Latin American and Caribbean youth acting for gender equality. Strengthening collective leadership

Date: Thursday, 12 August 2021

On International Youth Day, it is essential to hear and amplify the voices of young people who lead actions for gender equality in their communities.

Today, UN Women dedicates a special recognition to the members of the global youth task force (Task Force Beijing+25), youth leaders of the action coalitions, National Gender Youth Activists (NGYA), as well as grassroots youth activists. Thanks to their leadership and commitment in the framework of the Generation Equality Forum process and towards the 2030 Agenda, they have highlighted the diverse youth voices in Latin America and the Caribbean on the progress, obstacles, and emerging challenges in terms of gender equality and its mainstreaming with the environment, access to health, work, education, and sexual and reproductive rights.

The region's youth have also called for co-creating solutions and co-leading by addressing the principles of intersectionality, promoting feminist youth leadership and ensuring the accountability of decision-makers. Their recommendations should guide the implementation of the Global Acceleration Plans, which include concrete, ambitious and immediate actions to be developed between 2021 and 2026 to achieve a tangible impact on gender equality and the human rights of girls and women, around the six Action Coalitions and the Pact for Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action agreed at the Generation Equality Forum and to which leaders from around the world have committed.

Young women, indigenous, Afro-descendant, rural, disabled, with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, face multiple barriers. At the same time, these young women are a transformative force in the region. Young people in their diversity are leading movements calling for economic, social and environmental justice, as well as systemic transformations to fight poverty, end discrimination and racism, and take urgent action to address climate change.

International Youth Day offers a moment to celebrate and visibilize their work and join in creating opportunities to support it. Find out here how young activists are taking action for gender equality today.

Ana Sáenz, Guatemala

Ana is a Political Science student with studies in gender and feminism. Committed to defending women's and students' rights in Guatemala to a quality higher education free of gender-based violence. Secretary of Gender of the University Students Association 2017-2019, author of the Exploratory Study on sexual harassment at USAC, in collaboration with UN Women.

Andrea Mamani, Bolivia

Andrea Mamani Adrian is 21 years old and was born in Oruro, Bolivia. She is a psychology student, feminist activist, currently area coordinator for TREMENDAS BOLIVIA. She is also a member of several organizations such as: Yo soy mi primer amor, Red Universitaria de Jóvenes Emprendedores (RUJE) and the Plataforma Boliviana de Adolescentes y Jóvenes por los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos y Activament. She dreams of a world where girls, adolescents and young women can live free, confident in their rights, realizing their dreams and with their talents creating projects that contribute to society.

Adriana García López, Mexico

Adriana is an activist and advocate for the environment, sexual and reproductive rights, biologist and consultant. She is the Country Coordinator for the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning (IYAFP) and a member of the Youth Advisory Group of the United Nations Population Fund Mexico (UNFPA). She is leader of the project "Acting for Climate Change and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights". In addition, she has been Mexico's Youth Delegate in spaces such as the VIII Summit of the Americas, International Conference on Population and Development, World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Generation Equality Forum, among others. As a result of her social commitment, she has received the Young Leader Creating Better World for All Award from the Women Economic Forum in New Delhi, India.

Ljubica Fuentes, Ecuador

Ljubica Marcela Fuentes is an activist from Ecuador, founder and coordinator of the UCE Feminist Coalition, an inter-university safe space for the empowerment of women students and the fight against educational violence. With this group, she has raised awareness among future lawyers in joint work sessions to prevent gender-based violence with the School of the Judiciary Council with the Queerentena campaign with the Inter-University Network LGBTIQ+.

It is also part of the group Mujeres Contra el COVID (Women Against COVID) with over 10 feminist collectives nationwide and participates in projects with feminist women with disabilities in the proposed creation of the first glossary of signs in feminist topics of self-care.

Mactzil Camey, Guatemala

Mactzil Ixtz'unun Camey Rodriguez is a young activist from Guatemala. A Kaqchikel Mayan woman, founder and member of the Tuxinem Collective, Mactzil is also the Secretary of the gender commission of AEU, a member of Chimaltec Women in Resistance, an entrepreneur of a business of Mayan accessories and costumes, and a student of political science at the San Carlos University in Guatemala. She is originally from Chimaltenango, and is committed to the defense of Mayan women and youth.

Milagro Suira, Panama

Milagro Suira is a rural activist born in the small community of Cordillera in Panama. Her experience facing the inequality that rural communities live with in accessing basic services led her to educate her peers on sexual and reproductive health issues since she was 17 years old. She currently runs a rural aid group called CONEYSO where she supports young people in remote areas with educational materials so they can fulfill their schoolwork, and coordinates the social innovation platform Tremendas in Panama, where she organized one of the events of the Generation Equality Forum in Paris focused on rural youth.

Floridalma López, Guatemala

María Floridalma López Atz, 19 years old, is a Kaqchikel Maya. She was born in Guatemala, and is a student of Law and Social Sciences, Law and Notary, and Journalism at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. María Floridalma is part of the group of Youth Gender Activists at the National level of UN Women, and is part of the Guatemalan Parliament for Children, Adolescents and Youth since the age of 9, when she began the process of formation as a young woman community and national leader.

María Floridalma is also a member of the ENREDADERA Collective, the Kaqchikel People's Council and the Indigenous Women's Platform.

Jonathan Aguilar, Bolivia

Jonathan Aguilar Nava is a Bolivian activist focused on youth in Latin America and the Caribbean; representative of the group Convivencia y Construcción de Paz in the Plataforma Boliviana de Adolescentes y Jóvenes por los Derechos Sexuales y Derechos Reproductivos, and Departmental Director of Communication of the Red Internacional de Promotores at the Chuquisaca level.

Carolina Peña, Ecuador

Carolina Peña is a feminist economist from the Central University of Ecuador with a specialization in gender, violence and human rights from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). She holds a Master's degree in development economics (c) from FLACSO Ecuador. She is currently Project and Gender Studies Coordinator at Investoria Foundation and co-founder of Warmi.

Carolina has experience in research projects with a focus on human rights and sustainable development, as well as in the generation, collection and analysis of data, and has developed research on the fiscal challenge to implement the 2030 Agenda in Ecuador, analysis of national regulations for the fulfillment of SDG 5 in Ecuador, the impact of B corporations on the inclusion of women and youth in Latin America, inequalities and gender violence in the workplace, among others.

Natalia Guerreros, Bolivia

Natalia Guerrero is a young activist from Bolivia. Founder and National Coordinator of the Organization Desafío ODS, Natalia defines herself as an activist for Human Rights, member of the Botín Network of Public Servants.

Natalia is a graduate of Political Science and International Relations at UMSA.

Emilia Vergara, Chile

Emilia Vergara Goldzveig is a 27 year old Chilean feminist, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Fundación Niñas Valientes. Commercial Engineer from the University of Chile. Diploma in Gender Theories, Development and Public Policy, at the same University.

Since 2018 she has worked in civil society organizations promoting gender equality in educational contexts.

Ch’umilkaj Curruchiche, Guatemala

Ch'umilkaj Curruchiche is a young Kaqchikel activist and artist from Guatemala. She contributes to the cultural life of her community as a composer, singer, music educator, promoter and community cultural manager.

Ch'umilkaj is also a member and co-founder of the organization Mujeres IXKOT.

Diana Calizaya Condori, Bolivia

Diana Calizaya Condori is a young entrepreneur and volunteer from Bolivia. Founder and director of World Tech, Global Ambassador in Women Tech Network, Diana is also Departmental Director of Volunteering in Mujeres TICs La Paz, Departmental Director of Mujercitas La Paz, and Volunteer in Red Internacional de Promotores ODS Bolivia and Microscopía Para Todos.

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