Felipa Mejia : Hope and Healing

Eufemia Cruz is one of 27 fast-food employees fired under illegal circumstances and denied legally mandated severance pay in early 2004.

Felipa is a single mother from Flores de Oriente, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa. When she came to one of the Gideon Counseling Centers, run by the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ, she suffered from anxiety about her son, who had fallen into crime and drug use.

Felipa's anxiety was so bad that she had stopped eating, and was in danger of starving herself to death. Thankfully, a friend stepped in and invited her to a meeting of the Brave Women Support group, a program run by ASJ's Gideon center in Nueva Suyapa (a poor neighborhood close to Felipa's home) for single mothers and abused women.

The Brave Women support group provided a community which with Felipa could share her worries. And the ASJ social worker who runs this program helped Felipa take advantage of other Gideon services:

Gideon’s lawyer helped Felipa obtain a document obliging police to treat her respectfully when they came looking for her son (before they had insulted and hit her). And the Gideon psychologist help Felipa take a more positive outlook on life.

Now Felipa says her son is even considering going into counseling!

Read more stories about the Gideon Counseling Centers.

More Success Stories

Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Putting an End to Vigilantism
Thanks to the intervention of the AJS-supported Peace & Justice project, a band of vigilantes who brutally murdered teenage boys suspected of being involved with gangs in a poor neighborhood in Honduras was recently convicted.

While the mothers of these boys will never get their sons back, they at least can be satisfied that the men
who took their sons from them have been brought to justice, and that they will not be able to harm any more boys from poor neighborhoods. read more

Laura's Story: From Trauma to Hope
Early in the morning as she did errands for her mother, then-13-year-old Laura was accosted by three young men who beat her, raped her, and before leaving her sobbing in an alley, threatened to kill her if she told anyone what had happened. Rape and gang rape occur with disturbing frequency in Honduras' poor urban neighborhoods, but nearly all such crimes go unpunished—often because victims are too ashamed, to frightened of reprisals, and have too little trust in the police to report them.

But Laura did report the crime committed against her, and thanks to her bravery, and to the AJS-supported Peace & Justice Project, all three of her attackers have been arrested and are awaiting trial. read more

"Tami"
"He even bought my entire bucket of tortillas." That's how doña Julieta* a resident of an impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, explains the way an AJS-supported lawyer went above and beyond the call of duty in rescuing and defending her teenage granddaughter from a kidnapper. read more | watch video

"María"
María (name changed for privacy) is just 13. By all rights she should be spending her days chatting with friends, enjoying classes and perhaps playing a prank our two with her classmates—in short, having a normal adolescence. Instead, since late November she spends most days locked in her house, scared and ashamed of what the gossipers in her small rural town will say about her: “raped.” read more

Tomasa Turcios and other Security Guards
In the five years Tomasa worked as a private security guard, her employers routinely forced her to work unpaid overtime (24-hour shifts were the norm) and illegally deducted the costs of uniforms and other equipment from Tomasa's pittance of a salary (only about $130 a month). They also withheld government-mandated bonuses. Once a manager confiscated Tomasa's gun, then accused Tomasa of stealing it and told her she would have to pay more than a month's salary to replace it...read more | watch video (Tomasa) | watch video (Betanco)

Bienvenida Carías
Getting a property title changed Bienvenida Carías' life. When Bienvenida moved to what is now the neighborhood of Flor del Campo, in Tegucigalpa, the only thing there was tall grass—and snakes. There were few neighbors and no electricity, telephone service, storm sewers, or running water. Almost the only thing Bienvenida and her six daughters did have was a dream—a dream of owning a small piece of land for themselves...read more

Yazmin Zuniga
The income Yazmin earned as a cashier at Popeye's Chicken wasn't much, but it helped her pay for classes and materials at the university, contribute part of her three younger brothers' tuition and school supplies, and supplement the meager income her mother earned working at a bakery in the lower-class neighborhood where they lived.

Things were fine for the first year and a half, but when a new manager took over Yazmin's job turned into a nightmare... read more

Eufemia Cruz
Eufemia is one of 27 fast-food employees fired under illegal circumstances and denied legally mandated severance pay in early 2004. Some have since settled out of court for less than they are legally owed. But others, including Eufemia, have stuck with the case AJS is handling.

Eufemia is every bit as persistent as the woman in Jesus' Parable of the Persistent Widow...read more

The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) oversees and funds initiatives carried out by Honduran partner organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ). AJS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all donations to AJS are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.