Claudia Lorena Cañas (Class of 2023, Colombia), Selvin Jirón (Class of 2023, Honduras), and Romina Ovelar (Class of 2024, Paraguay) stand out at EARTH University for their academic excellence and their energetic drive in fulfilling each project they propose. Moreover, they are recognized for their perseverance, a trait they each developed early in life. For their exemplary leadership, the three received scholarships from The Mastercard Foundation.
Learn more about these bright stars at EARTH:
Claudia Lorena Cañas: a determined Colombian woman
Claudia comes from Florida, in the Cauca Valley. When she speaks, one can easily imagine her as a determined child and teenager, which she still embodies Claudia finished high school at the age of 16 and immediately started working. Although she gained a lot of work experience over five years and supported her family economically, she knew her goal was to study at a university and work to improve Colombian communities, especially the most vulnerable indigenous populations.
During the most critical years of the Colombian post-conflict, Claudia´s municipality, Florida, was the scene of events that intensely marked the lives of its inhabitants. Claudia lived through this experience and continues to witness the consequences, which is why she has long wanted to seek solutions for her community to have a better quality of life. Her mother is a social leader who created the Fundación Florida Tejiendo Paz (Florida Weaving Peace Foundation), composed of women who were victims of the armed conflict. Before coming to EARTH, Claudia took charge of the Foundation and linked it to different projects for the agricultural, economic, and social development of the affected families.
She worked hard on a project that assisted small growers of blackberries and mangoes. That was her first introduction to rural development and agronomy and was the moment she discovered her calling. “I made sure the entire project was executed. One hundred farmers were provided with everything they needed: a well-assembled installation and productive system for their plots, and technical assistance for two years,” she says.
At the same time, Claudia worked with indigenous communities in a program of the Organization of American States (OAS) called Comprehensive Action against Anti-personnel Mines. “Due to the conflict, many anti-personnel mines were placed in rural areas, so Colombia has limited agricultural development. Farmers cannot work the land until all the explosives buried in their plots are removed,”she explains.
Claudia actively helped implement the program in three communities. She has also worked with the Indigenous Organization of the Cauca Valley to carry out the Territorial Development Plan for Indigenous Communities. For months, she worked seven days a week and spent a lot of time going deep into the jungle, getting to know the real needs of the most remote communities in the valley.
In 2020, Claudia traveled to Costa Rica to fulfill her dream of attending a university. For her, EARTH perfectly fits with the integral work she has already been doing in various communities. It is a space that gives her the technical tools she needs and brings her closer to a multicultural universe where she can learn from other experiences.
“I describe my time at EARTH as a metamorphosis. It has been a transformation, a great technical enrichment. There are things I did not understand before, I did not know how they worked, and that often went unnoticed. However, each step at EARTH makes you understand the meaning of even the smallest thing existing on the planet. Everything is vital for to continue having functioning ecosystems and keep generating the most important thing: food,” she says.