2022 Venezuelan Emerging Leaders

The Venezuela Emerging Leaders program seeks to promote a comprehensive understanding of humanitarian assistance and human rights issues in Venezuela. The program gathers emerging local leaders from Venezuela to help expand their tools to address Venezuela’s multidimensional humanitarian crisis and prompt new actions.

Throughout the program, the Atlantic Council will bring together renowned national and international experts, civil society leaders, academics, and political leaders, as well as human rights and humanitarian experts. The experts will lead technical training and will promote constructive debates that lead to sustainable solutions and joint actions to address Venezuela’s humanitarian situation.

2022 Venezuela Emerging Leaders

Bios

Gabriel Cabrera is an activist and a democratic student representative in Venezuela. He serves as the director of the Center for Activism and Democratic Development for Latin America (CDDLatAm) and is a member of the steering committee of the Latin American Youth Network for Youth DemocracyLAC. Cabrera is a lawyer from the University of Carabobo and a social communications student at Arturo Michelena University. He graduated from the human rights program from the Metropolitan University and the Lidera program of the Future Present Foundation together with the Institute of Higher Administrative Studies (IESA), the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB) and the Metropolitan University (UNIMET).

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Mariangela Castillo is a national projects coordinator at Alimenta la Solidaridad, an organization that promotes food security for children in Venezuela through co-responsibility and community leadership. The organization also focuses on complementing areas such as nutrition, education, infancy protection, and prevention of gender-based violence. Previously, Castillo worked as a junior research assistant for DeSmog UK and project-management intern at Fedecamaras.

Castillo has a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela.

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Meily Chang is a political scientist who currently manages Inspiring Girls Venezuela, an organization that seeks to increase self-esteem and professional ambition in young girls and teenagers by exposing them to inspiring female leaders in their fields of interest. She is also a research analyst at ODH Consulting Group, where she performs political analysis and creates public policies. Chang also works as a humanitarian-response analyst at Consultores 21.

Chang is a graduate of Universidad Central de Venezuela and has a master’s degree in political and government studies from Universidad Metropolitana de Venezuela.

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Samuel Diaz Pulgar is the co-founder and general director of Nutriendo el Futuro, a social organization focused on nutrition, health, education, and female community empowerment. His previous work experience includes working as project coordinator for a humanitarian organization in Venezuela, as a technical/strategic advisor to Fe y Alegria, and as a consultant and professor of public policy. Diaz Pulgar also has experience designing, implementing, and managing social projects in Venezuela.

Diaz Pulgar has a master’s in public policy from the Blavatnik School of Government at University of Oxford, where he was selected as the first Venezuela Chevening/Wiedenfeld-Hoffman Trust scholar. He also has a degree in liberal studies from Universidad Metropolitana and graduated from the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program at Georgetown University.

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Hugo Fernández is the founder and co-director of strategic planning for the NGO Acción Cultural. He currently serves as distribution coordinator of the AliMentes program of Construyendo Futuros, in alliance with United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in Falcón. Fernández has experience as a regional promoter for community leadership for Foro Permanente de Juventudes, as member of the Global Youth Parliament—Venezuelan chapter, and former regional youth secretary of Acción Democrática.

Fernández is currently pursuing a degree in civil engineering at Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda.

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Hilda Rubí González is an obstetrician, gynecologist, nurse, and human-rights defender who serves as national secretary of health and welfare for the Un Nuevo Tiempo political party. She served as general secretary of FCU-UCV from 2015 to 2017.
González has a medical degree from Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she represents medical graduates on the board of the school of medicine.

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Daniella Liendo Bouquet is a cytotechnologist and fifth-year medical student at Universidad Central de Venezuela. She is the founder and director of Hazlo Hoy, an organization that promotes public health and health rights, and currently serves as the coordinator of the central region for Red Joven Venezuela. Liendo Bouquet is a former student leader, Generation Change fellow at the US Institute of Peace, Ashoka changemaker, and Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD) alumnus.

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Francisco Enrique Machado Toro is a doctor and project leader at Venezuela in Action, an NGO that provides humanitarian assistance in areas related to water supply, sanitation, and hygiene. In this position, he conducts “Hygiene Days” in rural and vulnerable communities across Venezuela. Machado Toro is also an avid human-rights defender and focuses on health and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) community. As a drag queen, he focuses his activism on diversity as a pillar of human recognition.

Machado Toro has a medical degree from José María Vargas School of Universidad Central de Venezuela.

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Gabriela Matute Rios is the national director of New Generations of Alianza del Lápiz, and director of innovation at Fundación Arturo Uslar Pietri. She is currently an international-affairs student at Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she served as student representative from 2019–2022. Previously, Matute Rios represented Venezuela at the Cato Institute’s “Universidad El Cato,” a program that brings together young leaders from all over Latin America to discuss the future of freedom in the region.

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Noris Moreno is an activist and founder of Más Resilientes, an education initiative that contributes to the reduction of inequalities and the promotion opportunities for vulnerable youths. She is a Venezuelan American Friendship Association (AVAA) scholar and alumnus of the Study of the US Institutes for Students Leaders program. She is currently studying sociology at Universidad Central de Venezuela.

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Daniel Picado is the director and founder of Organización País Plural. He is a human-rights activist and specialist in diversity, inclusion, and development in LGBTIQ+ populations in Venezuela.

Picado has a degree in public-health inspection with a specialization in epidemiology, and a master’s in international cooperation and humanitarian aid from Universidad Central de Venezuela.

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Raúl Eduardo Puche Ribón is a psychologist and a co-founder of Rehabilitarte, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that promotes mental-health assistance and healthcare with a focus on human rights for vulnerable communities in Zulia. He has focused on the effects of the humanitarian emergency on mental health since 2016.

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Sairam Rivas is a pro-democracy and human-rights activist who serves as project manager at Consortium, Development, and Justice, coordinates the UnPaísPosible project, and oversees Bandera Roja’s youth group. She currently works as an adviser to the National Federation of Secondary Education Students (FENEEM) and is also the founder and leader of the LuCHAMOS initiative, a program that seeks to increase teenage participation in public affairs.

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José Miguel Rodríguez is a lawyer, general director of Más Ciudadanos, and Balloon Latam fellow. Rodríguez has a law degree from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and is currently pursuing a master’s in political science at Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB) and a master’s in political and government studies at Universidad Metropolitana.

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Humberto Rumbos is the chief technology officer of the digital observatory ProBox, where he focuses on influence operations, disinformation, digital rights, and activism in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. He is part of the Global Shapers network of the World Economic Forum, where he works with a group of young people to generate impact from different sectors of Venezuelan society. Rumbos has more than three years of experience working with national and international NGOs in Venezuela.
Rumbos has a degree in liberal arts and is a thesis student currently pursuing a master’s degree in political and government studies.

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Giselmar Soto is a general surgeon currently specializing in reconstructive surgery at Universidad Central de Venezuela. She founded Fundación Salud y Recreación (SARE) in 2015, an NGO that addresses the lack of preventive-health public policies in Venezuela. Today, Sare has more than two hundred and thirty volunteers across six states in Venezuela.
Soto has a medical degree from Universidad de Carabobo and is currently pursuing a master’s in public management at Instituto de Estudios Superiores en Administración.

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Yendri Velásquez is the co-founder of the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence and forms part of Diversxs, an initiative that aims to empower youth toward human rights and LGBTIQ+ activism with Amnesty International Venezuela.
Velásquez has a degree in modern languages from Instituto Américo Vespucio, a diploma in public management at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, and a diploma in social and political leadership at Universidad Metropolitana and is a graduate of the Human Rights Promoters program of Amnesty International Venezuela.

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Venezuela

Once a thriving democracy, Venezuela today is in one of its darkest times in history. Years of economic mismanagement, cronyism, and democratic erosion, further fueled by hyperinflation, power cuts, and shortages of food and medicine, have triggered a humanitarian and migration crisis with reverberations across Latin America and beyond. A peaceful democratic transition will remain as the top priority – and the first step – toward a more prosperous future for Venezuelans and the hemisphere.