Sowing STEM in Rural Honduras

In the Intibucá region of the Honduran mountains, quality education can be difficult to come by. More than half the population of Honduras lives below the poverty line, the net enrollment rate in secondary school was only 43 percent in 2020¹, and there’s a lack of resources available in public schools for the students who are able to attend.

But for one group of teenagers, these challenges aren’t a setback. They’re motivation.

It all started in 2017, when FIRST Global partnered with the nonprofit Shoulder to Shoulder to put together a team of students in Honduras to represent their country at the inaugural FIRST Global Challenge. The kids had never even seen a robot before, let alone built one, but knew that they needed to take full advantage of the opportunity. With the support of their FIRST Global ‘Global STEM CorpsAdvisor Team, they built a robot fit for competition and traveled all the way to Washington, DC to compete and connect with kids from all over the world.

This was life-changing, not only in empowering these Honduran youth to develop and experience so much in their few months as participants, but in what it inspired them to pursue upon returning home. A seed had been planted. They knew they needed to pass on this experience to more youth in their country.

'Competitions like that of FIRST Global are important for us as students because they incentivize us and they give us encouragement to allow our brains to think and develop the abilities and capacities that we didn’t know we had,' said 2017 team member Melissa.

In 2018 a new team of students was brought into the fold, and again in 2019 and 2020. Previous participants passed on the torch and some took on the roles of mentors. The team continued to grow, but they knew they needed to do more, to have a space dedicated to teaching more kids than the handful that were on the team each year.

It was in the summer of 2020 when the seed finally sprouted. The students were given a special task as part of their participation in the 2020 FIRST Global Challenge — to reach out to a government official and pitch how they could work together to further STEM education opportunities.

They started a conversation with the Minister of the Secretary of State in Community Development for Water and Sanitation and presented him with their ideas. The minister was impressed, stating, “I am happy with the work that [your team is] doing with the robotics program. I am excited that you have contacted me, and I am sure that we can do great things working together. Before this meeting, I was not very familiar with the term STEM, and now that you have enlightened me about that educational system, I know that it can be implemented in our schools effectively.”

The government agreed to work with Shoulder to Shoulder to help build the first technological center in their region, which they estimated would benefit more than 2,000 students. The team continued their work, and in June 2021 the center finally opened.

As part of Team Honduras’ project for the 2021 FIRST Global Challenge, the team’s newest members focused on expanding the center’s capabilities by creating a variety of resources and training materials to not only teach kids in their area, but to also train teachers in STEM education and robotics at schools throughout the region. They are also working with the government to build additional technological centers in high schools throughout Honduras.

For the members of Team Honduras, this is just the beginning. They each have their own life missions, and whether that’s to pursue higher education, to teach, or to have a career in technology, it’s rooted in a desire to serve others.

“By supporting FIRST Global you would be supporting many young people to be able to believe in themselves and make a change in themselves, in the community, in our country and even around the world,” said 2019 team member Dulce.


¹UNESCO – Honduras; Participation in Education.

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