International Women’s Day makes me think a lot about Mexico, even after having arrived in the United Kingdom almost a year and a half ago. I remember how I used to gather with my friends to paint banners and reflect on the patriarchal violence that permeates our lives.

We took to the streets with signs in hand and cries of protest. We stood together, supporting each other. I saw many women expressing pain and anger in various ways: through music, graffiti, dance... or simply walking in silence but with their heads held high. Each one had a unique story of experiencing violence. 

In Mexico, I worked as the executive director of a local environmental association in Mérida, the city where I was born. There, I mainly developed reforestation programs to combat the high-temperature increase, where the hot days range from 35 to over 40 degrees depending on the time of year. It’s a region with complex environmental problems accelerated by a growing real estate market that devours the forest cover that surrounds the city.

Alexia Lizarraga Quintero
Partnerships and Climate Fellowship Manager at Amos Trust
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Additionally, the construction of the mega-project Tren Maya (Maya Train) is fragmenting the Maya Jungle, the second most important carbon deposit in Latin America. It puts cenotes at risk — underground rivers that extend like networks of caves and tunnels beneath the ground. The cenotes have also been threatened by massive pig farms that pollute the soil and water, jeopardising the health of the region’s inhabitants and the environment.

In Mexico, I worked as the executive director of a local environmental association in Mérida, the city where I was born. There, I mainly developed reforestation programs to combat the high-temperature increase, where the hot days range from 35 to over 40 degrees depending on the time of year.

This environment surrounded me and showed me the complex relationship between environmental and social problems and how they often impact the most vulnerable groups the hardest. For example, the same violence was cutting across everything; the violence experienced by women was the same violence that the natural environment was enduring.

I sought to develop this link between climate change and gender. To look at how climate change makes women more vulnerable and why increasing women’s participation in climate action is necessary. This vocation allowed me to find Amos Trust.

Alexia and other feminists during the International Women’s Day march on 8th March, 2022 in Mérida, Yucatán
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I joined the team in January 2024. Amos has allowed me to create a platform to do what I have always wanted: to carry out a Climate Change project that increases and strengthens women’s participation in the climate fight through the Climate and Gender Fellowship project. Through this project, we aim to support 12 young female climate activists in the region I come from, which I hope will be a great support to them as I understand what they are facing. 

I’m excited to work with CEPAD in Nicaragua, which has partnered with Amos for over 30 years and is aware of the complex socio-environmental problems facing the region, as well as the gender violence that extends throughout Mexico and Central America. This same violence is what hinders the work of women activists in the area.

I sought to develop this link between climate change and gender. To look at how climate change makes women more vulnerable and why increasing women’s participation in climate action is necessary. This vocation allowed me to find Amos Trust.

Now, from the other side of the world, I can finally contribute more than I would have believed in this endeavour. So today, 8th March — International Women’s Day, perhaps I won’t take to the streets to march for women as I did every year in Mexico, but through Amos Trust and the Climate and Gender Fellowship program, I am still carrying out my fight in a different way that I know will be a contribution and growth for many. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

Alexia Lizarraga Quintero
Partnerships and Climate Fellowship Manager — Amos Trust
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Dear Mother,
I have seen the future in dreams nights ago.
That greenish fur that envelops you,
and they despise so much,
grew wildly in all directions.
It covered those monstrosities of cement and metal
that they once placed upon you.
They were just ruins buried beneath your green hair.
The only skyscrapers growing on you were trees
that spread their branches to touch the sky.
And the liquid flowing through your arteries
was clean and pure like the laughter of a newborn.

They were no longer there, dear mother.
Their ambition led them to self-destruction.
But you and I remained and flourished.
They never understood our immortality.
The unique essence of our divine nature.
They will perish with time,
like the flame burning in a candle.
But we, Gaia, will endure into eternity.

Poem excerpt: ‘Mother Gaia’ by Alexia Lizarraga Quintero.