Quiet Legacies: Reflections from Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Guatemala

As President of Stichting Aphelion, I have been in Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Guatemala. I have seen with my own eyes. Just for two nights, I stayed in the compound of the volunteers. I wrote my diary. I needed time to reflect, and these are my thoughts. There is much to say, and I start with this.

Father William B. Wasson

Born in 1923 in Phoenix, Arizona, William Bryce Wasson, an American Catholic priest, founded Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in 1954 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to care for orphaned and abandoned children. He was a young man of 31 years of age. His mission was to provide a stable home, education, and healthcare for children in difficult situations, a stark contrast to the region's broader landscape.

In 1953 he had been ordained a priest by the Bishop of Cuernavaca. Padre Wasson had been assigned to the chapel in the Tepetates market district of Cuernavaca, and almost immediately instituted a daycare center for poor children.

A year later he rescued a boy from a harsh prison sentence for stealing from his church’s poor box “because he was hungry.” Padre Wasson talked to the boy at the police station and asked to be given custody of him. The judge was surprised but agreed, and the next day assigned eight other imprisoned boys to the young priest. That marked the beginning of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH), which means Our Little Brothers and Sisters.

Padre Wasson dedicated the last 50 years of his life to serving as a father, provider and teacher to more than 18,000 orphaned, abandoned and poor children. He has received international recognition for his work on behalf of children.

NPH now cares for children and youth in nine countries: Mexico, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Bolivia.

I would like to give now the context in which he operated, during those 50 years.

During this time, the region was a hotbed of conflict and ideological struggle. The Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara was a powerful symbol for other movements, in view of the successful overthrow of a U.S.-backed dictatorship that sparked hope for revolutionaries in Latin America and fear in Washington. This tension culminated in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a terrifying moment when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war, between the US and the Soviet Union.

Elsewhere, the ideological fervor of the Cold War fueled brutal civil wars in Latin America. The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, the long and bloody conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala, and movements like Sendero Luminoso in Peru and the Tupamaros in Uruguay all reflected a region consumed by violence and political radicalism.

That was also the time of the Vietnam War. That was the time of the Cold War. In my own country, Italy, we name those years Anni di Piombo. I was an adolescent at that time. Little I knew.

The work of Father Wasson was of a different kind.

While revolutionaries sought to change society through armed conflict, Father Wasson focused on a more direct, humanitarian approach. He was not trying to overthrow governments or change political systems. He was simply trying to provide a safe haven and a future for the most vulnerable in society—the children caught in the crossfire of poverty and conflict.

His work was a testament to the belief that even amidst widespread chaos and violence, it was possible to create a small corner of peace, education, and hope, one child at a time.

This quiet, persistent care stands in stark contrast to the dramatic and often destructive events of the time.

This story leads me to a profound, almost rhetorical question:

What remains of those civil wars, of those deaths, of those social experiments? What remains instead of Father Wasson's work? What life lessons can we draw?

The legacy of the civil wars, revolutions, and social experiments is a complex and often painful one. It includes deep political and social scars, economic devastation, and the trauma of a lost generation. While the Cold War has ended and peace accords have been signed where civil wars took place, the underlying issues of poverty and inequality that fueled those conflicts often remain unresolved.

The legacy of Father Wasson's work, however, is a different story.

The most tangible and enduring result is the tens of thousands of children who grew up in NPH's homes. They are doctors, teachers, engineers, and parents who are now contributing to their societies. The NPH organization itself continues to grow, a testament to the mission he started.

While the civil wars are now a subject for history books, the people educated and supported by NPH are a living legacy.

Their stories and successes are the direct result of Father Wasson’s quiet, persistent care. The physical and emotional scars of the civil wars may remain, but so too do the doctors and teachers who were once orphans, the schools that still stand, and the generations of families that were given a chance at a different life.

My sister, Anna Giannotti, volunteered in NPH. I only discovered the story of Father Wasson because of her.

Stichting Aphelion will support Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Guatemala in a special manner. Please, consider a donation to our foundation, and follow us.

Leo Giannotti

President, Stichting Aphelion