My name is Margarita Bello Jarquin, I was born 38 years ago in San José de los Remates, a small village in the Matagalpa district. I come from a family of eight and my parents were farmers. I have an 11 year-old son and am what society calls a "divorced mother".

I grew up in the countryside on my parents' farm where I worked hard both in our house and in the fields. Even as a young girl, it was really hard for me to accept the role our father and our culture imposed on us: as women, we were treated differently. My mother, my sister and I lived in different conditions from my brothers or my father, who enjoyed all the privileges of life, whereas we were assigned all the nasty chores. This is why I chose to work with rural women in my country, to help them improve their living conditions.

As a salaried employee of "Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières" (AVSF) for 13 years now, I assist women in defending their rights and in becoming actors, just like men, in the development of their communities. My job is to provide these women with all the tools that will enable them to think, discuss and negotiate with men, so as to fully participate in the public community meetings related to the natural resource management of their region. We train them, we organise meetings and debates with women who have already taken part in this type of consultations in other regions, we organise agricultural fairs, etc.

We women always work in the interest of society, sometimes even forgetting up to our very own existence, without it ever being acknowledged. This is precisely what we want: to be acknowledged and to take part in the decision-making process on issues that affect our community. However, to achieve this, we must be prepared and trained; we must have our own thoughts and answers to the following questions: Who was I? Who am I? Who do I want to become?

Confident in our self-value, today we insist on playing our role in the community and particularly in the natural resource management of our territory, for we, the women have always strived to ensure the survival and sustainability of the human species.