Pastor Daniel Pacheco is being recognized again in the New York Times for his one-man peacemaking efforts aimed at reducing violence in Honduras, one of the deadliest places in the world.
Pastor Danny's work is making it safer to stay in Central America, and not feel forced to migrate to the U.S. Anyone wanting to reduce migration should support his work. Now more than ever, it's important that individuals step up to help people like Pastor Danny because U.S. aid to Central America was recently cut off.
New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean Azam Ahmed writes about Pastor Danny's incredibly risky efforts to keep the peace by mediating between warring gangs in a recent New York Times piece. Pastor Danny is poor. He sells horchata on the streets and works part-time as a carpenter to fund his anti-gang work.
I met Pastor Danny in 2016 when I wrote an opinion piece about his role in U.S. efforts to reduce violence in one of the most lethal neighborhoods in Honduras.
Any donated funds would go to his school to teach children values so they don't go into gangs. He facilitates art classes and soccer leagues that provide a healthy and constructive activity to occupy youth after school. It's more than soccer—he brings children, gangs, and police from rival neighborhoods together to get to know each other and reduce the hate. Pastor Danny is constantly risking his life to do this work.
He turned a house taken over by gangs—a Casa Loca where people were raped, tortured, and murdered—into a Casa de Esperanza, a House of Hope, where he does his work with youth and rehabilitating gang members.
Walls don't work but this does. Give if you can.
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