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"I value and respect the work of Partners of the Americas. The growing interdependence of our hemisphere and the common problems we face demand that we work together as communities and as countries. In the process, different cultures are encountered and languages learned. The citizens of our countries are enriched by their international involvement through the Partners."
Bill Clinton
Former President of the United States
"Relations between governments can be very formal and can restrict relationships between many people. Partners of the Americas works hard to cement relationships between people and private institutions."
Aureliano Chaves de Mendonça
Vice President of Brazil
"In the past quarter century, you and your predecessors have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for the better in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Your many programs in areas such as small business development, agriculture, health, emergency preparedness training and culture and the arts, continue to supply help and hope."
Ronald Reagan
Former President of the United States
"The Americas need your organization's participation now more than ever. The time has come for you to chart a more urgent expansion of the Partners' movement and to spread more aggressively the gospel of your people-to-people crusade, working with the experience that you have gained, exploring new horizons in the hemisphere -- within the region, within your own countries -- to bring even more programs
to the doorsteps of people's lives."
H.E. Keith Johnson, O.J., C.D.
Ambassador of Jamaica to the United States
"By bringing citizens from the Western Hemisphere together to share their traditions, Partners is a wonderful example of what can be accomplished when we work together."
"By making mutual respect and development a priority in the Western Hemisphere, Partners of the Americas has been able to make a better life for communities in Latin America and the Caribbean."
Joseph D. Duffey
Director U.S. Information Agency
"I first came in contact with the work of Partners of the Americas over twenty years ago in El Salvador, long before I ever dreamed of becoming my country's representative to the United States. Since then, my admiration and gratitude for the work performed by the Partners in my country has constantly increased. The remarkable quality of the volunteers, their devotion, their skills and principally their love for others, is indeed inspiring."
Ernesto Rivas-Gallont
Former Ambassador of El Salvador to the United States
"For many years, the Peace Corps and Partners of the Americas have been able to combine forces in Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay and other nations in the Americas. With the tremendous challenges facing our world in the 21st century, this kind of public-private partnership allows us to complement and extend each others human resources. Collaboration and cooperation are the keys to solving the problems of our ever interdependent world. I salute you!"
Loret Miller Ruppe
Former Director Peace Corps
"The basic assistance nature of the early years of the Partners' work evolved gradually to meet new expectations, to shape new forms of cooperation. Instead of remedial action to isolated economic and social syndromes, we can feel now a genuine effort to identify larger problems, to encourage the local potential for self-help and to foster joint-ventures, as real partners ought to do."
Sergio Correa da Costa
Former Ambassador of Brazil to the United States
"The Partners have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dream because they never lost sight of that rare and precious factor of equality. They became we, and the reverse. And suddenly it is the biggest PVO in Latin America. And the most democratic. Thanks for the lesson and example. Bravo."
Ambassador Jack Hood Vaughn
Former Peace Corps Director
"The success of the Partners program is in its ability to forge a bi-national union of the private sector to focus on human needs. Partners has been on the cutting edge of some of the most pervasive social issues that confront our societies - issues like drugs, AIDS and how to weave the disabled into the fabric of society. We at the Bank admire your efforts in these important social areas."
Enrique Iglesias
President
Inter-American Development Bank
"The last quarter of a century has seen waves of temporarily fashionable approaches to the promotion of economic development. But, throughout this period, Partners' emphasis on individual, private and reciprocal relationships has remained constant. Partners' quiet success and enviable reputation derive from sticking with what works and doing it well."
José Sorzano
Former Director for Latin America, National Security Council
"During its thirty years of existence, Partners of the Americas has accomplished much with very few material resources, large amounts of imagination and untold quantities of good will. I am proud to have been able to help Partners during my tenure at the U.S. Congress and wish them all the best for the next thirty years"
Dante B. Fascell
Former Member of Congress, 1994
"President Cardoso's visit to the United States highlighted the partnership and the special relationship between our two countries. In the private sector, the Partners of the Americas organization embodies the spirit of equal partners, each side contributing and receiving."
Paulo Tarso Flecha de Lima
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States
"The sister states of Maine and Rio Grande do Norte have much in common. The people share a heritage of personal pride, concern for others, and a sense of being that comes from the generations whose livelihood has come from the land and sea. The Partners program has given many Maine people the opportunity to experience, first hand, the common desires and needs that all people share in this shrinking world. We are grateful to President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and the Partners of the Americas for enriching our lives."
Kenneth M. Curtis
Former Governor of Maine
"Throughout the years, Partners has made a very positive people-to-people contribution to Brazil-U.S. relations. Your citizen diplomats are a great complement to our official diplomatic corps."
Melvyn Levitsky
Former U.S. Ambassador to Brazil
"Partners' school preparedness programs teach values such as responsibility and solidarity in addition to promoting concern for family and safety at home. Children learn that their lives, and those of their families, are valuable."
Isidro Piñeda
Vice Minister of Education, Honduras
"How we respond to the challenges and opportunities of the 1990s will have an important bearing on the character of the hemisphere in which succeeding generations will be living in the next century. You - the volunteers of Partners of the Americas - can play a key role in this effort."
Aaron S. Williams
Deputy Assistant Administration
Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S. Agency for International Development
"Partners of the Americas and the Wisconsin-Nicaragua Partners represent the best that our two countries have to offer. Working together, they are forging strong linkages at the local level. They are putting in the hands of the most needy the tools they require to improve their own lives."
John Maisto
Former U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua
"Partners' Emergency Preparedness Program continues to give us opportunities for our emergency management professionals to test our methods in new situations and to apply at home what they learn in Ecuador. This people-to-people program works because it is a two-way street and each side of the partnership learns from the other."
Robert L. DeZarn
Major General, Adj. General for Kentucky
Director of Disaster and Emergency Services
"The Partners approach and philosophy of building bridges between people and institutions in Brazil and the United States is vital to sharing relevant lessons among citizens in the Americas, so that together we can build a strong civil society in our hemisphere."
Miguel Darcy
President, Instituto de Ação Cultural (Institute of Cultural Action)
"A vital role is played by Partners of the Americas in furthering international understanding. As the world community draws increasingly closer through technological advances, it is now more important than ever to increase our understanding of our neighbors around the world."
Zell Miller
Former Governor of Georgia
"Your organization has much to be proud of, as it has been in the front ranks of the battle of democracy in this hemisphere."
"The focus on democracy - and specifically our interest in identifying concrete ways in which democracy can be strengthened - directs attention immediately to the kind of grassroots volunteerism that is promoted by your partnerships."
"Partners are at the forefront of the consolidation of democracy in the Western Hemisphere. The networks and exchanges that you have promoted over the years are essential tools in the building of the civil society upon which democracy ultimately rests."
Alexander F. Watson
Assistant Secretary of State
Inter-American Affairs Bureau, USAID
"For many years, Partners has been working to improve our community life. We at Alcoa Aluminio in Brazil are proud to forge a partnership between the market forces and the nonprofit sector."
Dr. Marcelo Barreto Vianna
President Alcoa Cultural and Philanthropic Institute
"Through the Partner chapters in Latin America and the Caribbean, AID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance has recruited outstanding disaster managers in the region. In addition, significant number of technical experts in the U.S. partnerships have been matched with training needs in various Latin American countries. The working relationship with Partners is one of the closest and most productive that OFDA has anywhere."
Paul Bell
Senior Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean
Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, USAID | 
