Today on the podcast we’re talking to Annie Bacon, the Executive Director of Seeds of Learning, a non-profit organization that works to improve educational opportunities in rural Latin America. I caught up with Annie in her car, (she’s a very busy person) but even though the sound quality isn’t the greatest, I thought this conversation was worth sharing.

In 2011, I took my first trip with Seeds of Learning. I took along 18 high school students, two of which were my own, to a remote village in El Salvador. For a week we lived in a rustic retreat center, without the benefits of indoor plumbing or hot showers. We spent our days digging a trench in the sun baked earth. We were preparing the ground for the foundation of a new school, one that would be completed over the course of one summer by a stream of volunteers and community members, most of whom we would never meet.

In the evening we would gather together and discuss our day, processing what we had seen and the inevitable emotions that seemed to course through our bodies. The poverty was unmistakable. For many of the students, it was the first time they’d ever seen anything like it and yet they were struck by the resilience of the people they met. The enthusiasm of the students who spent hours in tin walled classrooms that baked with the heat of the midday sun - without books or supplies, the things they’d taken for granted.

I have done that trip many times since, with more students than I can remember. Each time, whether it is in a small remote village in El Salvador or the mountains in Nicaragua, the story is the same. We’ve come here to make a difference. To give a community a chance for something better. A commitment to making the world just a little bit better.

But we’ve left with so much more. With a better understanding of the world we live in. Of the struggles that so much of the world faces. Of limited resources. Governments that do not always value the needs of the people they are meant to represent. Of communities where there is endless need. And the responsibility we have to do what we can to make a difference.

For more than 23 years, Annie Bacon has worked with Seeds of Learning. First as a work group volunteer in 1994 and later when she returned to work as an intern during a semester abroad program in 1997 and the summer of 1998. In 1999, she began full time work with Seeds of Learning as the Program Administrator splitting her time between Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the US. Later she became the Program Coordinator, Director, and 8 years ago, SOL's Executive Director. The organization works with North and Central Americans to build and equip schools in Nicaragua and El Salvador, educate children and adults, and promote cross cultural understanding. 

Annie has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with Concentrations in Latin American and Peace and Conflict Studies from Swarthmore College. She lives in northern California with her husband Juan and son Santiago.

You can listen to her episode here.