Amigos Unidos Proves
the Power of Friends United

Friends United/Amigos Unidos has been helping teachers in Honduras for 20 years. Thousands of teachers in this Latin American country have learned to employ materials available to rural schools in new and creative ways. Friends United assists in communities where it is invited and where teachers are interested in improving methods of education.

Charlotte Ruoff, a teacher herself, is president of Friends United. Since her first trip there as a college student in 1959, Ruoff has felt a connection with Honduras. She and other Graceland young adults helped with construction at La Buena Fe, the clinic that was the catalyst for the church being established in Honduras.

In 1980, a high school student from Honduras named Suyapa moved in with the Ruoffs for five years. Beginning in 1984, Ruoff’s fifth-grade class in Independence, Missouri, wrote pen pal letters to students in Honduras. In 1987, Ruoff and a pair of colleagues visited Zambrano, the village of her pen pal correspondents, and found educational facilities there lacking.

“The school building itself was substantial. But there were no books or supplies,” remembers Ruoff. “The blackboards were rectangles on the walls painted black. Chalk was a precious commodity.”

Kirk Arnold was one of the teachers accompanying Ruoff on that journey. He still teaches in Independence and serves on the Friends United board of directors. “They really didn’t have anything,” said Arnold of his first trip to Zambrano. “You had 40 kids in a room sitting on wooden benches.”

School conditions in Zambrano prompted the founding of Friends United, incorporated in 1988, and since then devoted to helping teachers teach in Honduras. Friends United conducts training workshops in Honduras and also in South Texas with its Ex Becarios scholarship program. A model school is being developed with the Honduras Department of Education. “The government of Honduras recognizes we’re there to stay,” said Arnold.

According to a recent Honduras This Week newspaper article, “Despite reforms enacted in 2007 to modernize the teaching system, many schoolchildren still lack access to the teachers, schools and resources that can provide an education that will serve them in life. It is estimated that 96 percent of the educational budget goes on teachers’ salaries, leaving a mere 4 percent for resources and training” (March 10, 2007). This is not to suggest that teachers are highly paid, but rather that there is little money left for supplies.

Bessy Morales de Pacheco has taught for many years and serves as director of Friends United in Honduras. She suggested the idea of traveling classrooms. Now, large plastic tubs of lesson plans and teaching equipment rotate among different schools.

Friends United Resource Centers include a computer, copier, laminator, letter-making machine, office equipment, books, and other supplies. Tangible Love funding helped launch the resource center in San Pedro Sula.

Maria del Carmen Castillo de Mejia, wife of Apostle Carlos Enrique Mejia, is a part of the San Pedro Sula congregation in Honduras. She is a teacher who attended Friends United workshops and now coordinates its resource center in the Jose Antonio Velasquez School in San Pedro Sula.

“In this office we deal with educational resources from which the teachers take ideas and prepare materials so the learning process can be more dynamic for the students,” said Carmen Mejia. “This help is much appreciated by the education authorities of Honduras and especially by the teachers, students, and parents of the families that are already helping in the education activities,” she added. The aspiration is for seven resource centers throughout Honduras by the end of this year.

Friends United must conduct considerable fund raising. Tangible Love guidelines require that approved projects be collaborative efforts. Friends United has many supporters including Rotarian and Kiwanis clubs plus many church congregations. In recent years, Community of Christ youth in Brighton, Michigan, supplied backpacks with school materials. Members of Ruoff’s church, the Highlands congregation in Kansas City, Missouri, arrange working tours in Honduras to refurbish school buildings.

Community of Christ is not the only denomination assisting. Arnold’s congregation, Christ United Methodist in Independence, Missouri, recently purchased more than $1,300 worth of nuts and candy during the Friends United annual fund-raising sale. Arnold remains passionate about Friends United, now 20 years since its founding.

“So many teachers in Honduras are excited about new ideas in their classrooms,” said Arnold. “They now plan their own workshops.” “The best way we can help the children in Honduras is to help the teachers be better teachers,” said Ruoff. Where Friends United has helped, school attendance has improved. Friends United is one of many exemplary programs assisted by Tangible Love funds by way of Community of Christ oblation contributions.

As Ken Schnell, longtime provider of support services for the Tangible Love Committee, has said, “We don’t give to a fund; we give through a fund.” 

If you have an idea for a ministry or are involved in a program emphasizing basic human needs, environmental concerns, conflict resolution initiatives, or peace and justice, Tangible Love can help.

—Dirk Ellingson reporting