We offer affordable one-on-one Garifuna language tutoring through Skype. Your participation provides economic opportunity for our impoverished village. For more information, please write to us at: info@blackcaribnation.org.

Human Rights

Washing and drinking water

Water comes from the municipality for 2-3 hours a day, every other day. It is not potable. One must walk up to 25 minutes round trip to bring home a bucket of drinking water from a well. We currently seek water testing equipment for our newly formed Water Council members and filtration equipment for homes.

Sanitation

Sanitation ranges from septic systems to toilets positioned over creeks that flow past people's homes and into the sea.

Garbage

Garbage is strewn all over the beach and the town, including hypodermic needles, rotting food, dog corpses and broken glass. Throwing garbage on the ground is common, since the municipality does not offer garbage disposal.

Chemical Spray

Homes and restraints are frequently sprayed with big blowing machines of insect killer without warning, they come down the street and enter building, creating thick fogs of poisonous chemicals.

Language

For years,the national school system has been demanding that native languages not be spoken in the home to Help them learn Spanish better". Taking away ones language is the biggest loss of power that a nation can have. Even the name "Black Carib" was stripped in 1995 and changed to "Garifuna", further deepening the lack of identity with culture and not permitting important decisions and discussions to be made, since Spanish is not the original language of people over 30 years old.

The municipality even spells the original name of the town incorrectly, La Buga instead of the proper Labuga, on the town's seal, on the ambulance, on the gymnasium, further destroying the identity of the Black Caribe.

Discrimination

There is only one visible Black Carib business on the street, only Mayan, in a pueblo that was once mostly Black Carib. They are not given jobs in construction, restaurants, stores. They have jobs carrying people's luggage from the dock pier.

The town government posts Dengue fever warnings on the beach restaurants owned by Garifuna, but does not post them on Ladino or Mayan restaurants, thus forcing businesses to close due to tourists avoiding these establishments.

The national government offers few jobs, requiring those Black Carib with dreadlocks to cut their hair. Dreadlocks are considered a sacred thing, so this is a form of religious persecution. These people are often arrested based on the story of one person, and not given due process, being beat and thrown into prison, and having their hair cut off within two days.

Girls Rights to an Education

In the impoverished barrios where fishing no longer brings in enough money to feed the family, girls must stay home to help their moms wash sheets for the local hotels. On the alternating days of water, that means girls are very late to school. This undermines a girl's right to an education.

Housing

Traditional homes are built from plant-based building materials. These homes need to be rebuilt every 4 years due to insect damage and roof leakage.

The Associacion Pescadores Tradicional Garifuna organizes house rebuilding projects for the needy. Modern cement bock and corrugated metal roofs are used to replace these traditional homes because the natural building materials are now scarce, due to overforesting. The new homes also help to prevent dengue fever from contaminated mosquitos.

We currently seek mosquito net donations for Livingston as there is a large population of children who are exposed to deadly disease.