I was on a train one evening, heading back from Florence after a Sound healing practice, when I received an email from the Ecuadorian Consulate of Milan, Italy, informing that the Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa would be coming on 14th November 2012. Despite being born and raised in London, I’m particularly proud of my Ecuadorian origin and I was immediately drawn to attend his morning lecture held at Universita’ Biccoca in Milan, “An Ecuadorian proposal to get out of the Debt Crisis,” in which he excelled to express his expert knowledge and experience in Economics.

During the past months, I had heard positive feedback about his work and passionate efforts to develop Ecuador in all its possible ways and so I decided to attend his lecture and had the honor to even shake his hand. Inspired by his down-to-earth nature, integrity, leadership and charisma, I decided to attend his evening speech too. It was packed with people; it seemed like a crowded football stadium with fans cheering for a team. There were Ecuadorian supporters of the president, Italian politicians, Peruvians and even some opponents amongst the crowd. I also had the chance to meet a kind and proactive member of the presidential staff, Julio Trujillo, who filled me in with additional details on the President’s projects, work and accomplishments in the last few years.

For the record, President Correa’s efforts, results and passion to implement deep positive changes with integrity throughout Ecuador have been totally unprecedented and unheard of. During the evening speech, President Correa gave the Ecuadorian community an update of his work and his future ongoing projects for the nation. For what I understood, his achievements haven’t been obtained walking on a bed of roses, but of great challenge to tackle corruption, install integrity, efficient taxation systems, new laws and taking rational economic decisions that protect the nation’s interests. He also mentioned that there are still of course problems that need to be addressed.

It sounds like Ecuador is on the road to greater changes or as the president puts it, “It’s not a change of Era, it’s an Era of change.”