Cecilia Guerrero: A woman who wears pants, a woman with voice and with space for those who cannot stand for themselves.
Ecuador as any other developing country deals with several social, economic and environmental problems of different characteristics. While people are more educated, looks like they loose the sense of being human and acting more humanly. Materialism and power are the new model of wellbeing. There is a huge loss of human and moral values. Materialism and capitalism are the main causes of destruction of real leadership. Education is the base to form leaders. Unfortunately, it is fulfilled with another content, out of what the society needs to be learned. Social problems affect and destroy families, societies, environment, our culture, etc. In Ecuador there is a huge problem of violence and inequality. For example, 60.6% (6 out of 10) of women have experienced some form of domestic violence[1], mostly to indigenous (67.8%) or afroecuadorian (66.7) women.
Our current leadership usually looks for ways to cover their own materialistic needs and political placement. Leadership approaches populism, but they don’t immerse in the communities. They just use them as a way to find their political support. Their character changes like the experiment of Zimbardo: They got the power (oppressive authority without ethics and moral behavior) and they forgot about human nature.
Ecohelix is an initiative that involves research with an immersion in the culture to find new ways of sustainability in a developing country like Ecuador. One of the components of the online platform (Open University model) promotes leadership starting from youth bridging with undergraduate students (train the trainer) to create leadership that is formed from a different perspective. The Ecohelix looks for and builds collaboration, and involves people and organizations, targeting, in particular, emerging leaders from poor communities, businesses and local governments.
The development challenges are many and very complex, especially when there is a political party governing, whose main goal is to keep themselves in power, using the economic resources they need over human and natural capital, destroying even ecosystems that are unique and have a high contribution to the global warming, for example, in the Amazon jungle. The base of any progress in a society is when we have leaders that are able to act, think holistically and communicate from the inside out. People who inspire because of why they do things, not how or what. When this happens we can see human behavior change. Leadership can be managed by a female, because beyond wearing pants, we have the heart and caring for our people who belong to minorities.
Mision: From a woman with pants, indigenous with voice and a space for those who cannot stand for themselves, I don’t consider myself a leader, I consider myself a humanist, a conscious citizen who acts based on values like respect, collaboration and standing up for my points of view and rights. I, personally, have suffered some discrimination. In the university, two years ago, I failed a final test because I questioned gently and respectfully a professor about his punctuality in a graduation test. I was screamed at and challenged with a second test where finance was the basis. Personally, I don’t believe in quantity, I believe in quality. This shut the opportunity for me to get the political position of the course, because women are “conflictive”. In this experience, I was taken out of a project because the president of the project believed that as a woman I was not qualified, and for technical projects I had to be a man.
So I am called to act in my life assignments with honesty and empathy, to be an impactful project collaborator. I am committed to grow as a human being with respect, to acquire and deliver value-added actions in projects to the end users.
Working with Ecohelix we seek solutions to challenges, always based on values and aspirations. As a volunteer, I contribute to the mission of the platform to harness and mobilize technology to transform perceptions and behavior of both ecotourists as visitors and locals as hosts to preserve and promote our enchantment, not only in Galapagos but other pristine places.
Vision: Keeping contributing until the end of my days of what I think is my call, for what drives me or inspires me to be a better person and as a human being with a deep ecology vision. In the coming years I want to live in a world where women have the same chance as everyone to contribute with their full potential, strength, knowledge, experience and caring feelings. I want to be in an Ecuador where leadership (men and women, blacks and whites, indigenous or mestizos) delivers outstanding added value to common social projects, and leaves a legacy for future generations.
Strategy: Poverty in a country, wealthy in natural and human capital. Ecuador is a real ecosystem not only of natural things. We are poor, but not economically. I feel poor when I am discriminated for who I am. The strategy is to contribute to eliminate the poverty in its total dimension. This ecosystem can be changed dynamically by developing a new model for doing things, where technology can change the paradigm supported by proved theories like efficiency, self-efficacy, collaboration and reciprocity. The Ecohelix is directed to entrepreneurship and ecotourism for a sustainable development applied particularly in communities, where the poverties (poverty=economical; poverties=fundamental human needs that are not adequately satisfied and reveals a human poverty of subsistence (insufficient income, food, shelter, etc.); protection (bad health systems, violence, etc.); affection (authoritarianism, oppression, exploitative relations with the natural environment, etc.); of understanding (poor quality of education); participation (due to marginalization and discrimination of women, children and minorities); and identity (imposition of values and regional cultures, etc.).
This initiative requires leadership through networking that seeks to generate actions by taking diversity with a deep ecology view into account to achieve sustainability, convening different actors -- who, on occasion, are even rivals like politicians. The collaboration of the five parts of the Helix (public, private, civic, academia, media) looks to debate, reflect the problems faced by a concrete community based on common development goals, and finally, to find a minimum level of consensus to work together toward a solution, by negotiating, lobbying, and creating opportunities and proposals for collaboration. This is a big job in Ecuador, where people don’t trust each other. I want to help build that trust, and to seek sustainable solutions.
