The CCD

The Christian Commission for Development, or CCD is an Honduran Christian Association organized to provide training in more than 110 rural communities. The communities chosen stand out because of their inaccessibility, poverty, illiteracy, lack of basic services, and a desire for a better life.

Self help training is available to rural leaders in the areas of agriculture, health and nutrition, construction, leadership development, literacy, women's issues, pastoral and theological studies.

The CCD provides training on site in the rural villages or at its retreat center and demonstration farm. They also coordinate work camps and medical teams from other countries. While most of the medical teams and work camps come from the United States, most of the funding for their work comes from the churches and governments of Europe. In February of 1995, a medical team of 8 working in a rural village had treated 3,000 persons in three days.

Reflections of the CCD

"With the signing of the Peace Accords in El Salvador, with democratic elections now being held in Nicaragua, and with the search for a solution to end thirty-four years of war in Guatemala, we all have the hope that the decade of the 90's will allow the countries of Central America to concentrate on the search for justice and a solution to the problems that oppress the poor social class."

"But up to this moment, little tangible progress can be seen because the political power continues to be concentrated in the military and the most rich, and injustice still persists throughout the region."

"In the case of Honduras, the rich have continued to fill their arcs and are ready to gain mire, while the poor are hardly able to survive, in some cases, in tiny subsistence rural communities. And if this were not enough, many rural Hondurans who had obtained land in the past decades through Agrarian Reform have now sold out to large companies and multinational corporations whose interests are purely monetary."

"It seems then, that there is a tendency toward regression. To survive and forge ahead, it is necessary that non-governmental organizations inject new elements into their development programs to achieve the goals of justice and a solution to the problems of the poor."

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