OUR HISTORY

Honduras, which is approximately the size of Ohio, is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Approximately 65% of the 8.14 million people in Honduras live in poverty. A family’s daily average income provides barely enough to buy food for a day. They have only one physician per 6,000 and one dentist per 26,000 people. Most villages have neither.

 

Since 1988, Cape CARES has treated over 100,000 people for various dental, medical, optometric, and chiropractic problems. With the vision of one Falmouth, Massachusetts, dentist, Ted Keary, we sent one team of 70 individuals to Tela on the north coast of Honduras. The following year, four teams of approximately 25 per team traveled to the southern region visiting several villages in this poorest of areas. In 1991, we adopted one community, San Jose de Pespire, in the department of Choluteca, and sent five teams into this needy region. In 1993, we began working with two additional communities, Los Encinitos and El Jicarito.

 

 

San Marcos

 

Consequently, our ability to provide critical health care services is expanding to encompass a larger population and a broader geographical area. In the following years, we continued to strengthen our focus by implementing more preventive health care programs and sending ten teams into these areas annually. In 2000, we sent five teams to two new sites in San Marcos and El Conchal in the department of Valle.

 

We report directly to the Honduran Ministry of Health and, based on our reports, the government designated San Jose as a medical post. It now has a native doctor in residence – a goal for which we had strived. Other medical groups have established medical services in the El Jicarito region and, rather than offer a duplication of effort, we have left that area to concentrate on our existing and new sites. We also realized that El Conchal had resources and access to medical and dental services in nearby Nacaome. We therefore looked for another site and found El Algodonal in 2001. This site is more in need of our help and we have been going there ever since.

 

Los Encinitos

OUR FUTURE

Working with our three communities, our goal is to provide the skills, supplies, and educational training necessary to achieve a higher quality of life and well being. We will work with the local community leaders and the local rural nurses to improve our ability to provide follow up care. Our priority is to increase our efforts in health education as part of our care to the community. We invite you to join with us and become part of our great humanitarian adventure. Whether your expertise is dental, medical, fundraising, or just plain caring, we invite you to be part of our future.