Hola Amigos y Amigas:

Espero que todos estén bien de salud mental y física. Para los que terminan el servicio, muy buena suerte en sus planes futuros y para los que continúan en Panamá, les deseo un año lleno de realizaciones personales y profesionales. Gracias a todos por su buen trabajo. Y bienvenidos los nuevos aspirantes!

Thank you all for the good job you are doing! The Promotores Seminar was a success. Congratulations to the coordinators, to the conductors of sessions, and to everyone that helped. Thank you to the "old Volunteers", the ones who are leaving, for sharing your experiences with the "new ones". Your presence made a difference.

Community Component: The Panama Verde camps were a great success. They were held at the Parque Internacional La Amistad or PILA, in Cerro Punta, Chiriquí. Beautiful place and cool weather. The Kiwanis Club sponsored the camps this year, which included food, transportation and some materials to help build trails. ANAM helped with personnel and housing facilities. Big kudos to all the PCVs who went to the camps and helped with them. Vidal Castillo, our LINCE counterpart, stayed there for the six weeks, and did an excellent job. This is Panama Verde's third year, and it seems that the idea is getting more and more momentum. Some groups have already started to program events for the year, and for next July. It is good to know that we will renew the agreement or convenio signed between PC and LINCE for the next couple of years. The end of an agreement doesn't mean that the Project ends. They are all renewable if both parties are interested.

Youth Conference: PC/W has proposed PC/P to be the host of an International Youth Conference next July 18-24. They are inviting all PC countries from the Latin-American and Asia-Pacific Region. It means 60 people, more or less, plus invitees from Panama. We need to think about organizing an activity with the different youth groups, so that the Conference Participants can see them at work. This is the school break week. Janice organized a committee at the office to help with the logistics, and there will be an inter-agency committee too, where we hope that the new Ministerio de la Juventud will participate, as well as LINCE, ANAM and others. Any of you interested to help, please contact Janice or me.

Schedule: I will be traveling most of this month. My schedule is being planned with the PCVs I am planning to visit. Please remember that my office hours are from 9 AM to 6 PM.

Take care. Remember this is a political year, please exercise extra caution verbally and physically. And remember to notify the office any time you will sleep out of your site. Saludos,

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