After five weeks of practice and classes, OYE`s students are producing art. These are some of the first drawings produced by OYE`s art program.

Ben Races for OYE!

OYE's friend Ben is running the Niagara Falls Marathon and raising funds for OYE! Watch his progress on his blog as he tries to reach his goal of raising $1500 for OYE's youth programs in Honduras, and help him get there faster by donating through the secure link below. Thank you so much Ben for all of your support, and good luck training for race day!

September and October Issues of Revista Jovenes

You can now view the September and October issue of OYE`s Revista Jovenes online...

Open publication - Free publishing - More youth

Special thanks to our sponsors for making this possible

Dia del Niño

Dia del Niño

On the tenth day of September, Honduras set aside a special day to celebrate the countries youth. And believe me there is a lot to celebrate in this country. Given the high birth rates and young pregnancies it seems like everyone here is youth or young at heart. Although in OYE we like to think we are all still youth, we are more accurately jovenes than niños. As adolescents the young scholars of OYE went out into elementary schools around their community to celebrate this day with the true youth of the country.


With the kids that make up OYE`s radio program, I traveled to the School Porvenir. No sooner did we enter the gate than the party started. I cannot imagine how order was maintained on a normal school day, but on song, dance, and candy filled holiday the small-overcrowded school was a chaotic madhouse.

In Honduras there is really only one way to capture the attention of excited wound up youth. You have to dance. OYE`s Radio group both animated and focused the thriving fiesta by dancing to Waka Waka, Moo la Vaca, and the Gorilla Song among others.



I think I speak for myself, but hopefully others as well, when I say the day brought the inner child out of everyone. I definitely saw a smile on everyone’s faces, kids, parents, teachers, and OYE members. Maybe they were just laughing at me as I sweat through my shirt trying to keep up with the little hooligans, but I think it was a day that brought everyone together to celebrate one of the most import things in life youth.

To say youth or kid/s there are many words in Honduran Spanish, Just a few would be:

Niño
Wirro
Cipote
Chamaco
Mocoso
Chiguin
Chimpayate
Patojo
Crio

Artist Capacity

Capacity is a Word that gets thrown around the offices of OYE a lot. We have programs of capacity building and all of our students have incredible capacity, but what does this capacity mean to the people that have it?

I attended a drawing class, part of our new Arte La Calle program, and not only did I receive a great lesson in drawing, but I also had the opportunity to talk with some of the OYE students about capacity. We talked about what it was, and what it means.

By the end of the lesson I realized that its true OYE students have incredible capacity. They described to me what this word means, and according to our scholars, capacity is the potential a person has to do something. Moreover, it is the ability to apply ones self to acquire the knowledge necessary to do that thing.

After talking for a while we came to the conclusion that, while everyone has some capacity, we are not necessarily endowed with the same type of capacity. In this vein, the program of art that I attended today is a perfect example. Gerald, the OYE scholar that was instructing us has an incredible capacity for making and teaching art. When he looks at an object he sees it through the eyes of an artistic and can reproduce its slightest shadow. He can look at an image and see how to draw it with a mind for the shadows and reflections. As a teacher he demonstrates a tremendous capacity of patience with his raucous students. When all was said and done, those of us that participated in his class produced some nice works of art, even if they could not rival those of Gerald. We all had the capacity to produce art, but we might not have realized it without the guidance of Gerald.

This is the type of capacity and capacity building OYE is talking about. Capacity is simply the ability to learn to do. Capacity is nothing without the desire to act, and it is amplified when a helping hand or guidance is lent to another. As we hope to create a village of socially engaged artists through our art program, we hope to create a community of socially conscious and responsible citizens through our capacity classes.