Brenda Itzé Lemus Gordillo, Leader of the month - June

Our Leader of the Month for June is Brenda Itzé Lemus Gordillo, the Co-Founder and Director of Programs for Yo’o Guatemala. Yo’o Guatemala is a non-profit organization that creates opportunities for high-quality, integrated, mental and physical health education for kids in the town of Purulhá who live in extreme poverty. 

Brenda is most inspired by the power of a community that collaborates. It motivates her to see the community she serves “get involved and build together to generate real changes with opportunities for a life of dignity for the girls and boys that live in these conditions of extreme poverty.” Yo’o Guatemala works by offering scholarships, after-school tutoring, and school vacation programing, which it believes will elevate the young people and their community out of poverty.  

As the Director of Programs, Brenda is responsible for the formation of the team which executes the organization's mission. This part of her role has proven to be the most difficult.  She says her greatest challenge as a leader is “forming a team of people who share objectives with integrity.” Ultimately what gives her the capacity to overcome this challenge is the “unwavering values of [her] founding partner” and their “team of volunteers who work in a professional manner”. 

Of her time at ALG, Brenda says that the tools she obtained to implement integral work with high quality were the most important things she took away. Recently an article was published about Brenda, calling her one of the 100 most influential women of Guatemala.