Former CEOWashington Office on Latin America
For more than 20 years I have been a non-profit director and policy advocate working on migration, human rights, Latin America and US foreign policy. I stepped down from my last position and have taken a sabbatical to think about advocacy for social change, considering questions like: what tools are being used in other fields that could be used in advocacy; how do polarized political environments influence how we should think about advocacy; and can we construct more effective multi-sectorial approaches to social change. In recent months, I have focused on drugs, the addiction crisis and organized crime.
From 2003-2016 I was the Executive Director of WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America), a human rights advocacy organization that works in close collaboration with counterpart organizations throughout Latin America. Realizing that violence and organized crime were not being addressed within the traditional human rights framework, WOLA developed an innovative program on human rights and organized crime. We worked with local and international organizations in the development of first of their kind mechanisms to combat corruption and organized crime in Guatemala (the CICIG) and Honduras (the MACCIH).
We addressed drug policy from a human rights perspective, building collaborative dialogues, research networks and communications strategies. WOLA: facilitated international drug policy dialogues with governments, NGOs and academics throughout the Americas covering topics from public health to incarceration to legalization; built an exchange of practice and experience between those creating laws to implement marijuana legalization in Colorado, Washington State, Uruguay and Canada; and developed a regional Working Group on Women, Drug Policy and Incarceration.
I lived in Mexico and Central America for 6 years; am fluent in Spanish and English; and have a MA in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.