ABOUT ALBORA

 

“Albora sets out to
concentrate trust”

Manuel Gil Antón, Adviser

 

Albora is a network of people who seek peace for Mexico, and is mindful of the many and very diverse efforts to transform the country, which is going through one of its darkest periods.

 

Albora is a digital platform, a theme-based repository of initiatives that deserve to be widely known and supported. We tell stories that help us to restore hope as a social force.

 

Albora aspires to be a community that helps to rekindle trust in others, because it will be impossible to transform the country without it.

 

WHAT WE DO

 

We produce multimedia stories with a great deal of investigative rigour and to a very high standard.

— We study initiatives that we consider to be transformative and that deserve to be widely known and supported.

— We live them. Our contributors travel, document, and live the transformative experience themselves.

— We produce multimedia stories with a great deal of investigative rigour and to a very high standard.

— We build bridges between groups, organizations, and citizens who are already involved in social change or willing to do take part in it.

WHAT FOR

 

“Our human survival depends on the possibility to restore hope as a force for social change. This implies acknowledging uncertainty about the future, and believing that what we do matters, even if we do not know how, or when it will have an impact”

 

Gustavo Esteva

The levels of public mistrust in Mexico are among the highest in Latin America. We believe that there will barely be a different future for Mexico unless we restore trust, in spite of everything that is happening, from generalized violence and the war against those at the bottom, against women, against young people, against its ecosystems.

 

Mexican society is extremely generous when faced with situations such as disasters, but this generosity becomes scarce in everyday life. Few people donate or provide support to groups and organizations, or to those who devote time to collective and community efforts. Processes of change require the strengthening of civil society, and for this to happen, it is essential that an ever greater number of us get involved.

 

Given that social change is always a collective effort, Albora seeks to contribute to restoring hope as a social force.

WHO WE ARE

 

Our working team

Étienne von Bertrab

@etiennista

[Founder & Director]

MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development (UCL). He has been a lecturer and researcher in Mexico and the United Kingdom. He currently teaches Political Ecology and Communication for Social Change at University College London. He has worked with various civil society groups and founded a number of organizations and networks. His academic work has focused on understanding the production of environmental (in)justice in Latin America and his activism on Mexico.

Omar Saracho

—

[Co-founder]

Architect (ITESO) and MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development (UCL). He has worked with various organizations on projects relating to the defence of human rights, urban poverty alleviation, economic development, water and sanitation, the improvement of informal settlements, as well as adaptation and mitigation in response to climate change, mainly in South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, the United States and Mexico.

Óscar Tagle

@Tagliacci

[Co-editor]

He has worked on editorial pages and contributed to various newspapers based in Jalisco. He is the author of 5 books, the most recent being A writing system based on the literary style of walking the streets (2018). He has featured in various books on poetry. He is currently an instructor at the Digital Journalism Training Center at UdeG Virtual, and since 2006 has coordinated the publishing company and literary creation workshop Al Gravitar Rotando.

Jaime Morales Hernández

—

[Rural adviser]

PhD in Agroecology from the University of Córdoba, Spain. He is a lecturer-researcher at ITESO in Guadalajara and has been a visiting professor at several universities across Latin America and Europe. For 30 years, he has worked with and advised peasant and indigenous communities in Mexico and throughout Latin America. He is the author and co-author of five books and several scientific papers. He is an ecological farmer on the southern banks of Lake Chapala.

Manuel Gil Antón

@ManuelGilAnton

[Education adviser]

Philosopher, Master’s degree in Sociology and PhD in Methodology and Theory of Science from CINVESTAV. Lecturer-researcher in higher education since 1981, he is currently part of the Center for Sociological Studies at the Colegio de México. He is a member of the National System of Researchers, Level III. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on education. Among his efforts to share knowledge, Educación Futura stands out, of which he is Academic Director, together with his fortnightly column in Mexico’s El Universal newspaper.

Mariana Zaragoza González

@Marianitsg

[Migration adviser]

Master’s degree in Development and International Cooperation from the HEGOA Institute at the University of the Basque Country. She has worked on projects relating to women, development and indigenous peoples, and has worked with the Spanish Refugee Aid Commission in the Basque Country, as well as feminist development cooperation NGO ‘Mugarik Gabe’. She currently coordinates the Migratory Affairs Programme at the Ibero-American University, Mexico City.

Andrea Medina Rosas

—

[Gender adviser]

Feminist lawyer specializing in strengthening the right of women to a life free of violence. Since she began working with victims of sexual violence over 20 years ago, she has worked in litigation, legislation, public policy-making and training justice officers in aspects such as law and gender, and all forms of violence against women. She is interested in art and somatic education to enhance understanding and the strengthening of human rights in practice.

Rodrigo Migoya von Bertrab

@MigoyaVon

[Conservation adviser]

PhD in Waterfowl Management. Rodrigo has worked with various education institutions on wildlife conservation across Mexico, the United States and the Caribbean. He is the founder and director of Niños y Crías, an organization with a 20 year track record of conservation work to protect the pink flamingo population, as well as improve the quality and use of water, in the Yucatan peninsula. He is particularly interested in the transformative power of environmental education in rural, fishing and urban communities.

Karol Yañez Soria

@iecokarolyas

[Urban adviser]

PhD in Planning for Sustainable Development (UCL). She has worked in the private sector, international organizations and academia in the UK, Mexico and India, in projects relating to urban environmental sustainability, adaptation to climate change, and the role of civil society in bringing about environmental justice. She is currently Conacyt Chair and Manager at Centromet (Interdisciplinary Center of Metropolitan Studies) in Mexico.

Collaborators

Laura Méndez

@mentabranding

[Graphic design]

Creative Director. Head of Menta, a graphic design studio in Guadalajara that specializes in branding and packaging. She has delivered lectures and held workshops in Mexico and abroad, on the intersections between design, intuition and the role of women across the board. She is a mother and divides her daily hours between typesetting, dreaming and evenings in the park.

Paco Aguayo

Análogo

[Web design]

Creative director and partner at Análogo, a branding and digital design boutique in Guadalajara. He has worked for clients in the Philippines, Finland, the United States and the Netherlands, as well as local and national clients. His work has been published in different international books, as well as portals such as The Dieline and Communication Arts, among others.

Aldo Prieto

—

[Project management]

Systems Engineer (ITESO) and holds a Master’s degree in Administration from the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He has been a project leader at various organizations and companies, both in Mexico and abroad. He is also fond of art, especially music, which he plays on percussion instruments, and on turntables as a DJ.

Daniela Muñoz Levy

@_munyoz_

[Strategy]

Urban Planning Master’s degree candidate in London (UCL), received a law degree from ITAM. She has experience in Mexico’s Federal Public Administration, as Director of Social Policy and Urban Development Planning. She has also been involved in various civil society groups promoting citizen engagement. Her interests revolve around issues of local governance, environmental policy and participatory planning.

George Azariah-Moreno

@theworldisacity

[Translation]

Independent translator with wide-ranging experience, trained as a political anthropologist in London (UCL), MSc in City Design and Social Science (LSE). He has worked in the field of urban information management and research (Barcelona), as well as community projects and the study of electoral processes in Venezuela, with a critical focus on spatial justice and democratization.