In the United States

Fred and Dorothea Cole were educator friends of Norman and Charlotte Ruoff from southern Texas. In 1991, we started the Becaria (or scholarship) program with our Honduran teachers who were accompanied by Bessy Morales. The Coles had been supportive of our work and their school district was a good one for Honduran teachers to visit because all teachers in their area could speak Spanish and that was very helpful to allow visiting teachers be able to understand what they observed in schools and to easily ask questions. Just before the pandemic, the Texas program ended due to health issues with the Coles. Independence, Missouri, has been the primary host for this valuable training opportunity since 2005. The visit always started with a breakfast meeting with the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of the school district and continued with visits to different schools, where teachers opened their classrooms for observation experiences, offered seminars on specific topics, and answered the many questions the visiting teachers had after observing teachers teach. The teachers suggested they be called “exbecarias,” teachers who had been scholarship recipients who participated in a two week educational trip to the U.S. During their visit, Friends United, also gives them various cultural opportunities such as visiting the KC Zoo, attending a Royals baseball or Sporting KC soccer game, going on a hayride, or attending a fall festival at Missouri Town.