Profesora Hondureña Norma Yanina Parada dando una presentación en Minnesota (Parte I de III)

Resistance in Honduras
Hear Honduran teacher Norma Yanina Parada


Yanina Parada is a member of two of the most active national teachers' organizations in Honduras, COPEMH (Colegio de Profesores de Educacion Media de Honduras) and also the Colegio de Pedagogos de Honduras (COLPEDAGOGOSH). As a leader in the Tegucigalpa teachers' movement, she has been harassed and threatened since the 2009 coup. She was one of the 305 teachers suspended by the government in the spring of 2011 because of their participation in massive protests in March across the country against the Lobo government's theft of monies from the teachers' pension and benefit funds. They were also protesting the proposed privatization of public education. In April the government suspended 5,000 teachers accusing them of violating an order to return to the classroom and end protests. She was one of the teachers who launched a hunger strike in May 2011 for more than 30 days in protest of the teachers' suspension, and demanding back pay and the return of funds to teacher's pensions. The protests were violently attacked by the National Police and military leaving one teacher, Ilse Velasquez, dead. Yanina has been active in the National Front of Popular Resistance since it was formed shortly after the coup d'e'tat of June 28, 2009.

The teachers' unions in Honduras have been the foundation of the trade union movement and of the public movement to defend public education from privatization. They have also been one of the most important and active groups in the resistance to the coup, for the restoration of constitutionality and for the re-founding of Honduras to serve the majority of the Hondurans. The teachers and their organizations are a target of human rights violations and governmental attacks; they have had members murdered, jailed, beaten and suspended from their jobs right up to the present. Last spring primary, secondary and university educators organized hunger strikes and enormous protests for weeks. (see this report from The Real News: "Honduran Teachers get Shock Treatment"
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3...
Although the level of repression in Honduras is extraordinary due to the miltary coup, the campaign for privatization and to destroy the teahcers' unions is ongoing in the United States and many other countries. People to people - teacher to teacher solidarity is urgently needed at an international level.

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• Honduras
• Resistencia