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Greetings from Latacunga, Ecuador.&nbsp;&nbsp;I have had the pleasure of accompaning our Chapter Training Directors on a trip to Ecuador.&nbsp;&nbsp;This has been a great opportunity to evaluate our training curriculum and methods up against the opportunities and challenges of what our Volunteers our tasked with in communities.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ecuador with is an amazing country with wonderful people in beautiful but also challenging high altitude communities.&nbsp;&nbsp;We are working with two NGO partners here. PLAN is a international community development organization who we partner with in several other countries.&nbsp;&nbsp;The other organization is based here in Ecuador, FEPP,&nbsp;&nbsp;Fondo Equitoriano Populorum Progressio.</p>
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Over the past two days I have visited several of our communities, including two over 13,500.&nbsp;&nbsp;From my observations and from what I have heard from my colleagues, these may be some of the most challenging enviroments&nbsp;&nbsp;in which we place Volunteers. Every AMIGOS project challenges a Volunteer and thus creates the platform to develop leadership skills.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ecuador is no exception. I am very impressed with the level of determination and spirit that our Volunteers here have. We also had the opportunity to meet with three great AMIGOS Alumni who are living the dream of working in Latin America in a role inspired by their AMIGOS experience. Gina Cicerone, Lisa Williams, and Claire Nicklin are all doing important work which they credit AMIGOS for igniting.</p>