Shiara González Padrón
Co-founder and advisor
Shiara has more than ten years of experience in community work. Her main interest is accompanying processes of transformation towards socio-environmental sustainability through the exchange of knowledge and the design and facilitation of sensitive participatory processes. Her work has focused on promoting community management of water and land, socio-environmental justice, and strengthening local capacities in rural and indigenous contexts.
She has oriented her work toward reconciling ancestral knowledge and modernity, betting on the revaluation of the collective as one of the fundamental paths to socio-environmental sustainability. She has promoted an immersive program aimed at indigenous youth, providing tools to imagine and build their own futures based on their realities and territories. Rather than offering answers, she maintains a constant commitment to critical reflection and the formulation of essential questions, such as: What is the role of individual and collective agency in the processes of transformation of socio-ecological systems in Mexico and in the countries of the Global South?
Shiara studied veterinary medicine in Venezuela and arrived in Mexico in 2010 to do her professional internship at SEMARNAT's General Directorate of Wildlife. She then completed her Master of Science degree in the Department of Wildlife at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UNAM.
She holds a PhD in Sustainability Sciences from UNAM. She is the co-founder of Umbela, co-founder of the Valle de Bravo branch of Científicos Anónimos, and a student training to become a psychotherapist at the Claudio Naranjo Gestalt Viva School in Mexico. She is currently the Director General of the Ha Ta Tukari (Water Our Life) program, which seeks universal water and sanitation coverage for the Wixárika Nation in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.