We’ve all been told that mother knows best. Lorena Aguilar Revelo is the perfect example of an activist and leader who draws on her mothering skills. She was born in San José, Costa Rica, and is an anthropologist with a major in Cultural Ecology. After a decade of intensive field research in rural Central America, Lorena has gained recognition as an international messenger for a new way of working with communities.
Her mission is demonstrating that true grassroots participation, particularly by women, is a vital step in achieving sustainable development worldwide. She is helping policy makers and technicians understand that projects and conservation efforts should be created, executed and evaluated by local people in order to make real progress.
Her colleagues told me that beyond Lorena’s many accomplishments, this mother of three is truly appreciated for her personal style and warmth. Lorena shared that in her dual roles as mother and advocate, she has learned alternative means of exercising power, to value different methods of negotiation, and also the importance of a smile. I saw these qualities up close meeting with her, along with her husband and son, at a seaside town in Costa Rica. Lorena’s genuine concern for others (she was late for our interview because they stopped roadside to pick up some lost German tourists) and her infectious laugh made me feel right at home. Our first meeting felt more like a reunion with an old friend.
When I asked what led Lorena to her field of work, she told me when she was a very young girl, her father had a coffee plantation and required that she pick coffee beans to earn money. In the fields she met many people who didn’t have shoes, or even homes. She questioned this stark difference to her own situation and began to understand that not everybody has the same possibilities in life. She saw these were kind people and hard workers, yet they had few opportunities to improve their living conditions because they didn’t have assets for better education or access to credit.
When Lorena became pregnant with her first child, she realized she would work in rural development because she wanted other mothers to have the options she did to raise their kids in a safer environment. “My life has been good, so I’m doing this because I want other moms to have the happiness I’ve had raising my own children,” she said.
Through her work with the World Conservation Union, Lorena sees many global poverty initiatives not able to fulfill needs because they’re putting money in the wrong pockets. She remembers, “When I worked with women in El Salvador, whenever they had income from their activities they were always so proud to declare, ‘I’m going to put my kids through school.’ You never heard mothers say, ‘I’m going to buy a new piece of land or I’m going to build three times my house.’ No, they would put their children in school.” Lorena points to studies they have conducted in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that show when the same amount of money goes to women, 75 to 95 percent of the resources are invested in improving life quality for their family. “Mothers are always thinking about their kids first in general, and that’s worldwide. I haven’t met a mother—well, a few of them—who doesn’t put her kids first in the agenda,” she explained.
Lorena says her biggest challenge is the environmental sector has not recognized women, even though they continue to use women in many ways. For example, recycling campaigns: women manage and operate them in most rural communities. Yet when programs and policies for recycling are developed, women are often absent during the process. Lorena knows women play a vital role in the management of natural resources and so her major task for the World Conservation Union is to convince authorities of the importance of involving women in policy development, and at the same time, help women in developing countries acquire the necessary advocacy skills and have access to resources that will improve their living conditions.
