Garifonda is an association that acts every day in Triunfo de la Cruz — not just in words, in houses built.
Organize a solidarity building trip with your students in Triunfo de la Cruz.
Write to us →Become a partner and offer this solidarity project to your travelers.
Write to us →In Honduras's Garifuna villages, many families live without decent housing — often single mothers with children.
Plastic waste management is almost nonexistent here: bottles litter the beaches and are burned, with no way to process them.
Plastic bottles are collected from the beaches and around the village.
Each bottle is filled with sand or compacted earth to form a solid block.
The bottles are assembled and bound together with bamboo, clay, and cane.
Natural plaster, roofing, and finishing touches for a decent, lasting home.
We build eco-friendly homes from recycled plastic bottles, combined with natural materials — earth, bamboo, clay, cane — to provide decent housing for the most vulnerable families.
Gallery — the building site
For more than ten years, Garifonda has worked with schools, CEGEPs, and universities in Quebec, through LOJIQ (Les Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec). Every year, several student groups spend three weeks living alongside village families. CEGEP, École Saint-Jean Eudes, and École Saint-Jean have been part of it from the start.
Mornings are devoted to the building site — collecting bottles, building walls, finishing touches — alongside village families.
Afternoons and some full days are set aside for exploring the country: the Bay Islands, the Honduran jungle, Mayan archaeological sites like Copán. A true immersion trip, not just a building site.
Gallery — the student groups who came to build
VIDEOS — BUILDING TRIPS
« We arrive thinking we're coming to “help,” and we leave having received far more than we gave. The village taught us everything. »
« Three weeks building bottle walls with people who didn't speak my language, and yet I never once felt like a stranger. »
« This trip changed the way I look at what “helping” really means. »
Sample testimonials — to be replaced with real student quotes once available.
