Asociación para el Liderazgo en Guatemala feels satisfied and honored to have been invited to facilitate the Strachan Seminar on Self-Care that was held in Costa Rica in July 2018 and in which 65 NGO leaders from Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama participated.
All of them members of the Grantees Network of the Strachan Foundation. Self-care is something that has been often neglected in the NGOs. There are myths like self-care is a luxury, committed workers must sacrifice their personal life for the good of the mission, there is a mentality of scarcity and we can believe that working in an NGO we are indispensable. Such myths leads to burnout, where people stop working productively and even get sick. For an organization to be healthy and effective in its mission it is important that the organization take care of its personnel and that it has policies that reflect such self-care. This seminar offered techniques to promote self-care in the organizations. During the seminar, lectures and mini-workshops were presented on various aspects that participants can apply in their countries.
Asociación para el Liderazgo en Guatemala, represented by our Executive Director, Flor García Mencos, offered two plenary sessions and five mini workshops. At the end we could see with great satisfaction that these Central American leaders had increased their awareness of the importance of self-care and how to avoid burnout, they also acquired new practical skills to make changes in their organizations that will contribute to the well-being of staff and therefore have an impact on the quality of service to beneficiaries.
