Miriam Delicado: From Street Survival to Global Humanitarian Leadership
As Founder and Executive Director of The Great Gathering of Humanity Inc., established in 2011, Miriam has spent more than fourteen years translating intimate conversations with indigenous leaders into tangible projects that restore dignity, protect resources, and reframe how technology and humanitarianism can coexist.Her story, born of hardship, self-education, and relentless service, anchors a nonprofit practice that insists ethical innovation must include the voices and needs of those most often left behind.
Born on March 10, 1966, in a small town in northern British Columbia, Miriam absorbed early lessons in environmental stewardship from her mother, including practices such as gardening, using reusable bags, and recycling, which she learned well before sustainability became mainstream.Her early life, however, was marked by instability: a difficult home environment prompted her to leave at twelve and navigate foster and group homes before becoming independent at fourteen.
Denied formal education beyond seventh grade, Miriam turned constraint into discipline, teaching herself from age seventeen by looking up words in a dictionary and building the foundation for a life of public service, authorship, and entrepreneurship.These formative experiences are not mere backstory; they are the provenance of her approach.
Miriam’s leadership is rooted in proximity rather than abstraction.She has lived and worked where others rarely go.
Moments of cultural exchange inform her conviction that indigenous wisdom should be a guiding force in contemporary problem-solving rather than a resource to be mined and forgotten.Under Miriam’s stewardship, The Great Gathering Nonprofit has developed initiatives that pair cultural respect with practical solutions.
A flagship example is the partnership with five traditional Maasai communities in Kenya to replace open earth water pits, shared with animals, with clean wells.This project is more than providing wat...