http://www.coa.edu
Marcela Olivera is the Latin American coordinator of Food and Water Watch's Water for All campaign. After graduating from the Catholic University in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Marcela worked for four years in Cochabamba as the key international liaison for the la Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida--Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life. La Coordinadora and Marcela played a critical role during the 2000 confrontation that eventually kicked out the Bechtel Corporation when it tried to privatize Cochabamba's water utility. In 2004 she moved to Washington, DC for a year to work for the Water for All campaign developing an inter-American citizens' network on water rights. Named Red Vida, the network, which she continues to coordinate from Cochabamba, assists water rights groups throughout Latin America to coordinate their efforts to preserve or establish the water as a pubic good and human right. Marcela has also worked as a lead researcher at the Democracy Center who just recently published Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization. Marcela has come to Maine to show solidarity with those fighting for common control, health and accessibility of our region's water.
