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A New Partnership with iLEAP
– By Nelson, NPH Honduras
The Leadership Program students had the opportunity to spend five days in a special iLEAP program.
What does iLEAP mean? iLEAP is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire and renew social leaders and global citizens through integrated leadership programs that ignite hope and transformation in the world.
This is the first time the NPH Leadership Institute has partnered with iLEAP, so I would like to share a little about this wonderful experience that the leadership students had at iLEAP.
We started on Friday, March, 27th. We arrived at 9:30 am after a tiring week where we had fundraising activities with NPH USA. Even though we were tired, we had the attitude to start working for the next five days in different topics, and take advantage of this iLEAP program.
First of all, we worked in many interesting topics that really caused us to think about what it means to be a good leader in our respective societies. One thing that really caused us to think about leadership was when we visited two places: Theo Chocolate and Farestart. Both of them are social businesses that are working with people to improve their lives and find the best version of themselves.
The following are our personal reflections about our week at iLEAP:
Nelson Alvarez: For me this program was helpful in many ways. By working in many topics I learned that leadership is not position, it is because whatever you are working you are demonstrating leadership, it does not matter if you work, for example, as a teacher or as a policeman you are demonstrating leadership as well. It helped me to clarify my own vision for the next years.
Lucrecia Guadamuz: I think iLEAP is a good program because it is focused on understanding yourself first and then you can lead others. The leadership concept that they teach is based in a practical and real way.
Florine St. Eloi: I think it is a really good organization which helps people developing their leadership, and to make it in practice with others and for others not just for ourselves.
Luisa Riquiac: In my own opinion iLEAP inspires you how to work in a reasonable leadership style and to make good decisions for a group not only for yourself.
Samuel Chavez: iLEAP changed my ideas about leadership and it re-opened my eyes after having a bad situation and wondering about my abilities as a leader. Now I feel more confident about myself and I am sure that I can be a leader in different ways.
Magda Altamirano: iLEAP is an interesting program where you discovered abilities and characteristics that we have as leaders, it helps us to learn how we can improve other qualities and help others.
And a reflection from Kara too…
Kara King: For me, it is exciting to embark on this new partnership with the wonderful folks at iLEAP. Since the first year of our program here in Seattle, Britt has been a guide for me in developing the program. It is good to be working together, for I have seen their good work over the past four years and feel so grateful to have our emerging NPH leaders experience the iLEAP way as well. I think we are all looking forward to dreaming together and seeing how we can make our partnership even stronger next year.
~ ~ ~
As you can see this program was helpful for all of us, the leadership program students, in different ways and I am sure that we will share all this knowledge with our brothers and sisters of NPH.
Thanks to our NPH family and our new iLEAP family for making this possible!
An Evening with Sonia Nazario
By: Nelson Alvarez Hernandez
(written in English by Nelson!)
What can I say? This experience started in one of our leadership meetings. I said something about an article that I read on Univision, and it talks about a social issue, migration. I was surprised by this article because this media shows quite relevant numbers about migration especially highlighting the children that every year cross the borders to find their mother that left them when they were 5 years old or less. So when Kara asked me if I wanted introduce a writer, the main question that I had in my mind was “who is Sonia Nazario?”
And immediately I said yes.
Then my host family gave me a brief biography on Sonia Nazario. A few days later my host family bought me “Enrique’s Journey”. When I started reading the book I did not want to stop reading this wonderful book. My experience reading Enrique’s Journey has been one of the most important in my life because this book talks about a reality that we are living now in our Central American countries, where thousands of children are traveling every year, crossing the borders to find their mother in the US, and we see that our governments do not do anything for these people, but I know that people from other countries are working hard for us.
December 4th, 2014: I will never forget this day because it was when I met Sonia Nazario. When I met her I remember that I was reading my speech and she came in front of me and I said “I cannot believe it”. I could not believe what was happening in this moment because it was all so fast, but then I realized that I was talking with Sonia Nazario. Something that I always remember is a question that she asked me when we were talking before the conference, the question was: “Are you orphan?”. And at the beginning I was laughing because of the directness of her question. But my answer for her was, so I do not have mother and father, but I found a new family and this family is NPH. I think that NPH is my family because it always has supported me, always been there in my difficult and in my happy moments, and given me so many opportunities.
When I was in the podium introducing her, my first three minutes I felt nervous but then I felt comfortable because meeting her before the conference helped me a lot.
This experience for me is one of the most important in my life, because I met a brave, courageous woman who is fighting for the people who do not have A VOICE IN THIS SYSTEM and the poorest people and I realize that there are people working for those people.
The experience of reading “Enrique’s Journey” definitely changed my way of thinking about this social problem, and I realized the poorest people who do not have a lot are often the people who share the little that they have with each other.
This book connects to my life in many ways, first because the boy who she talks about is Honduran. Second because since he was a little boy his father abandoned him besides his mother and in my case was the same my father abandoned me and my mother died when I was two years old, so both of us were abandoned by our fathers. It is why I say I, like Enrique, could have been one of the thousands children traveling every year crossing the borders.
Nelson introducing Sonia Nazario
Panel, including former NPH Bolivia volunteer, Tio Larkin.
Nelson (NPH Honduras) with author, Sonia Nazario.
We all read her book!
Talking with Sonia after the event.
Nelson practicing his speech.
