Rigoberta Menchú: Example of defending human rights (+birth)

On January 9, 1959, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, an indigenous leader and activist, member of the Mayan Quiché group, defender of human rights, a UNESCO goodwill ambassador and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1992) and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1992) and the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation (1998), was born in Uspantán, Quiché, Guatemala.

Known for her leadership at the forefront of social struggles at the national and international levels. From a young age, he was involved in the protest struggles of indigenous and peasant peoples, which earned him political persecution and exile.

In 1978, she was a founding member of the CUC (Committee for Peasant Unity) and the RUOG (Unitary Representation of the Guatemalan Opposition), of which she was part of its management until 1992.

The Nobel Prize was awarded in recognition of his struggle for social justice and ethnocultural reconciliation based on respect for indigenous rights, coinciding with the fifth centenary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America, and with the declaration of 1992 as the International Year of Indigenous Peoples.

With the resources he received from the award, he established the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, based in Guatemala; a subsidiary in Mexico, under the legal status of Private Assistance Institution (IAP) and another in New York.

Mazo News Team