With Hands and Scissors: The Journey of a Honduras Boy Building a Different Future in His Country

Two of his brothers and several friends emigrated to USA look for better opportunities, but Edward Espinal12 year old boy betting on the future in Honduraswhere he opened a barbershop last month to help his family.

“I really like the barbershop and I love studying,” he tells AFP, sitting on the patio in front of his “Edouard barbershop” in New York. Comayaguaapproximately 80 km north of Tegucigalpa.

Eduardo was born into a family with limited resources. His father, Wilfredo Espinal50 years old, makes a living mining river sand to sell to builders, and her mother is a housewife.

He wanted to help his family and at the age of 11 he started working in a barbershop, which he often visited with his father, where he learned the trade.

school versus work

“My dad bought me my first clipper and from there I started cutting his hair,” says this boy, who graduated from elementary school in 2021 and plans to start high school next year.

Child labor is a reality Honduras and in many other Latin American countries, although laws forbid it. AT Honduras Only persons over the age of 14 can legally work.

In 2021 some 256 000 children and youth from 5 to 18 years old worked in Hondurashe told AFP Horace LovoDeputy Director National Statistical Institute (INE). And half a million of the 2.3 million Honduran children and youth between the ages of 5 and 18 are not in school or working, he added.

“It is desirable that children go to school (…) A serious case is those who drop out of school because of work,” Lovo said.

Eduardo He worked as an apprentice for a year until just over a month ago he said, “Dad, now I can cut, I want you to buy me a chair,” his father told AFP.

In addition to the hair clipper, scissors, razor and hairdressing overalls, Wilfredo Espinal bought his son a barber chair that cost him 22000 lempire (about $ 900) and helped him open a modest barbershop in a small house with adobe walls lined with cement and a tin roof. zinc on the outskirts of the city.

Eduardo charges two to three dollars for a haircut, depending on the style. His best day was when he served 16 people who left him some money. $45. Good income in a country where a third of the population of almost 10 million people live on less than a dollar a day.

Time to play

Although the barbershop opens at 8:00 and closes at 20:00, he also finds time to play. On a typical day “I get up, take a shower, change clothes, eat and come (…) I play when I don’t have clients around five (afternoon) we go to play hide-and-seek [y] with a bike” or football, he explains.

He says he wants to “be a professional hairdresser.” He also dreams of helping his sister, Darliana8 years old, open a beauty salon, and would like to build a house for her mother, Merlin Carranza38 years.

Stories in Honduras

Cesar ZepedaA 57-year-old welder, pleased with the haircut he received from a young hairdresser, believes that Eduardo and his parents are an example. According to him, children should “support them in what they like best.”

“You don’t have to travel to another country to be successful,” he said.

Low income, lack of job opportunities and violence from gang members and drug dealers in Honduras This forces nearly 800 citizens to emigrate every day to the United States, home to over a million Hondurans, most of whom do not have residence or work permits.

Jorge Ramos, the barber who taught him the trade, also tried to emigrate but was deported.

(According to AFP)