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The head of the country office for CRS is the Country Representative. This is an excerpt from an interview with my future boss Jack Byrne who has been CR in Honduras since 2005.

According to Byrne, recovery from Hurricane Mitch has been uneven in Honduras. The country’s economy is growing 5 percent annually, and mini-cities have been built in safe zones, but some sections of the nation’s infrastructure have not been repaired. That’s why projects concerning water and sanitation are of special significance to CRS and its donors. Miguel Flores, water and sanitation project director for CRS, developed a model in the 1970s and 1980s that gives local water boards ownership of projects, dealing with maintenance and sustainability. The goal is to make all water potable for families. Byrne said, “Different systems for water and irrigation greatly impact communities.”

CRS’s largest efforts in health and education focus on maternal child health to decrease infant mortality and respond to obstetric emergencies. In one region in which CRS works, there are 554 infant deaths per 100,000 births. Nationally in Honduras, the rate is 108 infant deaths per 100,000 births. “That number has been reduced in half, to about 248 infant deaths per 100,000 births,” said Byrne.

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