Good morning and welcome to my home.
It is a real pleasure to receive today a group of professionals as diverse as you. Among this group we have public servants, police officers, university teachers, social activists, and journalists, among others. But, although they work for different sectors or with different mandates, there are two important things that unite them.
First, you were chosen for being leaders in your professional fields and the best that Honduras has to offer. And second, we are confident that everyone here could have the greatest impact on the country by completing the International Visitor Leadership Program, or IVLP.
You are already part of a network of more than 200,000 world leaders, since the IVLP was founded in 1940. IVLP alumni are leading the charge and collaborating with one another to generate solutions to combat the great global challenges we face today.
From your IVLP experience with the United States, you developed professional skills and made meaningful connections. They came back with new knowledge, ideas, and contacts from their exchange. And I hope you could see that even though we have different cultures, opinions, or ways of doing things, we share the same aspirations for our families, our communities, and our countries.
That is the fundamental purpose of the IVLP exchange: to promote mutual understanding between our two nations.
You are not only a valuable source of resources for Honduras, but also important partners of the Embassy. At the Embassy, we value the contributions you make to the development of your communities. We hope that with this meeting, these individual efforts will become a group effort that generates a greater impact to achieve a more prosperous and secure Honduras.
We know that due to the diversity of fields in which they operate, working together can be a complex task. However, this diversity provides them with the unique strength and richness of a forum of experts and leaders united by a common goal: the sustainable development of Honduras.
We want to continue strengthening our relationship of friendship and collaboration, and continue supporting your future projects and initiatives, the result of your exchange. After all, who better than you, experts in your fields, to know first-hand the needs and the necessary actions that we must promote to support the development of Honduras?
Thank you very much for your commitment to us and to your country.
And congratulations for having completed a successful exchange and full of much learning.
