Isabel Cipriano Soliz

Isabel Cipriano Soliz is a Sakapulteka Mayan Indigenous Woman from Guatemala. For over 20 years, she has been involved in the administrative and financial management of Indigenous Women’s organizations.

As such, she worked at the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala for 12 years, as an assistant at the Office for the Protection of Indigenous Women for four years, and as an assistant at the Indigenous Women’s program for Central America and Mexico at UNIFEM and UN Women. She also participated in other government and civil society agencies in her country. She coordinates the design and implementation of FIMI’s Financial Administrative System.  

Isabel studied linguistics, education and human resources with an emphasis on labour conflict resolution, and was trained in financial resilience, strategic planning, logical framework and project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. She is also a holistic therapist. 

However, she gained her deepest knowledge while travelling through hills, ravines and valleys with her paternal grandmother, gathering wild fruits to feed the family, sell or barter with the community. Those experiences prepared Isabel to add her little grain of corn in the fight for the individual and collective rights of Indigenous Women.