INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR CHILD WELFARE

In Memoriam

Rolando Quirós Fonseca

Dear friends of Rolando Quirós,

I spoke today, 11 January, with Rolando's daughter, Andrea, who many of you may have met when she accompanied Rolando to a WorldForum (Sydney in 2000, for example).

As I understand from Andrea, Rolando spent last Sunday 7 January with his family, as was his custom, and suddenly became ill after driving home.  He was taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with an abdominal aneurysm in the artery to his kidneys.  Rolando had an apparently successful surgery early Monday morning but his kidneys failed, causing his death on Monday afternoon.  His funeral and burial was the next day, Tuesday 9 January.  As you can imagine, Rolando's children are in shock over the suddenness of their loss.

Andrea spoke today of how much her Dad loved his friends in the IFCW.  And we loved Rolando.

As Founder and President of FEILAT, doing important child welfare work in Costa Rica, Rolando was a key leader in the three-day founding meetings of the IFCW in Haikko, Finland in 1989. The list of his contributions is long:  He was a member of the first Executive Committee 1989-1991, Vice-President in 1990-1991, Deputy President in 1991-1992, Executive Committee member 2000-2001, Vice President 2002, President 2003-2005, Deputy President 2006.

Perhaps a few will recall that Rolando was the author of the Cologne Declaration adopted in the final plenary of the first WorldForum, in August 1990, which was sent to the United Nations for inclusion in the relevant nongovernmental support documents attached to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

I personally know how much it had meant to Rolando to be a founding member of the IFCW -- and especially his work the last seven years as a member of the Executive Committee, as IFCW Vice President, as President and as Deputy President.  As our leader, he was true to his Latin heritage with his charming, gently aristocratic bearing...self-effacing, soft-spoken, deferential, slow to anger, diplomatic, kind and generous with his time and attention to each of us, and always counseling us with a wisdom that only an individual having years of extensive international involvement could possess. 

Two years before the IFCW founding meetings, Rolando served as the protocol liaison officer with the Nobel Committee when Costa Rica's President Oscar de Arias received the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.  Before working in the Costa Rican government, Rolando headed UNICEF and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) offices for Central America.

Rolando would have been 73 on 9 February.  It seems impossible that he is gone, remembering the good times many of us had with Rolando in late November at the WorldForum in Vancouver.  How grateful I am now for that time together with him and for the privilege of having him as a dear friend for eighteen years.

We expected to have the benefit of Rolando's counsel and leadership in the IFCW -- and the generosity of his friendship -- for many years to come. I can only hope Rolando knew how much he meant to all of us.

We who knew Rolando will always remember him with gratitude for his friendship, for his leadership and for his life of generous and distinguished service on behalf of the world's children.

I know that Rolando's children are aware of our sorrow at his passing and of our sympathy at their loss. For any who may wish to communicate with the Quirós Family, write to president@ifcw.org for contact information.

Sincerely,

Alan Davis

(Mr. Davis was Chair of the IFCW's Founding Meetings and IFCW's first President - 1989-1992)

PS: At we mourn his passing, it is worth noting the breadth and depth of Rolando's life experience and his many contributions to child and family welfare detailed in this 1997 curriculum vitae, when Rolando was his country's candidate for election to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva:

Rolando Quirós Fonseca (Costa Rica)

Education:

1955 B.A., Business Administration, University of Illinois, United States

1971 Diploma, Graduate School of Banking, University of Wisconsin, USA

Other Postgraduate Courses:

Child development, International Children's Centre, Paris, France

Public administration, Gatulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil

Social aspects of development, Sussex University, United Kingdom

Main Posts Held:

Director, Office of the First Lady, Office of the President of the Republic, Costa Rica

Member, Council on Central American Social Integration

Director General, Latin American Studies and Research Foundation, Costa Rica

Manager of AID financial projects, Costa Rica

Adviser, Ministry of Justice, Costa Rica

Founder and General Coordinator, Network for Children & the Family, Latin America and the Caribbean, Costa Rica

Adviser, Office of the First Lady and Second Vice-President of the Republic, Costa Rica

Director General, DEXTRO Consultants, Mexico

Director General, Latin American Studies and Research, Mexico

Adviser, Rural Development Programme, Office of Programme and Budget, Mexico

UNICEF Representative for Central America, Panama and Belize, UN Children's Fund

Comptroller, Central American Bank for Economic Integration, Honduras

Consultancies:

UNDP support project on decision-making, Office of the President of the Republic, Costa Rica

World Bank, Study of agricultural training capacity in Central America and Mexico

Evaluation of former students of CATIE (Tropical Agronomy Centre for Research and Teaching) and design of the follow-up programme, Central America, Caribbean, Mexico and Panama

UNDP, Establishment of the national system of international cooperation, Mexico

Coordination of the workshop on housing projects for Latin America, Housing Promotion Foundation (FUPROVI), Costa Rica

Research Projects:

Population Council, Women and self-help building projects, Mexico

CONYCIT, Problems of rural migrant families, Mexico

Grupo Mujer y Ciudad, training for participation in income-earning groups

Other Activities:

President, Defence for Children International, Costa Rica

Member, Committee to Review the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Vice President and Founding member, International Forum for Child Welfare, Geneva, Switzerland

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