Arpié - Fidelina Díaz
Chorote Cultural Advisor
Fidelina is a Wikina Woki (women of the north wind) that belongs to the Chorote ethnic group that lives in the Chaco region next to the Pilcomayo River. She has received the knowledge of her grandparents that were spiritual and wise. She is bilingual in Wichi and Chorote languages and has researched deeply the oral memories and cultural particularities of these cultures since she was very young.
She has written books and songs following the ancient traditions of the spiritual songs of the Wikina Wos people.
She is a fundamental asset for our alliance and participates in educational, cultural and social projects we are developing.
Nacy Lopez
Weenhayek Cultural Advisor
Nancy Lopez is a respected Weenhayek indigenous leader renowned for her extensive work as a communicator, gender rights advocate, and community builder. Rooted in her indigenous heritage, Nancy has dedicated her life to preserving and revitalizing the traditional wisdom and ways of the Chaco indigenous cultures. As a passionate communicator, she has used her voice to shed light on the cultural richness and unique challenges faced by her people. Nancy has also been a tireless advocate for gender equality and the empowerment of indigenous women, recognizing their pivotal roles within their communities.
Through her unwavering commitment, Nancy Lopez serves as a crucial bridge between the modern world and the age-old traditions of the Chaco indigenous cultures, making a profound and lasting impact on the recognition and protection of indigenous rights and heritage.
María Eugenia Suárez
Ethnobiologist
Maria Eugenia has a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and is a researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. She is an expert in Wichi ethnobiology and is currently dedicated to the study of Wichi health and its relation with socio-environmental changes. She is working to explore and protect the cultural identities of indigenous groups and their knowledge and uses of plants, animals, fungi and other beings, in order to contribute to biocultural conservation in the Argentinean Chaco.
Christel Buelens
Biologist
Christel Buelens has a PhD in Biology and has always been interested in science, to the point of making it her profession in one way or another. She is a specialist in scientific communication and the Copyeditor at Daily Science, a science popularisation website. She has always been interested in environmental and sustainability issues, and has several years' experience of working on a permacultural farm and studying soil microbiology.
Juayuk
Wichi Chief Advisor & Forest Expert
Juayuk is an elderly man from the Wichí ethnic group who lives in the north of Argentina, in an area of forests where the Yunga and the Chaco meet. For decades, he has been protecting a native forest that is systematically subjugated by deforestation. His knowledge of the ancestral culture of this ethnic group and his profound knowledge of the surrounding nature endows him with enormous depth and richness. He has the spiritual ability to hear messages from the wind and the trees, and also has very elaborate techniques for reforestation and hybridization of native species, being able to revive cut or burned trunks as well as to fuse different species to enhance the growth of new shoots using trunks and roots of damaged trees.
For these purposes he uses a technique using fungal spores (which he calls "wa`anchicheijna" or green energy of life) that sprout from dead trunks and which he sprinkles along with the seeds he sows. He is our guide and teacher for all of us in Alianza Wichi.
Martin Kraft
General Coordinator
As the General Coordinator of the Alianza Wichi Foundation, Martin is a cultural anthropologist with a remarkable 15 years of experience in collaborating with indigenous communities in the Chaco region. His expertise lies in the co-design of projects and initiatives, particularly in the realm of visual communication. Martin's role is multifaceted, encompassing leadership in both communication and partnership-building. He is responsible for spearheading the foundation's communication campaign, through strategic visual storytelling. Furthermore, Martin is instrumental in generating vital alliances with other institutions and organizations, thereby bolstering the foundation's ability to make a meaningful impact in the lives of the indigenous communities they serve. His passion for preserving and uplifting the cultural heritage of the Chaco region makes him an indispensable asset to the foundation's mission.
Juan Martin Leguizamón
Cultural Anthropologist
Juan Martin studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and for more than 30 years has been dedicated to the indigenous peoples in Argentina.
At the beginning of the 1990s, together with a research team, he created the Permanent Programme of Research, Extension and Development on Indigenous Peoples at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Buenos Aires.
Since 1995 he has been the coordinator of this organisation, which has developed numerous projects and initiatives with indigenous peoples from all over Argentina. As a teacher and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, he has published numerous works about the situation of indigenous peoples.
He has developed and coordinated numerous projects with the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Swiss international cooperation and numerous European NGOs. He has more than 30 years of experience in the problematic of indigenous peoples from a socio-cultural perspective.
Damian Tonon
International Cooperation
With over 20 years of experience in international cooperation and development, Damian is a seasoned project manager and consultant who has successfully led and executed projects involving over 30 countries and addressing various challenges related to nature conservation, biodiversity, environmental protection, and sustainable solutions. He has a strong background in strategic partnerships, public fundraising, and proposal drafting, as well as in planning and organizing international conferences and virtual education opportunities.
Francois Toussaint
Strategic Partnerships and Fundraising Coordinator
François is in charge of building an international network tu support Alianza Wichi’s mission in the Argentinian Gran Chaco. He also coordinates Alianza Wichi’s fundraising team in order to build a unique network of indigenous communities in the heart of Latin America where cultural diversity and biodiversity can thrive together. François holds a law Degree (Namur University, UCL, ICADE Madrid) and a Master in International Relations (Antwerp University).
Delfina Salvat
Project Coordination and Funding
She studied Social Work at the Universidad del Museo Social Argentino, a career motivated by a project she started in 2013, while studying medicine. Mobilized by the Argentine social reality, she started a foundation with a group of young professionals to work interdisciplinary in the north of Argentina, specifically in Santiago del Estero. There she worked with rural populations in remote areas, promoting the self-development of the community and the empowerment of the population in general, under the perspective of human rights.
In 2020, her career took an unexpected turn, applying to a consultancy in ACNUR where she stayed and began her career in liaison with International Organizations in Europe and the United Nations as an External Consultant.
Currently, she develops and coordinates integral humanitarian and socio-environmental impact projects. She specializes in the formulation of projects, their implementation, and training of indigenous populations on how to carry them out. At the same time, she coordinates projects through strategic alliances with international organizations and the private sector, in order to promote general cooperation and fundraising for their development.
Luis Jimenez
Agronomic Engineer
Luis Jimenez is a seasoned agronomist who specializes in agro-ecosystem management and sustainable environmental practices. With years of expertise in these fields, he employs a holistic approach to his work, prioritizing system sustainability. Luis is dedicated to designing and monitoring indicators, ensuring the effectiveness of his strategies.
Luis is known for his strong commitment to teamwork, evident throughout his extensive experience in leading diverse teams and projects. Beyond his agronomy work, he also excels as an ontological coach, contributing to both his personal and professional growth.
Pablo Lanougerre
Regenerative design and agroecology expert
Pablo has dedicated the last decade to agriculture, learning from permaculture, peasant knowledge in Bolivia, and from great masters of organic and regenerative agriculture, microbiology; hydrological design and land planning; syntropic agriculture, and the methodology and approach to land and project planning.
He is continuously experimenting and learning from the inexhaustible world of interactions between microbiology, organic matter and minerals for the development of crops, focusing on the dynamics of various mountain and forest ecosystems.
He approaches each new challenge with the powerful teachings of Holistic Management in planning projects with environmental, social and economic impact. He is designing training sessions where appropriate and appropriable technologies are shared for the development of regenerative agriculture in indigenous communities.
Augusto Colagioia
Syntropic & Forestry Systems Expert
Augusto is an agronomist and forestry engineer by training and has specialised in agro ecology, bio dynamics and syntropic agriculture in Brazil with masters such as Ernst Gotcsh and Fernando Rebello. He gives workshops and seminars for the design and development of forestry systems. His experience and capacity of analysis and knowledge transfer is of great value for our regeneration challenges together with the communities of the Yunga and the Argentinean Chaco.
María Cecilia Jezieniecki
Attorney at Law
Diploma in Litigation of Social and Environmental Rights (UNPAZ), Vice-president of the Association of Indigenous Lawyers, Coordinator and teacher of the Diploma in Interpretation and Translation Wichi Spanish for Access to Justice of the Universidad Nacional de Salta. Specialist in indigenous peoples' law and administrative law. Experience as a trainer in law workshops and private defender of indigenous communities and organizations in Salta and Jujuy, Argentina.
Sergio Matías Carabajal Coutada
Attorney at Law
Sergio is the field lawyer (MP 6175), who graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. He has been working since 2019 as a trial lawyer in the Judicial Districts of Tartagal and Oran since 2019 in the areas of civil law, family law, criminal law and labor law. He is a proxy and legal advisor performing in the framework of his functions work in neighborhoods, slums and settlements to address housing problems and land regularization.
His role becomes a key element as he is the first line of legal defense for the communities that are facing evictions or the destruction of their forests.
Manuela Felizia Benintendi
specialised in international cooperation and fundraising
Degree in International Relations, specialised in international cooperation and fundraising. My main tasks focus on mapping and developing a network of partners to generate resources for the implementation of organisational projects with impact, as well as the design and development of the relevant applications required by each partner and the writing of proposals. Relationship management with strategic partners is central to my work, mainly focused on international foundations, multilateral banks, family offices and governmental actors.
Bernardita Merlo Scavarda
International Cooperation and Fundraising
With a degree in International Relations and as a senior student in International Trade, Bernardita has extensive experience in international cooperation, fundraising, project development, and strategic networking. She has collaborated with various organizations on projects focused on environmental education and human rights, fostering awareness and action towards the protection of natural environments and social rights.
Martin Graziano
Graphic Designer
Estefania Alvarez
Graphic and Web Designer
Martin Kraft
Visual Anthropologist
Martin has researched and worked with different communities in the Chaco for over a decade as a researcher for the University of Buenos Aires Visual Anthropology department, as well as the Department of Research and Development in Indigenous Communities of Argentina, where he made several photographic and documentary film projects. He found that visual storytelling is indispensable when researching and communicating underrepresented worlds. As such, he has adopted a methodology in ethnographic work that is participatory and inclusive, authentically representing the knowledge and "savoir faire" of different cultural groups and pursuing to maximize the impact in their realities.
Francois Toussaint
Strategic Partnerships and Fundraising Coordinator
François is in charge of building an international network tu support Alianza Wichi’s mission in the Argentinian Gran Chaco. He also coordinates Alianza Wichi’s fundraising team in order to build a unique network of indigenous communities in the heart of Latin America where cultural diversity and biodiversity can thrive together. François holds a law Degree (Namur University, UCL, ICADE Madrid) and a Master in International Relations (Antwerp University).
Pablo Lanougerre
Regenerative design and agroecology expert
Pablo has dedicated the last decade to agriculture, learning from permaculture, peasant knowledge in Bolivia, and from great masters of organic and regenerative agriculture, microbiology; hydrological design and land planning; syntropic agriculture, and the methodology and approach to land and project planning.
He is continuously experimenting and learning from the inexhaustible world of interactions between microbiology, organic matter and minerals for the development of crops, focusing on the dynamics of various mountain and forest ecosystems.
He approaches each new challenge with the powerful teachings of Holistic Management in planning projects with environmental, social and economic impact. He is designing training sessions where appropriate and appropriable technologies are shared for the development of regenerative agriculture in indigenous communities.
María Eugenia Suárez
Ethnobiologist Maria Eugenia has a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and is a researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. She is an expert in Wichi ethnobiology and is currently dedicated to the study of Wichi health and its relation with socio-environmental changes. She is working to explore and protect the cultural identities of indigenous groups and their knowledge and uses of plants, animals, fungi and other beings, in order to contribute to biocultural conservation in the Argentinean Chaco.
Juayuk
Chief Advisor & Guide Juayuk is an elderly man from the Wichí ethnic group who lives in the north of Argentina, in an area of forests where the Yunga and the Chaco meet. For decades, he has been protecting a native forest that is systematically subjugated by deforestation. His knowledge of the ancestral culture of this ethnic group and his profound knowledge of the surrounding nature endows him with enormous depth and richness. He has the spiritual ability to hear messages from the wind and the trees, and also has very elaborate techniques for reforestation and hybridization of native species, being able to revive cut or burned trunks as well as to fuse different species to enhance the growth of new shoots using trunks and roots of damaged trees. For these purposes he uses a technique using fungal spores (which he calls "wa`anchicheijna" or green energy of life) that sprout from dead trunks and which he sprinkles along with the seeds he sows. He is our guide and teacher for all of us in Alianza Wichi.
Augusto Colagioia
Syntropic & Forestry Systems Expert Augusto is an agronomist and forestry engineer by training and has specialised in agro ecology, bio dynamics and syntropic agriculture in Brazil with masters such as Ernst Gotcsh and Fernando Rebello. He gives workshops and seminars for the design and development of forestry systems. His experience and capacity of analysis and knowledge transfer is of great value for our regeneration challenges together with the communities of the Yunga and the Argentinean Chaco.
Arpié – Fidelina Díaz
Cultural Advisor Fidelina is a Wikina Woki (women of the north wind) that belongs to the Chorote ethnic group that lives in the Chaco region next to the Pilcomayo River. She has received the knowledge of her grandparents that were spiritual and wise. She is bilingual in Wichi and Chorote languages and has researched deeply the oral memories and cultural particularities of these cultures since she was very young. She has written books and songs following the ancient traditions of the spiritual songs of the Wikina Wos people. She is a fundamental asset for our alliance and participates in educational, cultural and social projects we are developing.
Juan Martin Leguizamón
Cultural Anthropologist Juan Martin studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and for more than 30 years has been dedicated to the indigenous peoples in Argentina. At the beginning of the 1990s, together with a research team, he created the Permanent Programme of Research, Extension and Development on Indigenous Peoples at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Buenos Aires. Since 1995 he has been the coordinator of this organisation, which has developed numerous projects and initiatives with indigenous peoples from all over Argentina. As a teacher and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, he has published numerous works about the situation of indigenous peoples. He has developed and coordinated numerous projects with the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Swiss international cooperation and numerous European NGOs. He has more than 30 years of experience in the problematic of indigenous peoples from a socio-cultural perspective.
Manuela Felizia Benintendi
specialised in international cooperation and fundraising
Degree in International Relations, specialised in international cooperation and fundraising. My main tasks focus on mapping and developing a network of partners to generate resources for the implementation of organisational projects with impact, as well as the design and development of the relevant applications required by each partner and the writing of proposals. Relationship management with strategic partners is central to my work, mainly focused on international foundations, multilateral banks, family offices and governmental actors.
Bernardita Merlo Scavarda
international Cooperation and Fundraising
With a degree in International Relations and as a senior student in International Trade, Bernardita has extensive experience in international cooperation, fundraising, project development, and strategic networking. She has collaborated with various organizations on projects focused on environmental education and human rights, fostering awareness and action towards the protection of natural environments and social rights.
Martin Graziano
Graphic Designer
Estefania Alvarez
Graphic and Web Designer