Maholy Gabriela Garcés Guatatuca

I am a young indigenous Kichwa Amazonian girl, I am 24 years old and I live in the community of Union Base, located in the province of Pastaza-Ecuador. My childhood in the community was beautiful for having grown up surrounded by aunts and uncles defenders of our territories, which has helped me to continue their legacies of community and collective coexistence. I studied elementary school in the community school, high school in the bilingual educational unit of Amauta Ñampi located in the center of the city of Puyo, both spaces with a community vision and mission, which allowed me to stay connected to my roots, ancestral knowledge and social organizations that have fought for the rights of nature and our lands, which are vulnerable spaces to not having a voice. I attended university at the State University of Bolivar located in the city of Guaranda where I studied social communication until the 4th semester. Due to various factors, I had to pause the career and study agroecology, which allows me to be closer to my home. But I have a base knowledge and passion for the communicational work, which I have continued with the activities as a community communicator and to bring the voices to other spaces and in multiple ways where the complicated realities are not known. I am not a communicator by profession, but I have a lot of love for all the work I have been able to do.