Hundreds of candies wrapped in rainbow foil fall from a blue sky. Scores of brown-skinned children gleefully laugh while snatching the sweet manna floating through thick humid air, pouring from the belly of a Santa Claus piñata.

Kids scramble on their knees picking up the fallen “confites,” as candies are called in Honduras. Some manically stuff pockets or use shirt bottoms as baskets ― a few fall prey to temptation and stuff their mouths, their shouts and the bachata music blasting from blown speakers making a joyful noise as it echoes from the cinder block walls of poor homes that haven’t been blessed with much joy for years.

It’s Christmas week in Rivera Hernandez, a place that’s been described as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. How dangerous? About two weeks ago, and not that far from this street party, a young woman’s seminude body was found underneath a tree ― just her body. The 18-year-old’s head was resting on a branch a few feet above her corpse. The neighborhood consensus, whispered quietly, is that this latest horror was most likely a message from one of the five gangs that have divided much of Rivera Hernandez into fiefdoms.

Armando Trull It rained "confites," not bullets, in Rivera Hernandez during a Christmas celebration benefiting a total of 400 poor children between Dec. 21 and 23. The party was Kevin Rodriguez's idea.

Lost and Found

This is one of the biggest Christmas parties for poor children ever celebrated in Rivera Hernandez. Over the course of three days, 400 boys and girls are getting dolls and toy cars, clothing, fried rice, candy, tamales and cake. Some of the food was purchased locally to support neighborhood micro businesses. It’s a celebration few families here could afford.

The reason I am here, kneeling and photographing this seething mass of happy hysteria a few days before Christmas, is simple: Four months earlier, I got lost in Rivera Hernandez while on assignment, and met a remarkable young man.

I am here because, like hundreds of people in this poor, violent neighborhood, I am Kevin Rodriguez’s amigo. But more about that later.

Armando Trull Kevin Rodriguez, 17, says he was abandoned on a trash heap in the Guamilito Market when he was 2 months old.

A Trash Heap For A Cradle

Kevin Lagos Rodriguez is 17, middle height, slender with baby features. But he speaks with the maturity of an adult. Last August, while covering another story in Honduras, on a whim, I decided to visit Rivera Hernandez. I wanted to see how this violent, gang-infested neighborhood was faring in its efforts to reduce violence, especially murders. I wandered the muddy streets and encountered Kevin by chance at the local community center where he volunteers. During a casual conversation, the teenager told me he was abandoned at the age of 2 months at the Guamilito Market in San Pedro Sula. Kevin says he was bawling and sick on a trash heap near an artisan stall. That’s how he was found by Jose Antonio Lagos, a day laborer who loads trucks at the market. The balding man with stooped shoulders would become Kevin’s adopted father.

“Kevin looked like an African baby with a swollen belly. He almost died three times during the first year we took him in,” says Lagos. Kevin’s adopted mother, Digna Emerita Rodriguez, cleans houses for a living. Years of hard work are etched on her face and on her callused hands. The family’s combined income of less than $300 a month has kept them on the margin of poverty all their lives.

Armando Trull Kevin adores his adopted mom, Digna Emerita Rodriguez, a house cleaner, for taking him in, giving him love and working long hours to pay for his schooling. He says his goal is to someday make enough money so her hands wont feel like a laborer's.

“Many times, we went to bed early, it was the best way to forget you were hungry,” Kevin says. He recalls that his life became even worse when gangs arrived in Rivera Hernandez about 10 years ago.

“The Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18 promised poor kids the sun, the moon, anything to get them to join,” he says. That was the case with Kevin. A sharp study, he was a constant target of gang recruitment starting at age 9. They wanted him as a “Posta,” the young lookouts who sound the alarm when strangers are in the neighborhood. Kevin refused those overtures, over and over. “Even at that young age I knew that life wasn’t for me,” he says.

But the young boy learned that saying no had a price.

Courtesy Kevin Rodriguez Lagos Kevin says he was raped by gang members when he was 9 because he refused to be a lookout.

The Price Of No

“It was just before my 10th birthday and I had gone out to collect cans, bottles, anything of value to pay for my school supplies,” recalls Kevin in a calm voice that betrays none of the anguish in his black eyes and smooth caramel-colored face. “That’s when three older boys, gang members, jumped me. They said, you didn’t want it the easy way ― now it’s the hard way.”

Kevin says he was beaten and raped. “Unfortunately, they abused me,” is how he refers to the brutal assault. He says he begged his mother to move away because the gang overtures continued, now laden with threats of future abuse. The poor family packed up its few belongings and ran off to another colonia, or small neighborhood, within Rivera Hernandez. It was called “La Colonia de los Descuartizadores” ― “The Colony of the Dismembered” ― a dark allusion to the local gangs’ penchant for chopping up victims.

Kevin says that their new home had a leaky tin roof, thin shaky walls, no running water and the ever-present hunger. “It was almost like living in the streets,” he says.

As a reporter covering gang violence in Central America, I thought that while tragic, Kevin’s story was not so different from thousands of Honduran youth in places like Rivera Hernandez. But I quickly changed my mind when he explained how he chose to deal with the terrible hand life dealt him.

Armando Trull Kevin has become a resource for nonprofits seeking to help in the Rivera Hernandez neighborhood.

‘Anything Is Possible’

Kevin stayed in school, graduating from elementary and middle school. The 11th-grader began attending the Por Tu Barrio, or “For Your Neighborhood,” Outreach Center as a client a few years after the rape. He transitioned from being a client of the U.S.A.I.D.-supported center to being a volunteer.

“I tutor younger kids after school, get them backpacks and school supplies by asking for donations door to door,” he says. But it’s tough to get help for Rivera Hernandez. “You could see the fear in their eyes,” Kevin says of people’s response to the neighborhood’s name.

Undaunted, Kevin launched clothing and food drives for children who were worse off than him. He celebrated street fairs on holidays such as World Children’s Day.

“I want kids to laugh and play safely in the streets and forget their poverty and the crime around them,” says the boy with a ready smile, the boy who bears the scars of violence and sometimes goes to sleep hungry. Soon, dozens of youth coalesced around Kevin, a natural leader, and started helping him in these activities.

“He never asks for anything for himself. It’s always about other people,” says 17-year-old Kenia Pineda, who volunteers with Kevin. “He always finds a way. With Kevin, anything is possible.” Soon, Kevin began representing the voice of youths in community gatherings, and nonprofits working in Rivera Hernandez approached the teen as a resource.

Armando Trull Kevin Rodriguez has empowered other youth volunteers in Rivera Hernandez to tackle challenges of hunger, poverty and violence.

No Sapos: No Snitches

One example of Kevin’s irrepressibility is the youth soccer tournament he organized in the sector controlled by Barrio 18, one of the most violent gangs in the neighborhood.

“I have held events in other gang sectors, but Barrio 18 never allows outsiders in their territory,” Kevin says. It was a challenge he wouldn’t pass up. “I begged a friend to introduce me to the Barrio 18 boss,” he says. “I was terrified when they took me to a secret location and the boss started shouting at me, but I was polite and told him we wanted to do something for the youth in his community. When he slammed his gun on a table, I thought I was dead; so did his bodyguards.”

But the boss agreed, with a warning: no sapos, or snitches, and no photos. The tournament was a success. “Gang members have kids too, they want their children to play without fear,” Kevin says.

Armando Trull Criminal gangs have divided Rivera Hernandez into respective turfs. The frontiers are invisible, but everyone knows where the boundaries are.

Solutions From Within The Community

U.S. officials believe that solutions to lowering the violence in places such as Rivera Hernandez must come from within the community. Miguel Reabold, who works for U.S.A.I.D. in Honduras, says Kevin’s outreach with young people “is fundamental to how things are changing in Rivera Hernandez.”

The colonia has seen a significant decrease in homicides over the past three years. USAID Officials and Honduran police estimate that homicide rates in Rivera Hernandez for 2016 have fallen about 63 percent from a high of almost 200 three years ago in 2013.

“It’s an ecosystem where the schools are under siege by gangs, and anything that brings people together goes a long way in lowering the risk factors of youth violence,” he adds.

Armando Trull USAID officials say community-driven solutions, such as the activities Kevin promotes, are key to reaching at-risk youth and lowering gang violence.

A Surprise Christmas Gift

I had mentioned that I was partially responsible for the holiday celebrations in Rivera Hernandez. That’s because I raised the donations to fund the parties through friends and colleagues in Washington, D.C., who like me were impressed by Kevin’s story and his desire to help his community.

But the one thing that nagged me was that he never asked for anything for himself.

The Centro Cultural Sampedrano is one of the most respected private school programs in Honduras. It also hosts the Education USA Center ― a U.S. State Department-funded project that offers scholarships to promising Honduran high school students. The low-income youth selected for Access, a program run out of CCS as a public diplomacy initiative, are taught English and leadership skills, and are included in a recruitment pool for programs at American Universities. Many go on to good-paying jobs in Honduras and abroad.

“We are opening all kinds of doors to Honduran youth here,” says Omar Cerella, the school director. After the Christmas celebrations, I took Kevin to CCS one rainy afternoon to see if that door could open for him as well.

He never dreamed he would ever visit the school, let alone study here. The facilities are impressive. The Ben Franklin Library has English-language periodicals, magazines and books in a well-lit setting of leather, wood and carpets in grays, blues and reds. There’s a Kindle station with a half-dozen devices, a computer lab, a glass-enclosed conference room and a 3-D printer.

“I can’t believe my eyes,” Kevin said softly as we walked through the modern facility escorted by Cerella. A kid raised in a neighborhood with unpaved streets, poor drainage, cinder block homes with leaky tin roofs, oppressive squalor, hunger and violence ― a kid who lives in a house whose front door is a curtain, and who sometimes goes to bed hungry ― was getting a glimpse of another universe.

What Kevin didn’t know was that he was being interviewed for a space shuttle ticket to that universe, courtesy of a scholarship to CCS. I had reached out to Cerella and asked him to meet Kevin, hear his story and consider allowing him into the program. Kevin’s 3.5 GPA in the 11th grade was sufficient, but it was his moral strength as a young respected community leader that I felt might win him a spot.

Kevin recounted his story inside that glass-enclosed conference room. I watched the director’s impassive face as Kevin’s life of abandonment, rape, poverty and hope unfolded.

Armando Trull CSS Director Omar Cerella informs Kevin he has been accepted to a two-year program at the prestigious center.

At the end, Cerella told Kevin, “You’ve asked yourself many times why these bad things have happened to you, but are you ready to do something about those things?”

Kevin looked puzzled, but I knew what that meant: He was in!

The next words confirmed it: “Welcome, Kevin, can you start in January?”

The boy who has nothing and has given so much to others got the Christmas gift of a lifetime.

“With everything that I will learn here, I can help so many more people,” he told me. That is the quintessential Kevin Rodriguez. Feliz Navidad Kevin, I am proud to call you “mi amigo.”

Armando Trull is a senior reporter at WAMU 885.