Welcome

Based in the Chicago region, ENABLE INTERNATIONAL (EI) enlists the help of volunteers in order to raise funds to assist Dr. Juan Almendares in supporting his Tegucigalpa-based free health clinic, Honduran Health Exchange, and a community-directed peace organization, COHAPAZ. Several of the volunteers are associated with the Third Unitarian Church of Chicago, with the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program (LACIS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and occasionally with other progressive groups in the United States. Dr. Almendares also is the founder and director of the Center for the Treatment of Torture Victims and their Families (CPTRT) in Tegucigalpa, the only such center in Honduras.

HONDURAN HEALTH EXCHANGE (HHE)

HONDURAN HEALTH EXCHANGE (HHE) was formed in 1992 in response to the desperate need for free community health care and training among the barrios of Tegucigalpa, and the desire of Dr. Almendares to care for the health needs of the Honduran poor. It was financed initially by donations from the United States coordinated by Carol Grandstaff and Michael Collins, with assistance from Bev Mabee, clinical therapist in Iowa, and Willie Ney, currently assistant director of LACIS at the University of Wisconsin. It continues to be supported by donations in money and medicines from the United States and Europe.

The HHE is structured around a board of Honduran community activists, with Dr. Juan Almendares as executive director. The clinic enlists the help of health care volunteers, midwifes, nurses and local physicians, some associated with the UNAH medical school, to provide free health examinations and consultations in various urban barrios. It also carries out health brigades to needy rural communities, particularly in times of destruction and upheaval such as Hurricane Mitch or military incursions or reprisals. Third and equally important, it identifies and trains health promoters from the poor communities in a wide range of health topics including midwifery, labor and delivery, sexual education and sexually transmitted diseases (with special attention to HIV-1), first aid, alternative medicine, herbal medicines, and water purification. It has organized women’s health committees in more than twenty Honduran communities.