This March, we convened a powerful cohort of 24 local leaders from across Mexico for our Leadership and Advocacy Accelerator – an intensive, week-long training designed to strengthen gender equity and justice at scale. 

Our fourth Accelerator in Mexico builds on nearly a decade of partnership with local leaders advancing gender justice in the region. This year also marks the addition of Erika Noyola Sánchez as our Mexico Country Representative, working alongside Americas Program Manager Patzia Martinez Montes de Oca and Accelerator facilitator and independent consultant Keila Gonzalez de Arias to deepen and expand Rise Up Together’s impact in country. 

With a strategic expansion into Nuevo León alongside ongoing work in San Luis Potosí and Chihuahua, this year’s leaders have deep experience advancing solutions to urgent and interconnected challenges facing women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people. Their work spans water rights and access, improving responses to missing persons and femicide, strengthening labor conditions for immigrant communities, advancing menstrual health, and preventing violence through efforts focused on new masculinities.  

What made this cohort particularly striking was not only the breadth of issues represented, but the diversity of lived experiences and perspectives each leader brought into the space. Over the course of the Accelerator, participants deepened their skills in advocacy strategy, political mapping, communications, and coalition-building – while also undergoing a powerful shift in how they see themselves and their role in driving lasting change in Mexico. 

By the end of the week, many of our participants began to identify not only as advocates, but as human rights defenders – leaders equipped to influence systems, shape policy, and advance transformative change in their communities.  

A pivotal moment came when Alejandra García Muñiz shared her advocacy journey. As Director of Operations at Juntos, Una Experiencia Compartida A.C. – Rise Up Together’s employer of record in Mexico – and a Rise Up Leader from our 2018 cohort, Alejandra’s experience offered both inspiration and tangible proof that advocacy can, and does, work in Mexico. For participants earlier in their journeys, this moment helped transform uncertainty into possibility.  

Now, these new Rise Up Leaders are eligible to apply for competitive grant funding to launch and scale their advocacy projects – advancing gender equity in education, health care, economic opportunity, and climate resilience across Mexico. 

Meet all of our new Rise Up Leaders in Mexico here and stay tuned for more updates on how they are advancing gender equity and justice in their communities and beyond.