Ana Maria Vasquez has been committed to helping women organize for their own empowerment and for environmental justice throughout Latin America for decades. From Panama to Mexico, she has support dozens of women in their efforts to launch sustainable local businesses.

In Panama, Ana Maria worked with Colombian refugee women to build cooperatives and start small community projects. In her home city, Magdalena, Mexico, she helped to support sustainable gardening and animal husbandry projects that involve and educate school children on environmental issues. Ana Maria and her team have also begun a business transforming recycled paper trash into greeting cards to help bring income into the local communities as well as a women-led soap-making cooperatives in Mexico. According to a colleague, Donna Dove, “Ana Maria always incorporates her love for the earth in her projects and her artwork”. With only meager earnings from her artwork and crafts, Maria has committed her life to visiting communities and spreading the word of sustainability and local empowerment. Ana Maria works to ensure that the voices of poor women are heard and that their needs are supported. Ana Maria’s projects can be seen at: http://www.bridgesacrossborders.org/fairtradecrafts.htm.

Ana Maria describes her work in environmental sustainability…

"I work with social and environmental action projects in both Darien region between Panama and Colombia and in the border with Mexico in Sonora. Whether organizing crafts cooperatives, setting up spaces for children and young people to learn both about environment and social justice, I have been working greatly this year in setting up a high school in the Darien region focusing on biodiversity and social impact of environmental destruction. I work with two schools for young children in Darien, a paper and crafts cooperative of Colombian refugee women in Darien.  I also work with Justicia y Paz and other Colombian organizations to bring awareness to the plight of the people who are being displaced by corporate greed. In Sonora I work with the center of biodiversity on Quiche in Magdalena mainly with high school and elementary schools in the area. I am bringing awareness to the plight of the earth in this dry desert and its impact in the living communities of the area."

Ana Maria’s vision for strengthening the efforts of grassroots women working to protect the environment:

"To succeed we need to meet each other-- to be able to count on each other’s support in times of need. Women need to share resources and funding sources and create markets for alternative products that bring income to needed communities without destroying the environment, or depending on big corporations. We need to set up permanent programs for social and environmental justice in schools and other institutions to ensure that young people in schools today can do a lot of meaningful curriculum that will not only help the environment but also themselves."