Our Board Chairman, José Luis Herrera, is hard at work in Maras overseeing our emerging Global Headquarters. We have completed final the design, with some wonderful improvements to the original plans, and we’re about to begin the first stages of construction. It’s a very exciting time for ARI, seeing this vision come to life.

At our recent Board meeting, Board members unanimously approved an increase of the Global Headquarters Campaign from $90,000 to $228,000. This larger budget will cover costs for the expanded design of the new headquarters. Thanks to our skilled architect in Peru, we’ll be able to add new space for volunteer housing, at the same time improving the spaces for the dental clinic and for teaching and vocational workshops – all without enlarging the footprint of the building, We have funds for the first floor and are hard at work engaging primary donors to help us fund the balance of the project.

From the ARI Board
It is a special honor to serve on ARI’s Board – to steward and participate in the extraordinary cultural exchanges that occur because ARI exists. Because it is such a unique opportunity to serve ARI, we thought you’d like to learn about our experiences as Board members in service to ARI. Board member Carol Machendrie shares her sense of ARI’s importance and how she was called to serve:

The beautiful people of the Sacred Valley and the high Andes first welcomed me when my husband and I hiked the Inca Trail and did an arduous trek around Ausangate in 1998.

That trip was life changing for me in ways that are still being revealed. I feel called by the mountain spirits and the land to keep returning to these beloved people and their landscape, to be of service to them and receive the teachings of the wisdom keepers who generously share their knowledge of abundant life and well-being. They truly inhabit the teachings of ayni and ayllu, putting the needs of the collective ahead of personal gain. At this juncture in history these teachings feel vibrant and necessary for us, to create a world that is becoming through our collective dreaming. These teachings have aided me in every aspect of my life.

ARI exists to support the cultures of the Andes and Amazon and the wisdom keepers. It is my privilege to be of service in whatever way I can contribute to support the work of ARI

Carol MacHendrie
Vice President, Fundraising

Here is our latest video showing the progress on our Global Headquarters building.