Lisa came to Guatemala and fell in love with everything, and founded Small Change 4 Big Change in 2012. She wants to empower the local indigenous families to help themselves through economic development, girls’ empowerment (the Future Girls), and to take care of their animals. She runs the low-cost veterinary clinic Amor Animal on the same property as Small Change. Email: lisa@bigchange.net
Irvin is part-time project manager and founder of Huerto Räxjuyú (Resh-who-YOU). Irvin has overseen the community gardens, teaches classes on how to raise chickens effectively at home, works with local farmers in sustainability, reforestation, and soil preservation. He also works with our bees.
Lorena is our beloved preschool teacher. Lorena was born to work with small children, and graduated as a teacher in 2019. We had our eye on her since she did her practicals here and she was excited to join Small Change in January 2020.
Franco has been with Small Change since 2017, when he did his EPS with us (semester of service required when students graduate from the public university) and then was hired to open and work as veterinarian in our clinic, Amor Animal, directly with street dogs and low-income family pets. Franco will finish his master’s degree in 2021 and, because he is a skilled surgeon, also works in other veterinary clinics and mass spay and neuter initiatives. We are blessed to have him with us part-time in the mornings and send him each year to train at Primary Care Animal Hospital in Long Beach.
Luky is the project assistant and helps with organization, animals, preschoolers, and girls on scholarship, or pretty much anything we need; we couldn’t live without her! She also is one of the teachers in the cultural classes and is part of IX women’s cooperative.
Amor Animal has a superstar team of volunteers- university students that are preparing to graduate as vet techs or veterinarians.
