Vanessa is passionate about the arts, culture, and environment. She has six years of experience in the nonprofit, public and private sectors in Nicaragua. Vanessa earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Central America University (UCA) in Nicaragua. In several of her previous roles, she contributed building and reinforcing leadership abilities of students from different high schools and universities from the United States. Vanessa worked with university students to help them design work plans and write grants focused on health awareness, women’s rights, environmental care, education and economic development for the community of Masaya. Previously, Vanessa worked with GSE, where she leads educational exchange trips that focused on sustainable small-scale agriculture and promoted the social leadership of students from the USA and local community members from the State of Boaco, Nicaragua. She guided in the process of finding sustainable solutions to address the common challenges as species. Through these experiences Vanessa has developed capacity-building abilities and project management, creating spaces in which art is included as a channel for recognition of the self and transmission of ideas. In November of 2017 she founded the social program: “Potencial de Nicaragua” and in April of 2018 participated as a finalist in the international competence, (TIC Américas), celebrated in Lima, Perú in the framework of the VIII Summit of the Americas. Her main goals are to strengthen human potential and promote respect for the environment.

Host Org: The Nature Conservancy

Fellow role at The Nature Conservancy: Vanessa will serve as an Ecosystem Disaster Risk Reduction Fellow and will contribute to the design and development of outreach tools, guidance and other resources pertaining to coastal risk and resilience. She will assume the lead role for one or more projects pertaining to strategic priorities and support website content development/maintenance and social media outreach.