention to be given to this problem,” Quevedo says. “So this is the moment to be able to intervene, to be able to work. If we are talking about pre- vention, then we should prevent – because to do it later, to do it when we already have deaths every day, that won’t be prevention.” Focusing on families Proponte Más is the first program of its kind to be established in the Honduran Garifuna community. And Quevedo says the family-focused approach is fitting for the Garifuna. “A component that ProponteMás deals with and which really ties in with the Garifuna population is working with other generations and focusing on traditions, on the recuperation of customs,” she says. “The Garifuna community is a commu- nity very rich in culture, very rich in rituals, in traditions. And all of these traditions center on the family, just like ProponteMás does.” Carolina Guity, a longtime teacher in the area, says she has seen major improvements in the students referred to the program. “The importance of these programs is that if you transform a family, you become a commu- nity. And you can transform a country, which is where we want to go,” she says. “Currently the family is increasingly broken, and if the family changes, wewill be in amuch better country and the young peoplewill become better parents, andwewill obviously transformour community and our country as well.” BothWilson and Irvin say they have an im- proved outlook on school and life at home since working with Proponte Más. And their parents have noticed the difference. “I spent a lot of time fighting with them so they would help me do things. But now, thank God, with the project it changed a lot,” Ballesteros says. “Now they do laundry without me saying anything, they even cook, wash dishes, make the bed for me – even my bed where I sleep, they make it. They have changed a lot.” n With reporting by Gustavo Ochoa from La Ceiba, Honduras.

The Guity family meets with Proponte Más family counselor Diana Flores (right) at their home in Corozal.

“We do not want to wait to be part of the national statistics, to appear on the front pages of the newspapers, for attention to be given to this problem”

known as the Youth Service Eligibility Tool (YSET). The tool evaluates youth across nine risk factors and looks for more than 100 behav- ioral indicators. School staff, coaches and other community leaders can refer youth for YSET evaluation. Despite the relative isolation and calm of the Garifuna community, there are warning signs that Garifuna youth are not immune to the risk of becoming involved in gangs. Ballesteros says a teacher first recommended Irvin for the program; since she was also having trouble withWilson, Ballesteros asked if he could participate as well. Using the YSET assessment, both were deter- mined to be at high risk, along with other young people in the Garifuna community. Tesla Quevedo, Proponte Más Regional Direc- tor for La Ceiba and Tela, says that because the Garifuna have been viewed as a peaceful community, they have not been a priority for violence prevention programs. But the results of the risk assessment called for action. In

-Tesla Quevedo, Proponte Más Regional Director for La Ceiba and Tela

fact, Proponte Más was given special permis- sion to bring a pilot project to these specific Garifuna communities. “We are not alien to the structural and behav- ioral changes that our country is suffering. In this sense, the Garifuna population is also

Photo by Gustavo Ochoa

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