The Voiceless Spotlight

Dear Advisor Partners,

As we entered the midpoint of 2021, I found myself looking back at the blogs sent out in June 2020, when fear followed confusion, and I gravitated to a blog our team wrote on June 3, 2020 titled “Because We Are Better,” (which you can read here). We talked about the difficult journey the world had undertaken, challenges in every direction, and the impacts of the world being shut down. We talked about how helping the voiceless became less of a choice but rather more of an honorable responsibility, an obligation even. It has come to a time where we can finally start to see the silver lining.

Now that the storms of 2020 are beginning to move off into the past, there is sunshine peeking through again in 2021. Yesterday the CDC and the US State Department eased restriction on 60 countries with more to come. Friends are returning to work, expeditions are restarting and people are planning and travelling. The light and the path are even brighter today. More countries are allowing vaccinated passengers to enter without testing. Europe is opening up, and progression is occurring. Everything is changing and will continue to change as we progress further into 2021 an beyond. The one thing that will not change, and cannot change, is remembering where we came from these last 12 months. I hear people talking about how bad 2020 was, and it was, no doubt, yet the one major positive is the light shining on all those suffering around the world, voiceless to their struggle. The 100,000+ that go hungry in the islands around Cartagena, the 600+ Andean weavers and their children in the communities around the Sacred Valley in Peru, the hundreds of children that now get clean drinking water in Guatemala and the 217 children from the neighboring Maasai communities receiving a promising education in Tanzania, all have much more needed visibility. The one that hit closest to my heart is the young and brave Arianis in Cartagena, who is happily in foster care now, healthy and prospering. In fact, I firmly believe this little girl will be telling her story on a Ted Talk stage one day.

This blog and the accompanying video is a reminder, as we begin to grow again, to look back where you came from these last 18 months. Let’s not forget what it took to get here, and continue to increase our social responsibility in our travels. The work we saw around the world, that inspired us to hang in there, to keep fighting, to keep struggling, isn’t going away. Those needs have always been there. The Big Five team united behind our foundation, loudly said to all those that we were fortunate to help, “we see you, we hear you.” As we begin what should be an epic recovery, we say to them now, “we still see you, we still hear you, even clearer now.”

Look back on your accomplishments, be proud of them, and rise together. Learn more about the Spirit of Big Five Foundation’s work here.