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Bruce Harris, an internationally known and respected child
care advocate, is Executive Director of Latin American Programs for Covenant
House (Casa Alianza in Spanish), one of America’s largest privately funded and
operated child care agency.
In this position, Harris oversees and directs the operations
of Casa Alianza located in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. Like
their counter parts in North America, these Covenant House facilities provide
food, shelter, medical care, counseling, education, skill training and other
services to thousands of homeless youngsters who are often abandoned to a life
of survival on the streets.
Harris personally led the campaign in Guatemala to bring a
halt to the murder and torture of local street children. By the end of 2001,
more than 420 judicial cases were initiated against police officers and others
in Guatemala suspected of committing these and other offenses against local
street kids. Much of the evidence that made the prosecutions possible was
gathered by Harris and his team of outreach workers. Harris has represented
Casa Alianza in the presentation of 10 accusations of human rights violations
against the States of Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras before the Inter
American Commission on Human Rights. In January 1999, he also declared before
the Inter American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica in a case
brought by Casa Alianza which led to the December 1999 ruling against the State
of Guatemala, the first ever ruling by the Court for a case involving human
rights abuses against children.
Harris was named in Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II’s
Birthday Honors List in 2001 and invested into the Order of the British Empire
(OBE).
Casa Alianza’s work has been hailed by Amnesty International
and other human rights groups. In 2000 Casa Alianza was awarded the Conrad
Hilton Humanitarian Prize of US$ 1 million - the largest humanitarian prize in
the world.
Covenant House and Bruce Harris were awarded the prestigious
“Olof Palme Prize” in January 1997 by the people of Sweden, and the “1999
International Award for Human Rights” from the International Bureau of
Children’s Rights in Canada. They have also captured the attention of the
world’s media and have been profiled on CNN, ABC News, CBC, NBC’s Prime Time
Live and twice on the BBC’s “Everyman” documentary series, amongst many others.
Harris was appointed Executive Director for Latin American
Programs of Covenant House in August 1989. Prior to joining Covenant House, Mr.
Harris was the Resource Development Manager for Save the Children Federation, a
private non-profit community development agency working in 45 countries
worldwide. From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Harris was the agency’s Bolivian Field Office
Director where he successfully initiated and developed Save the Children
operations in that country. For his efforts there, Mr. Harris was decorated by
the Bolivian government with the nation’s second highest civilian award. From
1983 to 1985 Harris was the Assistant Director of Save the Children in Mexico,
working in both Sonora and Chiapas.
From 1975 through 1980, Harris worked and performed with the
international musical organization “Up With People”. In 1992 he was awarded the
Up With People “J. Blanton Belk Outstanding Alumni Award”.
Mr. Harris earned his Bachelors degree in International
Development Studies from the Experiment in International Living’s School for
International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont (USA). He also holds a Masters
degree in International Business Management from “Thunderbird”, the American
Graduate School of International Management in Arizona (USA), where he was
awarded the “Barton Kyle Yount” Founders Award. In November 1999 he won
Thunderbird’s “Distinguished Alumni Award”. He is a native of Great Britain,
married to Patricia, his Bolivian wife. They have two children, Daniel (12) and
Christopher (10) and currently reside in San José, Costa Rica
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