Executive Director, Fundacion Mi Sangre
Catalina is the Director of Mi Sangre Foundation. A non-profit organization created by the social leader and artist, Juanes, to contribute to peace building in Colombia. Mi Sangre provides psychosocial assistance to children and youth affected by violence and it promotes education for peace through arts and culture so they can become active agents of change.
Catalina has more than 20 years of experience in development issues and social entrepreneurship. She is the co founder and Chair of Amigos del Choco Foundation and the Oro Verde Initiative, the first social and environmental certification system for artisanal and small scale gold mining in the world. As a mechanism to scale up this process, she led the creation of the Alliance for Responsible Mining, ARM, which is now replicating the program in other countries of the world.
Catalina was elected as Ashoka fellow in 2003, as a "Rising Talent" by the Women´s forum in 2007, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in the same year and Synergos fellow in 2010. Catalina holds a BA in Sociology and Political Science from the Maryland University (USA) and a Masters Degree in Social Policy and Planning for developing countries from the London School of Economics. She is currently based in Cape Town, South Africa on a sabbatical year to study issues around youth, violence prevention, peace and reconciliation.
