User:Mluribe/sandbox

Maria Lucia Uribe Torres is originally from Colombia. She is the Director of Arigatou International Geneva and the Secretary General of the Interfaith Council on Ethics Education for Children. She is in charge of the strategic direction of the office, the management of its ethics education program through its enhancement, further development and partnerships, and of developing and maintaining the Arigatou International engagement in child rights initiatives with UN agencies and child rights focused NGOs.

Before her appointment she served as Coordinator and Deputy Coordinator for Education and Fragility for the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), based at UNHCR in Geneva. Previous to her involvement with INEE, Maria Lucia worked with Arigatou International in Geneva for five years where she held the position of Program Officer. Maria Lucia was responsible for the coordination of the development of the Learning to Live Together manual developed in cooperation with UNESCO and UNICEF, and of the planning, facilitation and evaluation of workshops with children and youth, and training of educators in more than 15 countries. Previous to her involvement with Arigatou she worked with AIESEC, where she held the position of Vice-president of External Relations for the Colombian Chapter and later on Vice-president of Human Resources for the Sri Lankan Chapter. She also worked with HSBC Sri Lanka developing leadership skills in university students in Colombo as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility programme.

Maria Lucia is currently co-convener of the Working Group on Children and Violence of Child Rigths Connect formed by more than 20 NGOs and other organizations working for the prevention of violence against children, their protection and promotion of mechanisms and tools to end violence against children.

Maria Lucia has 13 years of international experience working in global, intercultural, interfaith, human rights, child rights and peace education. She has knowledge and experience working with conflict analysis models, mediation theories, networking, fundraising, partnership building, and studying the connections between education, conflict transformation and peace building.

Maria Lucia holds a Master in Peace and Conflict Transformation from the University of Basel in Switzerland, a specialization in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from the University College Henry Dunant in Geneva, Switzerland, and a Bachellor degree in International Relations and Finance from the Externado University of Colombia.

Maria Lucia is married and lives in France close to the border with Switzerland.