Missionary asks for help to maintain evangelistic radio in the jungle of Honduras

The Spanish missionary Enrique Alagarda asks for help to maintain the parish radio, in operation for 25 years, an essential element for the evangelization of the Mosquitia region in the jungle of Honduras.

Alagarda is a member of the Congregation of the Mission (Paul Fathers), which has been present in the area since 1910, which is why he asked to be assigned there as soon as he was ordained a priest at the age of 21, in 1991.

The parish of San José in the Honduran jungle covers an area of ​​300 square kilometers full of rivers, canals and lagoons in which there is only one road. There are more than 60,000 inhabitants, half of them Catholic, organized into 80 communities.

The two priests can only go in person to each community twice a year and have the help of 190 delegates of the Word, among whom are 15 ministers of the Eucharist and 160 catechists, most of them women.

In this context, the station Kupia Kumi – Radio Pazwhich broadcasts almost entirely in the Miskito language, is not only a means of communication, but “a key instrument for the evangelization, formation and survival of its communities that live remote and isolated, with very complicated access,” says the missionary in statements disseminated by the Archdiocese of Valencia (Spain), where it is originally from.

Father Alagarda explains that the project for which he is asking for financial help involves replacing the station’s wooden roof with a metal one that is safer for the installation of solar panels.

This change responds both to the papal teaching in favor of the care of Creation and to an energy need, because the supply in the Mosquitia area “is unstable due to the weather, the constant rains and humidity, making it very difficult to sustain.”

“For us, radio is an essential instrument, on the one hand, for our evangelizing work, since, for example, daily Eucharists and catechisms are broadcast and heard by the communities, who live very far from each other,” he adds. the missionary.

On the other hand, it also serves to carry out the social work of the parish, since mobile phone coverage only reaches “15 or 20% of the population”, in such a way that “the only way to send a message, The only way to socialize a project, so to speak, is the radio. There is no other radio with reach,” says the Spanish religious.

These social projects have become more necessary in recent years due to the impact of drug trafficking in the region, as the missionary testifies: “When I arrived in Honduras it was a poor society, but, in a certain way, stable, calm. But everything changed with the entry of drug trafficking, which has destabilized society. Drug trafficking has subsequently led to heavy drug consumption. And that has destroyed many families, it has destroyed the lives of many young people above all, and it has changed the appearance of our area.”

“A small sacrifice in something in our daily lives can be the difference between life or death, the difference between a young person being able to get ahead or being trapped in the networks of violence or drug trafficking, or that a person may have the capacity to receive medical treatment or die from that disease. That is the big difference,” he explains.

Contributions for this project can be made through the Ad Gentes Foundation of the Archbishopric of Valencia.