Board, staff and members

General assembly

Each committee elects a representative to join our Leadership Council, through which we organize our annual plan and activities. Current members are:

Board

Marco Castillo. Puebla/Tlaxcala. Board President. Co-Executive Director, Global Exchange.

Marco has worked as facilitator, mediator, interpreter, organizer and advocate with rural and indigenous immigrant communities in Mexico, US and Central America for over 21 years.

Esteban Estevez. Mixtec from Teopantlán, Puebla. Business owner, media producer, cultural organizer and father.

Javier Rodríguez. Tetlanohcan, Tlaxcala. Carnaval lover, advocate and organizer.

Berenice Santiago. nahua from San Pedro Benito Juárez, Puebla. An advocate, organizer and mother.

Yogui Ariza, from Epatlán, Puebla. Advocate, organizer and mother of 4.

Yoloxochitl Marcelino. Mixtec from Alacatlatzala, Malinaltepec, Guerrero. Advocate, organizer, indigenous interpreter and mother of 2.

Staff

Maria Ponce. Executive Director. Puebla, Mexico

Maru Ponce Sevilla is the Executive Director of Transnational Villages Network/Red de Pueblos since March 2023. She has extensive experience working with undocumented immigrant communities in NYC and deported/returned youth in Mexico. 

Born in Puebla, Mexico, Maru grew up undocumented in New York City. After earning her bachelor’s in business administration, she returned to Mexico in 2006 and worked at a call center that employed a large number of deported youth. The experience led her to co-found Los Otros Dreamers Collective to help formerly incarcerated, deported and returned youth adjust to life in Mexico.  In 2012, she co-founded Dream in Mexico (DiM), a Mexican non-profit that supported deported and returned youth in obtaining access to higher education. DiM was part of a coalition that successfully campaigned for a national law that recognized students’ prior studies outside of the country.

Her story and advocacy work appeared in “Los Otros Dreamers, The Book” in 2014. After returning to NYC a year later, she held jobs  at New York University’s  Silver School of Social Work, including as a grants administrator for their Office for Research. In 2022, Maru earned an MPA in Public and Nonprofit Management & Policy from NYU Wagner.

Luis Angel Gallegos. Mexico Research and organizing coordinator. Oaxaca, México

Founders

Esteban Estevez. Co-founder. Nahuatl migrant, businessman, community leader and organizer. We has been living and working in New York for over 20 years.

Myrna Lazcano. Co-founder. Migrant from Tepeaca, Puebla, Myrna is a champion of family reunification and immigrant rights advocacy. She was separated form her two daughters for over three years and after a long battle she was able to be let back in the US.

Esthela Plata. Co-Founder. Social Worker from Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Esthela is a strong activist for immigrant rights and social justice for all people from Latin America