Ana Maria Gonzalez-Forero

Chief Sustainability Officer, Fundación por la Educación Multidimensional (FEM)

COLOMBIA

For more than 25 years, Ana Maria Gonzalez-Forero has worked on organizing and advocating for the rights of local indigenous communities in Colombia. Through her work with FEM, Ana helps rural ethnic communities secure their land ownership, self governance, and resource allotment rights which are guaranteed in Colombia’s National Development Plan. In the last four years FEM has helped several communities obtain their ethnic rights, strengthened the Zenu people organization by helping create ATINAZ -- an association of 120 indigenous Zenu families that live as urban migrants in Cartagena, and helped the Inga Indigenous Community received their ethnic recognition documents after a 30-year legal battle.

Your support turns hope into action

Donate to the Barack Obama Foundation.

Donate to the Barack Obama Foundation. The Barack Obama Foundation is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (EIN 46-4950751).

More Columbia University Scholars 2018-2019

Alice Barbe

Fostering collaboration between refugees and their host societies by focusing on refugees’ personal, professional, cultural, and entrepreneurial plans and goals.

Ana Maria Gonzalez-Forero

Enabling inclusive development in Colombia through participatory planning and design processes that allow diverse stakeholders to find shared fulfillment and mutual recognition in indigenous communities.

Gabriela Galilea

Democratizing access to visual health and inclusive education through the creation of tools that help diagnose and treat visual and development conditions at a fraction of the current market price.

Hong Hoang

Mobilizing youth leaders to promote environmental preservation through communication, education, and community organizing toward a vision of a green and clean Vietnam protected by all people.

Ndansi Elvis Nukam

Improving access to basic health care in underserved communities in Cameroon.

Oluseun Onigbinde

Working to simplify budgets and public finance documents to strengthen the capacity of citizens to hold governments accountable.

Omezzine Khelifa

Inspiring youth to become peaceful and creative change leaders in Tunisia and throughout Africa.

Pavel Kounchev

Developing creative solutions and digital tools to inspire civic engagement.

Peter Ndayihereje

Improving community cohesion among people of all backgrounds by leveraging communal structures to improve health and economic outcomes.

Rumbidzai Chisenga

Building the capacity of African youth to lead the continent’s social and economic progress.

Trisha Shetty

Advancing sustainable development through a gender-sensitive and youth-centric approach.

Vanessa Paranjothy

Changing mindsets and making periods a problem of the past by providing women in underprivileged communities with menstrual cups through a “buy one, give one” model.

More About the Scholars Program

More About the Scholars Program

The Obama Foundation Scholars program gives rising leaders from around the world who are already making a difference in their communities the opportunity to take their work to the next level.

Learn More