We are thrilled to welcome Alejandra Martin to WEDO’s Board of Directors.
Alejandra is a Senior Program Officer at American Jewish World Service, where she manages the Land, Water, and Climate Justice portfolios in Mesoamerica, alongside the civil and political rights portfolio in Guatemala. She brings more than 20 years of experience working across grassroots community-based organizations, social movements, governments, and corporations, always centering the human rights, environmental, and socioeconomic concerns of marginalized peoples.
Her career includes leadership roles with the Rights and Resources Initiative, Forest Trends, Business for Social Responsibility, and the Brazilian Institute for Education and Sustainable Business (IBENS). Alejandra holds a BA with Honors in Latin American Studies and Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University. In 2025, she received a diploma on Climate Justice and Human Rights in Latin America from the Supreme Court of Mexico and the Interamerican Association for the Defense of the Environment (AIDA).
When asked what she hopes to contribute during her time as a Board member, Alejandra points to this pivotal moment for climate funding:
“I hope to provide timely and relevant information from philanthropy’s perspective on current trends and future funding implications. The current state of philanthropy and funding for climate issues is in a state of flux and uncertainty, and I hope to be able to share my insights based on the different funder spaces where I participate.”
At a time when climate finance is both urgently needed and politically contested, Alejandra’s vantage point across philanthropic networks will help WEDO navigate shifting landscapes while staying grounded in feminist movements.
Alejandra has seen firsthand that community-led climate action is often driven by women, even when their leadership is invisible.
“In my experience working with communities impacted by the climate crisis and extractive economies, community-led action has always been led by women,” she reflects. “The feminist side has often been overlooked due to the many roles played by women behind the scenes, in community kitchens, collecting firewood and water, and passing knowledge down generations.”
She shares one example that continues to inspire her: young women in mangrove communities in El Salvador who have become the first community environmental monitors. They track rainfall and winds, alert communities of rising tides and incoming floods, and guide families to safe ground. Over time, their documentation has earned the trust of their communities, media, and government entities that now rely on their records to publish official data.
It is a powerful reminder that feminist climate leadership is not abstract. It is practical, rooted, and lifesaving.
From Alejandra’s vantage point, philanthropy and large international NGOs are increasingly recognizing the role women play in delivering real solutions to the climate crisis.
“For many years, so called tech solutions have received funding and media coverage, but little positive results in terms of reducing GHG emissions or energy consumption,” she notes. “Women-led movements consistently show us that other worlds are possible.”
This growing recognition presents a critical opportunity: to move resources away from extractive, top-down models and toward feminist movements that are already building resilient communities.
When the world feels heavy, Alejandra returns to her roots.
“I come from a strong lineage of Mexican women that expressed love through cooking,” she shares. “I recharge by cooking dishes I learned from my grandmother Margarita and my grandmother Alicia. I cook as a way to connect with them while I play their favorite music, and remind myself that seasonal agriculture, food, and culture are important ways to honor the Earth and our ancestors.”
She also loves international soccer and plans her summers every four years around the World Cup. She holds the tension between the sport’s corruption and human rights abuses and its ability to bring people across the globe together in shared joy.
As climate impacts intensify, Alejandra sees feminist movements building the kinds of resilient, connected communities that policy must learn from and scale.
“In the next three to five years we will begin to see extreme impacts of the climate crisis in pockets of the world. The work led by feminist movements to build resilient and tight communities is living proof of how policy can replicate and scale these efforts, and I am excited about the collective wisdom and action that WEDO is leading in international advocacy spaces.”
We are equally excited to see Alejandra in action with WEDO at COP30 and beyond.
Welcome, Alejandra. We are honored to have you with us as we continue moving power, money, and minds toward feminist climate justice.
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