XUNICEF News and Views

Dear XUNICEF Friends We are grateful to be able to stay in touch with family and friends from around the world, continuing a cherished family tradition that we have maintained uninterrupted since 1984.

Ines and Juan Aguilar ines@iaguilar.com juan@jraguilar.com 10 calle 16-22 zona 15 V.H. 3 Guatemala City 01015, Guatemala December 2022 Dear We are delighted get in touch with family and friends from around the world at the end of a year as we try to regain normality after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. With new variants on the horizon we look for the promise of the bi-valent booster to reach Guatemala. We celebrated our 51st Wedding Anniversary on April 17th. We are grateful for this long life together that has given us an abundance of grace, especially from our children Marcela, Andrea, and Juan Enrique, our seven grandchildren, family, and friends. We enjoyed the visits of Ines' sister, Maruja, from Argentina in June, and Marcela in September. Those were days full of happiness though they flew by quickly. Ines' health is stable and we are optimistic about the future. Juan continues to work as the Chair of the Neighborhood Committee, also with the Municipal Development...

From Yangon to Managua (1996-2002) by Juan R. Aguilar The assignment as Representative to the Union of Myanmar (Burma) came with a promotion to D-1. Ines and I arrived Yangon, at the end of August 1996. Our almost four years in Myanmar were a cultural, political, and managerial immersion experience in this vast, convulsed, mismanaged, immensely rich in natural resources, heritage, and wonderful people. Never in my professional life, was the issue of respect and defense of human rights so vividly real as in Myanmar. The motto of the new Country Programme was “The Children… the Gems of Myanmar”, the main projects were directed to complete the pending agenda of the 90’s while trying to introduce a human rights agenda in the life-skills printed materials for public schools and above all for children kept in the so-called “training schools”. Important gains were achieved in UCI and polio eradication, breastfeeding, salt iodization and basic education. A life-skills training manual SHAPE ...

Dear XUNICEF Family On the 26th Anniversary of the demise of our beloved Jim Grant, herein is my humble annual tribute, to Celebrate His Life and Legacy. Warmest regards from Guatemala Juan Aguilar IN LIVING MEMORY 1995-2021 " Jim's vision did not end at basic needs.  And it did not end at the year 2000.  For the next century too, he had his dream.  As far as I know, he never wrote about it.  And he spoke of it only rarely, for he knew it was an idea whose time had not yet come.  The shorthand name he gave to that vision was 'equity.' 'This century's struggle' he would say, 'is to meet basic needs.  The struggle of the next century will be for equity' . As always, he knew the complexities. But he would have nothing to do with the idea that all people have equal opportunity, and are equally capable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.  Out of the depths of his human decency, he knew this for the narrow and ultimately bankrupt philosophy ...