María Elisa is a social entrepreneur, facilitator, and artist with 17 years of experience working at the intersection of peacebuilding, creativity, and trauma-informed practice. She has designed and facilitated participatory processes that foster healing, dialogue, memory, and reconciliation across diverse contexts, including conflict-affected communities, ex-combatants, veterans, and other social groups.

She served for over eight years as Executive Director of Fundación Prolongar and later as Operations Lead of the international collective Reimagine Peace, where she continues to contribute as an active facilitator within a global community of practitioners.

She has led more than 20 arts-based initiatives—including national memory reports, documentaries, podcasts, traveling museums, and community murals—reaching over 15,000 people. Her work emphasizes creative, embodied, and collective methodologies to address trauma, strengthen relationships, and imagine alternative futures. In parallel, she has facilitated healing, dialogue, and capacity-building spaces with more than 2,000 participants.

Maria Elisa holds a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies as a scholar of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). She has experience in teaching and research and has authored more than ten publications related to peacebuilding, memory, and social transformation.

She is also a singer and composer, and a mother through adoption—dimensions of her life that deeply inform her approach to care, creativity, leadership, and collective work.

Participant in: August 2023 Fellowship: The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding