BPD’s Companion Projects in San Martín Jilotepeque continued to expand.
Fortunately, collaborations with other organizations provided a big boost to supply funds for the projects.
Concurrently, it became apparent to the leadership of BPD and BFG that the two institutions could fulfill their individual missions more effectively by working separately rather than together. BFG was financially able to sustain the Clinic and Hospital in Chimaltenango, and BPD had a full plate of community development work. This change was seen by some as an unfortunate separation, and for others as a step forward in the growth of both entities, expanding the work begun by Doc Behrhorst decades earlier.
Institutional changes were made, appropriate to our mission. In 2006 BPD formed a new legal entity in Guatemala, ABPD, which is responsible for the program development and management. ABPD employs multiple bilingual (Kaqchikel/Spanish) staff, including specialists in nutrition, sanitation/water systems, agronomy, social work, education and program monitoring and evaluation.
In addition to possessing technical training and skills, the largely Kaqchikel staff is intimately familiar with the culture and language of the people the organization serves — a principle equally important today as it was when the work in Chimaltenango began so many years ago.
