THE SEED OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
In the bosom of the Rozas-Botrán family, the origin of the ‘Arte
de Ayudar’ goes back to Quetzaltenango, in the dawn of the
20th century as social entrepreneurship project aimed to create
new models for providing services in scientific investigation and
health care for the most vulnerable people. It was in 1915, when
doña Lina, great-grandmother of Jose Rozas-Botrán, started
this journey, lavishing relief among the humble inhabitants of
the urban peripherals.
The exemplary life of doña Lina raised the awareness of her
daughter, Clarita de Botrán, who married Jesús Botrán Merino,
a young business man. The couple decided to move to the
capital city where Clarita started a discrete social work.
Jesús loved music and Clarita had a special taste for visual arts.
As an anecdote, Jose Rozas-Botrán, their grandson, shares
that his grandparents used to visit Madrid frequently, and on
a certain occasion, Clarita coincided at Museo del Prado with
a young Guatemalan man who was making a drawing. Years
later, in Guatemala, that young man painted the family portraits;
he was Manolo Gallardo, the renowned Guatemalan painter.
Continuing with family history, Carmen Amparo Botrán was born
surrounded by art-related experiences and an authentic devotion
to serve the others. At the age of seventeen, Amparo travelled
to Europe, where she would meet her future husband, Ramón
Rozas Sobrino. Providence, understood as the wisdom of God
ruling the world, procured the meeting of Amaparo and Ramón
at the Principado de Asturias, an autonomous community to
the North of Spain and place of origin of both families. “It was
love at first sight”, says Jose, their son. However, none of the
two wanted to leave their native land behind, so it took them a
year to decide on a date for the wedding. Finally, it was Ramón
who ceded and the married couple settled in Guatemala without
losing their close relation with Spain.
Regarding his paternal ancestry, Jose recalls that the family
of Ramón Rozas Ramírez, his grandfather, founded, in Spain,
‘Casa Rozas’, devoted to photography; and his grandmother,
Consuelo, was an academic of dance. For their son, Ramón
Rozas Sobrino, this was the first art context in which he developed
as a photographer.

With the vision of common good and supported by her husband,
Amparo Botrán de Rozas volunteered at the works of Madre
Teresa de Calcutta and served the needy at the leprosarium of
Guatemala. Amparo also cultivated her taste for art, particularly,
by practicing painting.
This synthesis on the family of Jose Rozas-Botrán confirms the
fertility of the soil where the seed was planted. Cultural visits to
the Old World, and the example of serving the others, instilled
in him the vocation of social entrepreneurship.
A CONSOLIDATED SET OF VALUES
Among the currents that have fostered human and Christian
values in Rozas-Botrán family, there is the influence of Clarita
de Botrán, who always expressed her spirit of solidarity towards
needy children and adolescents, particularly, towards people
with different capacities. Jose says that one of his most
important experiences from childhood was the day of his First
Communion when his mother took him to share the celebration
of this sacrament with the children at the Hospital Nacional de
Ortopedia y Rehabilitación Doctor Jorge Von Ahn de León, in
Zona 1, Guatemala City. On this day, he discovered the wonders
of children and youth with special capacities.
From that moment, he became aware about the values of
solidarity and charity practiced in his closest family circle.
Centro Escolar El Roble, his school, was another influence
in his formative process. It is there where he strengthened
his formal education under a Christian spirit. His academic
preparation was in Boston, the United States of America, in
the fields of business. When he returned to Guatemala, Jose
decided to study a Baccalaureate Degree on Art History at
Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
Altruism and Solidarity
Early on the ‘90s, the Rozas-Botrán family contacted Obras
Sociales del Santo Hermano Pedro. This institution -inspired in
the spirituality of this Saint and the Franciscan Philosophy- with
its religious and humanitarian mysticism, became another pillar
for the entrepreneurial activity that Jose was about to start. In
addition to work for others as volunteer in this institution, he was
in charge of the sponsorship for a re-edition of the book Tras
los Pasos del Hermano Pedro, written by another benefactor of
www.fundacionrozasbotran.org

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