Mexico
2021 Grantee -Latin America and Caribbean Program
PhD in Education
MA in Pedagogy, Education and Cultural Diversity from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
BA in Education, Secondary Schools from Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UAY)
BA in Pedagogy, Education and Cultural Diversity from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN)
Born in Maxcanu, Yucatán, Bertha migrated to Merida, the state capital, to study and work. She began teaching and doing research in 2010 at the UPN. She was a technical assistant at the Gender Program of the Universidad Iberoamericana, which joined the “He for She” campaign of the UN. She taught at the Instituto Superior Intercultural Ayuuk – ISIA (part of the Jesuit University System), Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, and UNAM.
Bertha has been working for the inclusion and independence of Maya women and children through her intensive social work and in her role as an educator. She believes that there is a lot to be done to promote education in indigenous communities, especially for women, and has focused on helping minorities to be better received in the academic environment and on avoiding the exclusion and fear that she, like many other indigenous children, suffered while being at school.
She has participated in several rural and indigenous education research projects at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. She is a promoter not only of indigenous students of higher education, but of indigenous teachers and researchers to bring about greater diversity and inclusion, as well as a broader cultural outlook and ways of learning.
Bertha has an impressive history of community work; she is a former fellow with the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program, she has participated in the Interdisciplinary Network of Researchers of Indian Peoples of Mexico, the Activists Network for Indigenous Languages of Latin America (within Global Voices), the Indigenous Leaders of the World Network, and the Initiative for the Eradication of Racism in Higher Education, within the UNESCO ESIAL Chair in “Higher Education and Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America.” She was the coordinator for the “Southern Yucatan Maya Women’s Political Promotion and Participation” project with Ecomunnis A.C. She has authored many articles published in academic journals and books.
Her thesis, “Educational Experiences of Maya Women from Yucatan with PhD’s, and Identity Reconfiguration Processes,” presents the effects that higher education has on the way that Maya women rethink their leadership roles at community, national and international levels, on their decision making, and on the reconstruction and representation of their identities as migrant Maya women with PhD’s.
“To demand the right to education is to place myself in the principles of social justice, a dignified life and respect for our native languages, which continues to be a struggle for indigenous and Afro- Mexican people, in the workplaces and at schools.”
