CEF Welcomes Matthew Pattinson as Guatemala Co-Chair

Rey Buenaventura for Compassionate Eye Foundation

CEF is proud to announce that Matthew Pattinson has joined the CEF Board of Directors as Co-Chair for Guatemala.  Matthew is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of British Columbia and speaks fluent Spanish.  He comes to CEF with extensive international development experience having worked on economic and community development projects in both Latin America and West Africa.

With a strong background in business administration, Matthew believes that business concepts can be used not just to create profit, but effect positive social change as well.  As he notes, “I am passionate about using business concepts to facilitate a more socially and environmentally sustainable world...  I am also interested in social businesses which are created to maximize the social good rather than profit.”

It is out of his drive to connect business ideas and social change that lead Matthew to volunteer with CEF two years ago.  He notes that he was initially interested in joining CEF because of our unique funding model.  He saw fund-raising through photography as a creative and effective way for project volunteers like himself to focus on the development projects themselves.

Since joining the CEF family, Matthew has worked as the Project and Research Coordinator and a Project Lead on various health, education & community development projects in Guatemala.  He states that his proudest achievement to date has been the long-term partnership he’s been able to build with the communities he’s worked with in Guatemala.  A relationship that’s built on a culture of understanding & friendship, whereby the people he’s trying to help feel that they’re being listened to and that they are part of the process.  CEF would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome Matthew to the CEF Board.

As a way to help CEF’s supporters get to know Matthew better and learn more about the various projects he’s worked on, he has kindly agreed to share some of his personal journal entries with all of you.  As such, over the next week or so, we will be posting several journal excerpts which recounts some of Matthew’s most memorable experiences during his time in Guatemala.  We hope that by doing so, it will give you, our readers, the rare opportunity to see what it’s like to be on the frontlines of CEF projects.