Yeshing is a Mayan Kaqchikel woman from Guatemala. She is an advocate for Indigenous Peoples and women’s rights and has worked in the legal field. Its focus has been on the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially with regard to natural resources and sustainable development, with a focus on the conservation of biodiversity based on traditional knowledge. In addition, her work has focused on the fulfillment of the rights of Mayan Women and Mayan Peoples, in the development of actions to promote the communal management of lands, forests, biodiversity and bio-cultural territories by indigenous peoples, and in the climate change.
Yeshing is currently the coordinator for Indigenous Peoples Rights at the Sotzil Organization based in Guatemala. Sotzil is an indigenous organization based on community participation, which allows to generate alternative proposals in the social, economic, environmental and cultural spheres, in search of the “good living” (collective wellbeing in harmony and balance) while promoting integral development. At Sotzil, Yeshing has undertaken numerous technical and political activities relating to indigenous peoples and their collective rights at a local, national, regional and international level.
Currently, Yeshing participates in different international platforms that have allowed it to contribute to dialogue and the formulation of proposals and strategies relevant to indigenous peoples. She serves as focal point for the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America at the network of Civil Society Organizations of the Global Environmental Facility and she is also a member of GEF’s Network of Indigenous Women on Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the focal point for the International Standards Committee of REDD+ SES on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Yeshing has attended several Conferences of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Biological Diversity and meetings of GEF’s Council as a representative of society organizations civil and indigenous peoples.