Mexico: Sustainable Development and Social Change

Faculty and Staff

Jonathan Treat, Academic Director

Jonathan Treat, Academic Director
Jonathan Treat holds a B.A. in English literature and an M.A. in international news and documentary journalism with a minor in international studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has extensive professional experience in Central America and Mexico and has lived and worked in Oaxaca for eight years.

Jonathan was previously director of the Oaxaca Solidarity Network, coordinating and leading international human rights delegations. Previously he worked as the Oaxaca director for Community Links International, coordinating international educational, service-learning, and volunteer experiences with a focus on issues of human rights, social justice, and sustainable development for US university and high school students. Before making Oaxaca his home, Jonathan spent nine years teaching at the university level in the U.S. as a professor of sociology, English as a second language, composition, and media studies. He also worked with international refugees and migrants as an educator with the Spring Institute for Intercultural Communication in Denver, Colorado.

Jonathan has a substantial background in research, filming, and production of documentary videos on issues of human rights and social justice in Guatemala and Mexico. His graduate research on popular organizing in the Guatemala City garbage dump evolved into a documentary on that topic. Other documentary works include titles such as "AGAINST FORGETTING" a documentary on the exhumation of mass graves in Guatemala, and "VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS" regarding the struggles of Guatemalan women against political violence and economic repression. As an independent documentary producer, Jonathan also collaborated on programs for CBS's "60 Minutes", PBS's Rights and Wrongs, and the Discovery Channel.

His published work includes articles on land reform, migration and migrant rights, environmental issues and water use, the Plan Puebla-Panama "development" project, and the femicides in Ciudad Juárez, México.  Jonathan's account of the entrance of the Federal Preventative Police into Oaxaca during the 2006 conflict was published in the book, La Batalla por Oaxaca (The Battle for Oaxaca), Ediciones Yope Poder, 2007. His photographs of popular resistance during the Oaxacan conflict in 2006 are featured in, "Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca" (PM Press, 2008).

During the recent coup in Honduras, Jonathan conducted human rights observation and reporting from Tegucigalpa.  Jonathan's current research interests include popular resistance to mega-development projects, food sovereignty, water rights, and sustainability.

Sara Méndez Morales, Thematic Seminar and ISP Coordinator

Sara Méndez Morales, Thematic Seminar and ISP Coordinator
A native of Oaxaca, Sara studied sociology at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, receiving her M.A. in 1970.  She later completed another degree, a B. A. in social anthropology, at the Universidad Autónoma Metroplitana in Mexico City. 
 
Sara is the author of various publications that address the themes of locally-based political power and autonomy, migration, gender, domestic violence, and human rights.
 
Sara has worked with a wide range of civic organizations in Oaxaca since 1996, including the Pastoral Social Diocesana, Servicios para una Educación Alternativa (EDUCA), and Centro de Derechos Humanos Nu'u ji Kandi.  From 2005-2007, Sara was technical director of one of Oaxaca’s leading human rights advocates, the Red Oaxaqueña de Derechos Humanos.  She also collaborates with the Comite´ de Liberación 25 de Noviembre, A.C., which advocates for Oaxacan political prisoners.

As the program's thematic seminar and ISP coordinator, Sara works closely with the academic director in coordinating the thematic seminar; she also works with students in defining and carrying out their Independent Study Projects and collaborative learning experiences. Sara has worked with SIT in Mexico since 2007. She believes working with youth is fundamental to creating a better world.

Beatriz Núñez, Program Assistant
Beatriz is a native of Durango, a small city in northern Mexico. She studied at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), receiving her bachelor's degree in international business administration in 2008. In her current role as program assistant with SIT, Beatriz supports the academic director with a range of administrative tasks, program accounting, and logistics. She also works closely with the students, supporting them in personal, academic, and other matters.

Beatriz greatly appreciates Oaxaca's cultural richness and the grassroots efforts of the region’s NGOs working to support economic and social growth. Prior to working for SIT, Beatriz worked in socially-conscious business ventures, such as organic food production, and eco-tourism in rural indigenous communities. She also volunteered regularly with organizations working to promote indigenous rights, environmental conservation, and sustainable community development.

Mojdeh Hojjati, Mexico City Excursion Coordinator
Mojdeh Hojjati has led educational excursions for SIT/World Learning, Mexico for more than 6 years. Born in Florida to Iranian parents, Mojdeh lived for 20 years in various parts of the US and for 10 years in Iran. Mexico City has been her home for 17 years.

After completing her B.A. in international relations and M.S. in agricultural economics at Michigan State University, Mojdeh arrived in Mexico in 1993 to commence a 1-year internship with Gustavo Esteva, Mexican intellectual, author, and founder of the alternative school, Universidad de la Tierra (Unitierra). She stayed in Mexico, working for numerous years with grassroots organizations in Mexico City, with small US-based grant making organizations, and served as a bridge for college students and researchers wanting to experience Mexico City. 

In 2004, Mojdeh began working with SIT as the Mexico City excursion coordinator. In this role, she provides students opportunities for educational and cultural interactions that reach far beyond the surface that most people experience when visiting Mexico City. In addition to sharing Mexico City's rich cultural and historical attractions, Mojdeh offers students unique, firsthand glimpses into the city’s vibrant and diverse world of grassroots community development, and of civil society's efforts to foster sustainable social, political, and environmental change in the hemisphere’s largest city. 

Julio Ortega Oseguera, Coordinator, Chiapas Excursion
Julio Ortega, coordinator of the Chiapas excursion, has worked with SIT/World Learning, Mexico for more than six years. A native of Chiapas, Julio has extensive experience coordinating educational and human rights delegations in the region, working with organizations such as Global Exchange and the Mexico Solidarity Network. 

Julio has worked as an investigator and activist with the Center of Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research, researching themes of militarization, poverty, the Zapatista movement, and documenting human rights violations. He collaborates regularly with the Centro Indígena de Capacitación Integral (CIDECI) and has extensive experience working on projects to strengthen autonomy in Zapatista communities.

As coordinator of the Chiapas excursion, Julio provides students unique opportunities to look closely at issues of indigenous autonomy, the history and values of the Zapatista movement, the implications of mega-development projects for communities and the environment in Chiapas, and resistance and hopes for positive change.

During visits to the non-violent community of Acteal, site of the 1997 massacre of 45 pacifists, and to the Autonomous Zapatista community of Oventik, Julio provides students with sensitive analysis and insight into indigenous worldviews and how they offer new understandings and possibilities for the creation a more just, humane world.

Pablo Ruiz Lavalle, Coordinator, Sustainability and Permaculture Workshop
Pablo Ruiz, with his partner Adriana Guzmán Salinas, co-founded Tierra del Sol in 2001. Tierra del Sol is an eco-community that experiments with and promotes appropriate, sustainable living alternatives. In contrast to modern culture which typically tends to be based on the exploitation of nature and on social competition and consumerism, Tierra del Sol uses principles of permaculture to create and promote communities that foster cooperation, careful use of resources, and respect for the natural world. Tierra del Sol is a living, working eco-community that is making the theoretical a reality—using and sharing appropriate technologies for alterative food production, the use of natural energy sources, and water and waste management.  

Pablo facilitates the program's sustainability and permaculture workshop at Tierra del Sol, which looks closely at critical issues of access to food and water in Mexico, and specifically in Oaxaca. After carefully considering those topics—and related themes such as agro-industry, food sovereignty, privatization, and basic needs as human rights—students have the opportunity to witness appropriate low-tech, sustainable alternatives such as the production of organic fertilizers, natural pest control, rainwater harvesting, gray water filtration, passive solar water heating, and biogas production. This unique workshop offers students the opportunity to explore key issues in development and sustainability, reflect on some of today's most pressing environmental and social problems, and gain firsthand understanding of local initiatives to create more sustainable, human, and environmentally sound alternatives.

Gustavo Esteva, Program Lecturer
Gustavo Esteva is widely recognized as one of Mexico's leading independent thinkers and authors. He is an active voice in what he terms the "deprofessionalized" segment of intellectuals in Latin America. Gustavo has been a central figure in a wide range of Mexican, Latin American, and international non-governmental organizations and solidarity networks, including the alternative, community-based school, Unitierra in Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1996, Gustavo was an advisor to the Zapatistas (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) in their negotiations with the Mexican government on the San Andrés Accords, and he is a strong advocate of Zapatismo. In 2006, he took part in the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). 

Gustavo is one of the best-known advocates of post-development theory, a strong advocate for active non-violence, and a proponent of radical pluralism and community-based activism. A prolific writer, he is the author of more than 30 books, published in seven languages, including Economy and Alienation, and he co-authored Grassroots Post-Modernism with Madhu Suri Prakash.  He has also written hundreds of essays, such as "The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico's Autonomous Movement".  He is a regular contributor to Mexico's leading daily, La Jornada.

Gustavo has received numerous academic honors, including: an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa)  in Law from the University of Vermont, the Premio Nacional for Political Economy, and the Premio Nacional de Journalism. He has served as president of the Mexican Society of Planning and of the 5th World Congress on Rural Sociology and interim president for the United Nations' Institute of Social Development Investigations.

For more information on Gustavo, visit: www.gustavoesteva.net, in Spanish:  http://idescalzos.blogspot.com/. Read an article by Gustavo, "Reclaiming Our Freedom to Learn" published in Yes! Magazine.