Maria Teresa Castillo Burguete CINVESTAV, Mexico
María Teresa (Tere) Castillo-Burguete, born and grew in Chiapas, rooted in both Zapotec Isthmus, in Oaxaca State and indigenous cultures from Chiapas, she was sensitized in the cultural richness and the poor living conditions of the people. Living in Yucatan and sharing the rich regional Maya culture, she decided to search on community participation, gender relationships & natural resources management; having Participatory Action Research as a light to research and involve herself in changes, putting the science available for the communities whom pay, through taxes, scientific research, including researches’ salaries. This is also the sense of her teaching in the master degree program in Cinvestav.
Tere and her institution works with some organizations, such as the ejido of San Crisanto (a group related to a kind of land tenure in Mexico), on participatory community processes, non-formal and informal education and rural development. The ejido as whole is managing its natural resources on the basis of the Maya-Yucatec culture, mixed with scientific knowledge. This cooperation between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge can contribute to build stronger communities for change and has allowed the ejido to won some national and international awards such as the Equator Initiative Award, granted by the UNDP, in 2010. She is the founder and head of the Laboratory for Research on Community Participation of Cinvestav-Merida. Tere lives with her husband and two sons in Yucatan since 1984 and love gardening and animals watching; she is a very good amateur biologist.
