Greetings!
We hope all are well. The People's Consultants thought you may be interested in learning the 2019 Summit in Guatemala has begun! Our host Joe Wakely and fervent supported Dr. Todd Thompson arrived in Guatemala earlier this week. The two of them have been working hard and arranged some important meetings for the week ahead.
This years attendees, Shari Ranney, Jo Thornton, Janet Seddon and Gail Cardarpoli, will all be arriving in Guatemala tonight. Thank you for joining us! Their arrival will be celebrated with Bruce Clemens, Todd and Joe in Guatemala City. Sunday will kick off with a morning meeting with Lic. Carlos Gomez who will present to the group. Carlos was a past general director of Agua del Pueblo during which time he achieved great success and had a lasting impact on the organization. While director, Carlos was overseeing ten or more projects a year while receiving generous monetary donations from USAID to support valuable programs. Most importantly, Carlos led AdP through the most difficult days of the Guatemalan Civil War. He is personally credited with saving many lives. He was able to negotiate with the guerillas and the army! During those days, a number of AdP founders, employees and associates were assassinated. The government was trying to eliminate the Mayan leadership and inteligensia. Needless to say, AdP has prevailed through challenging times and continues to work on improving lives through projects focused on clean water and sanitation. Michael Ewens and Penny Rambacher, the founder and director of Miracles in Action, will also join us for Carlos’ talk. Michael has been overseeing great Rotary WASH projects in Northern Quiche (Nebaj, Chajil, Cotzal and the Ixcan). Mike would like to brainstorm with us about collaboration with host Rotary Clubs in Guatemala. While Northern Quiche is not in the Lake Atitlan watershed, limiting collaboration opportunities with the Rotary Club Lake Atitlan, we are excited to brainstorm.
Following the morning meeting with Carlos we’ll travel to San Lucas in the afternoon and meet up with Paul Wise and the volunteers at the San Lucas Mission including Cecilia. We have an exciting week ahead of us and are looking forward to kicking it off with a great day tomorrow.
Thank you for following along and we hope to provide additional updates as the week progresses. Please feel free to reach out with inquiries about any topics you may be interested in learning about while we are in Guatemala.