Municipality of the Month



 

 

Advocates

 

María Teresa (Maité) Rodríguez Blandón
Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience of the Latin America Huairou Commission / GROOTS International
Email: maitero@yahoo.com / fungua@itelgua.com

 
 


Professional Profile

Maite is Program Coordinator of the Guatemala Foundation, an organization whose mission is to contribute to building an egalitarian and democratic society for free women and men, under the new paradigm of sustainable human development with a gender perspective -founded in 1987, which gives Maité over 20 years of experience in the implementation of gender and development projects. Moreover, she is the liaison in Guatemala of the Women and Peace Network, which has allowed her to develop experiences on the issue of the participation of women in conflict resolution and response to violence against women in scenarios of armed conflict.

She is also a member of the Guatemalan Chapter of the Women and Habitat Network, which has contributed to her training and experience in the involvement of women in the processes of urban and rural development and construction of cities and communities with a gender perspective. Maité worked for about 10 years with grassroots women's movements fighting for land rights and general women's rights in Guatemala. She currently serves as a member of various decision making groups and the Executive Committee of the Coordinating Council of the Huairou Commission and GROOTS International.
    
 
 

It is precisely with the Huairou Commission and GROOTS International, driven by UNISDR Office of the Americas, which make up the Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience since 2011, a Platform facilitated by the organization led by Maité in Guatemala. Thanks to this experience and past experiences with the World Bank and the Project for South-South Cooperation, just as one example, she has developed a vast knowledge and experience working with grassroots women and building climate resilience, focusing primarily on improving the livelihoods of women, their families and communities.


Her work focuses on the fact that grassroots women are experiencing disasters on the front line and therefore should be taken into account in the development of public policy and the implementation of development projects that touch on these issues. Grassroots women have been driven in this work to be actors of resilience and not beneficiaries.