Promoting awareness among people of all ages on how to live in harmony with animals, the environment and one another is the overriding objective of the Alianza por una Educación Humanitaria (Alliance for Human Education), which is celebrating its tenth anniversary of outreach activities in the Lake Chapala region.

APEH/HEA is an umbrella group for three non-profit organizations that share common values and aspirations to build bridges for the emergence of healthy and safe communities for all living beings and a culture of non-violence. It was founded in 2011 by John Marshall of Lakeside Friends of the Animals, Bernardine Janzen of Butterflies in Mexico and María Teresa Jiménez González of La Tienda de la Ciencia. All three remain at the helm with new board member Melisa Ladrón de Guevara.

To achieve their goal of developing and delivering programs that educate children in the care, protection and responsibility to all species, the APEH/HEA team created the Guardians of the Planet curriculum to be introduced through outreach to elementary schools. The program, approved by the Jalisco Education Department, is presented in classrooms during one-hour sessions over a period of six weeks. It is complemented with the six-episode video series put together under the acronym ESPERA, summarizing the theme topics of education, health, protection, sterilization, respect and adoption.

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