Global conversations
This will sadly be my final FCO blog. After nine very satisfying years of working at the British Embassy in San Jose I have decided to move on to new employment challenges. Preparing for my departure has allowed me to reflect on some of the great moments I have had the privilege of experiencing over the years. Campaigning for better conditions for child prisoners in Nicaragua, the climate change work we undertook … Read more »Back to the Future: Bruce Callow signing off
Stewart Jackson MP guest blogs on the recent visit of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (BGIPU) to Costa Rica and El Salvador There are few more interesting places to visit in Central and Latin America than Costa Rica and El Salvador, the venues for an IPU Parliamentary outbound visit in February, the first for a number of years. Both have similar constitutional arrangements, a directly elected President, term limited … Read more »British Parliamentarians get insight into Central America
Sports unify people of different ethnic, religious, social, and cultural backgrounds and can be a powerful force to make the world a better place. In the run up to last year’s London Olympic and Paralympic Games I was fortunate to have been able to have participated in a number of activities to promote the Games and it was exciting to see how well everything went in London. Here in Costa … Read more »South Korea’s Dream Program Inspires the World
John McKendrick is a Barrister at the UK Barristers Chambers Outer Temple Chambers and is a specialist in European Regulatory Law. At the invitation of the British Embassy Mr. McKendrick took part in a congress at the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly last month to promote the Association Agreement between Central America and the EU. John has written the guest post below. Standing on the lip of the crater of the volcano Irazu, I struggled to look into … Read more »Opening doors between the EU and Central America
Alianza Por Tus Derechos (Alliance For Your Rights) is a Non-Governmental organisation based in Costa Rica and is dedicated to the defence and promotion of human rights and education for children and adolescents. To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Alianza’s Executive Director Rocio Rodriguez Garcia has written the following guest post: Since 2004 Alianza Por Tus Derechos has been working with the British Embassy in San Jose on … Read more »Defending Women’s Rights in Costa Rica
An important element of our recent trip to the Falkland Islands was documenting our activities on film in order to share our experiences with audiences in Latin America and beyond. We have produced a seven minute film that features the perspectives of the Central American journalists we took to the Falklands:
Luis Alberto Velasquez is a journalist with the Guatemalan newspaper La Prensa Libre and recently visited the Falkland Islands with a group of journalists from Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In the guest post below Luis Alberto shares some thoughts about his recent trip. My trip to the Falkland Islands is something that will remain in my mind as a very enriching and unforgettable experience. The perceptions that people in my region have about the Falkland Islands do not … Read more »From Guatemala to the Falkland Islands
Yasmina Reyes is the Editor of the International Section of the La Prensa newspaper in Panama City and was one of the journalists from Central America that recently travelled to the Falkland Islands. She has written the guest post below about her experience. When my director told me I was going to travel to the Falkland Islands I thought I was hearing wrong. The Falklands? Wow! That is at the end of the world. … Read more »A Panamanian View of the Falkland Islands
We are now all back home after an exhausting 24 hour journey from the Falklands and having split up in Panama to catch our final flights. As we sleepily said goodbye I felt a great satisfaction in the way things had gone over of the past week. Particularly the truly cooperative spirit that our diverse group of journalists brought to the trip. On the penultimate day our journalists were interviewed … Read more »Reflections from our visit to the Falkland Islands
Over the last two days our group has had a chance to learn more about the culture and the sports enjoyed here on the Islands. It is good to see that there is a wide variety of sports played here including cricket, badmington, archery, golf and floor hockey. Governor Nigel Haywood explained that the development of sports in the Falkland Islands is very important for building community spirit, physical fitness as … Read more »Culture and Sport in the Falkland Islands