Out of Whittier and La Habra: TZ Tutors, Nancy and Raquel, help out in Las Avispas, Honduras
Here at Tutor Zone, we have both tutor-mentors and committed members of the community. Nancy Dominguez, Tutor at TZ Whittier, and Raquel Penate, Tutor at TZ La Habra, are just that—tutor-mentors and committed members of the community.
Both Nancy and Raquel recently traveled to Las Avispas, a small village community in Honduras. Working in tandem with Biola University and Diaconia Nacional, Nancy and Raquel dug trenches and helped build latrines to make clean water accessible in the Las Avispas region.
By doing so, our TZ tutors learned about the value of hard-work, experienced poverty first-hand, and gained transferable life-skills. After digging trenches and making latrines, Nancy stated that she “learned to be humble and grateful for the things [she] has.”
More importantly, Nancy urges that poverty in Latin America is applicable to the everyday member of a developed country. For Nancy, the experience “is applicable to us all because we [need] to understand that there is an entire world that lives on less than a dollar a day.”
In regards to transferable life-skills, Raquel feels that the experience is applicable to her Tutor Zone tutoring—“I will share this experience with the TZ community by explaining the poverty that exists in the world and the need for [us] to assist these people.”
Moreover, she claims that the experience of helping bring clean water to the people of Las Avispas “has made [her] more humble and recognize that life is not about material things.” Instead, Raquel asserts “a simple life is great.”
Agreeing with Raquel, Nancy has also begun to question the value of material things—“at times, we believe that the more materials we have, the happier we will be, but through this experience I learned otherwise.” Instead of finding happiness through material things, Nancy’s digging and building and more importantly, her interactions with the Las Avispas people has changed the way she looks at things claiming that “as long as we have the resources we need, such as water, family, and shelter, that is all that matters.”
At Tutor Zone, Nancy and Raquel will continue sharing this experience with their students. They both agree that by informing students of the value of hard-work, the benefits of humility, and the importance of helping others, they will maximize the trip’s importance. At TZ, Nancy will share the benefits “of helping others and transforming lives.” Ultimately, she will also share that the trip has “changed [her] outlook on life” helping her, as she asserts” become a better person.”
Nancy and Raquel exemplify how Tutor Zone has emerging young professionals—Nancy wants to be an international social justice lawyer and Raquel wants to be a third grade teacher—who are also dedicated to changing larger trends of injustice and inequality. Their efforts in Honduras prove, just like Tutor Zone’s motto, that “a little time does make a big difference.”
