Woods, Jason. “POVERTY AND VIOLENCE LEAVE HONDURANS NO OPTION BUT TO LEAVE HOME.” Heifer International. October 24, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.heifer.org/join-the-conversation/blog/2018/October/poverty-and-violence-leave-hondurans-no-option-but-to-leave-home.html.
In this article by Jason Woods, he dives in depth into the causes of the mass migration out of Honduras. He begins his article by detailing the growing number of people leaving Honduras every day. He provides statistics which show that around 300 people are leaving Honduras every day. Next, Woods moves on to discussing why exactly the people of Honduras are choosing to leave. He interviews individuals living in the communities where mass migrations have taken place and discovers that the reason for the migration is due to lack of opportunities, and increased violence. The individuals who Woods is interviewing explain that finding any kind of financial success is extremely difficult in Honduras. And, even if they manage to find success, they must conceal it out of fear of attack and robbery. Woods concludes his article by detailing what his Heifer Project is doing to try and alleviate some of the pains for those living in these communities.
Jason Woods’ article has a number of strengths and weaknesses. The strengths of this article come from the fact that Woods is getting direct feedback and answers from those who are directly involved in the areas of mass migration. These internal resources provides Woods with primary sources with which to base his arguments and conclusions on. A weakness found in Woods’ article is in that he is working for the Heifer Project. The Heifer Project is an organization working to end hunger and poverty within Latin America. One of the primary methods of funding that the Heifer Project utilizes is donations. Due to the fact that Woods and his Project are reliant on the donations of his readers, it is entirely possible that he has embellished or overstated some of the uncited claims within his article in an attempt to appeal to the emotions of the reader and procure a donation.
For my purposes, this article is useful for a number of reasons. For one, the cited facts and figures used by Woods to outline the enormity of the mass migration out of Honduras will be useful in my work as an indicator for how distressing the situation is for people within Honduras. Secondly the interviews conducted by Woods with the people living in Honduras will prove very useful as it will give me a first-hand account of what life is like in these impoverished areas. And finally, this article is useful to me because of its focus on both poverty and violence. These two issues are the primary focus of my work and Woods’ analysis of how the two are connected should help bolster my own assessment as well.
Human Rights in Latin America 