HACIA has received funding from sponsors including Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the Undergraduate Council and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Increased publicity for the event also allowed Romero to successfully ask three banks in Panama to sponsor Panamanian students’ trips to the conference.

The fact that it can be available to both public and private school students “is what really makes the conference so worthwhile,” said Shull.

Romero, who is originally from Panama, attended the conference as a delegate in 1995 and 1998. She said she was inspired by listening to the other student delegates speak, and by the friendships she made there and still maintains.

“I left the conference thinking this might be something I want to do with my life,” she said.

Romero said she has seen this inspiration in many of the students attending the conference in past years. Nicaraguan public school students wanted to come to the conference so badly, she said, that they worked on their own to raise money to fund their transportation to Guatemala.

HACIA members said the last few hours before they fly south are frantic ones.

“I’m wrapping presents for some of the speakers right now,” Shull said during a telephone conversation.

HACIA’s members won’t spend their entire spring break in Guatemala City. When the conference is over, they will travel around the country.

“That’s not sponsored by HACIA,” said Shull.