In 2006, when Food For The Poor’s Honduras development team first met him, 8-year-old Gerson David seemed to carry the weight of the world on his small shoulders. His father had abandoned the family, and Gerson alone was left to help his mother, Eliodora, care for his three older siblings — two brothers and a sister who all have mental and physical disabilities. Gerson played with them, cooked for them, strapped them into their wheelchairs and even bathed them.
“I have fun with them,” Gerson told the FFP team.
But when Gerson left for school each day, Eliodora struggled to take care of her three eldest children, and she was forced to beg at a nearby sports stadium for money to buy the family food or scavenge in the nearby dump.
That all changed when Food For The Poor donors helped CEPUDO, the charity’s in-country partner, replace the family’s leaking shack with a sturdy, concrete house and began providing monthly provisions of food.
“We currently have Gerson with a scholarship to an Episcopal bilingual school, along with uniforms, shoes and all of his school supplies,” said Carlos Coello, CEPUDO project manager. “We also provide a small monthly bag of groceries.”
Now Eliodora no longer has to beg and Gerson is on his way to achieving his dream career.
“I want to be a doctor because I want to understand people,” he said. “I would buy wheelchairs for other people and medicine for people without money.”
More photos from 2006:
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