Welcome Barbara Nijhuis, Executive Director
Welcome Barbara Nijhuis, joining Safe Passage as Executive Director on July 1st.
Since the tragic death in January of Hanley Denning, founder and director of Safe Passage since 1999, the Board, staff, volunteers and supporters have thrown themselves into preserving and strengthening Hanley’s extraordinary legacy and commitment to the families and children in the community of the Guatemala City garbage dump. The Board of Directors spent several months in a world-wide search and interviews with prospective candidates for the Executive Director position. 
The Board of Safe Passage is pleased to announce that Barbara Nijhuis (pronounced nigh house) was unanimously chosen to become the next Executive Director of the organization. Barbara enthusiastically accepted the offer and will take up this position as of July 1st, following a brief visit to the U.S. headquarters of Safe Passage in Yarmouth, Maine at the end of June. Barbara is a Dutch national, thirty-six years old, studied history, literature, languages (French, Spanish, German and English), and received a law degree from the University of Amsterdam in 1997. Barbara's experience as founder and director of the Amigos de San Juan de Flores Foundation in El Progreso, Guatemala, combined with her legal and business background in Europe, convinced the Board that she was the right person to take Safe Passage forward. In May, Barbara interviewed with the Board, staff, volunteers, children, and parents in the program. It was clear that Barbara’s positive energy, sense of humor, enthusiasm, directness, highly perceptive analytical skills, team-building and visionary leadership abilities are all crucial for the continued success of Safe Passage. 
Barbara fell in love with Guatemala when she came to volunteer with the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Guatemala City in 1998, working with “Empresarios Juveniles” (youth business development in Central America) and teaching a year of high school in San Juan de Flores. Her experience in San Juan de Flores encouraged her to start a foundation to promote education, health, and economic empowerment projects within the village. Barbara helped to foster the conditions for the young people on educational scholarships “to act as a group of young leaders”. She describes the goals of the foundation as stimulating the youth to “take responsibility to change the situation of those who live in a poor village.” Barbara is passing the reins of the San Juan de Flores project to other capable hands in order to focus all of her energies on Safe Passage.
From 2002 to 2006, Barbara managed to combine a challenging job as Executive Assistant to the international board of the APX Group, a European power exchange, with fundraising for her foundation and regular trips to Guatemala. In 2006 she spent her time in village coordinating projects. Her parents have visited her in Guatemala and her sister is also planning to come. Barbara has a dedicated group of friends all over the world who support her in this exciting decision to move to Guatemala and have promised to visit her there.
When asked what she thought would be the most fascinating thing about this job, Barbara said "I love working in Guatemala, to see the smiles on the faces of children and teens, how eager they are to learn new things, and how hard they work to make full use of the chances they are getting! I am looking forward to working with all the dedicated and capable people at Safe Passage, and, as a team, to continue to make a difference in the lives of all the children around the Guatemala City garbage dump. As individuals, we should never forget to live our dreams and to have the confidence to create important changes in the world."
Most importantly, Barbara shares Hanley’s vision about the central role of education in breaking the cycle of poverty. In Barbara’s words, “If there is only one thing that I had to name that I learned from my stay in Guatemala, then this is it: education is the only way to make a change in the world, or more concretely, to make a change in the life of a specific person. Without education, it is hard to survive, not only in Guatemala, but also in the Netherlands or in the United States of America.”
Please join us in welcoming Barbara Nijhuis to the Safe Passage family.
