Promoting Equality in the Agricultural Sector

Yanneth Gómez Prada gave a twist to her professional work in agricultural companies to fulfill the dream of sensitizing companies about gender equality. The support of Alejandro Ramírez, her ex-husband, and the driving force that for her are her children, Tomás and Salomón, were decisive.

"In 2007 I did studies about Female Consciousness and Leadership at the Universidad de Los Andes where I met many women leaders from Colombia. There I made contact with the psychologist Cony Sanz de Santamaría, director of this program, to whom I have feelings of admiration and gratitude for her guidance and support. I was where I needed to be. I had begun to see life with different eyes.” Today this group is called Presence and its members maintain permanent contact.

"In 2019, I decided to start talks on workplace harassment and I dedicate many hours of my daily to studying gender issues. I decided to continue working to achieve my dream by leading awareness-raising actions towards gender equality aimed at fighting harassment in work settings in the agricultural sector. In July of the same year, Mujeres Agro was born, which brings together veterinary professionals, zoo technicians, agronomists, agricultural engineers, and agricultural administrators: We promote gender equality in the industrial, productive, academic, scientific, social, and economic fields of Latin America and Caribbean."

What does Gómez Prada intend with this initiative?

She responds to The Woman Post by listing her purposes:

– Make visible women who contribute their professional work in agricultural areas.

– Show the world the problems that these women have in workplaces where many are victims of workplace and sexual harassment.

– Achieve that, in professional spaces traditionally dominated by men, the female voice is heard.

– Advise companies in the agricultural sector on gender equity issues.

Comunidad Mujeres Agro is a reality that today brings together biologists, veterinary doctors, and zoo technicians who wait for their peers to join the group and reaffirm their intentions.

How did this community of women come to be?

This is the story!

The decisions that human beings make throughout life determine the course of our present and future. Yaneth Gómez Prada, the youngest of 4 children, believed in dad's advice and decided to be happy: “My surroundings were always beautiful, friendly and happy in my home, that's why at some point I chose to separate and in my work experiences I have taken decisions based on that premise.” If she is not happy with what she does, she looks for options and finds them because "you have to overcome obstacles to achieve happiness."

Also read: LATIN AMERICA LEADS IN FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Her social differences were alien to him until she was thirteen. Although she was not born into a wealthy home, her father taught her that human beings are equal and that ingrained belief of hers has allowed her, throughout her life, to move like a fish in water in any social environment and labor.

Her upbringing references marked her forever. She is bothered by the arbitrary attitudes of someone who imposes her authority only for one position, and the conviction for working on inequity made her wonder why men are allowed certain counterproductive attitudes in the social and labor spheres.

She knows the Geek Girls Latam community and then finds in that NGO her inspiration and motivation to bring together women related to her profession, and thus Mujeres Agro was born.

Yanneth Gómez has a strong personality, she does not laugh at her life but with her and since she took control of hers from day to day, she did not let go of them again. She believes in her inner and outer beauty, she loves makeup and dresses and feels pretty. She also enjoys friends, loves the company of people, and, therefore, during this long time in which the COVID-19 pandemic has marked the destinies of the world, it was difficult for her to learn to handle the situation of loneliness generated by confinement.

Workplace and sexual harassment

Her natural bond with animals led her to achieve a degree in veterinary medicine at the National University of Colombia where she was part of a minority since in a class of 36 students there were only 6 women.

If wanting to cure animals was she the north of her, she soon abandoned the idea "because I perceived that people suffered for them and did not want to live that," so she dedicated herself to sales in poultry settings where she reached managerial positions.

Yanneth, through 18 years of professional experience, perceived cases of workplace harassment, which are not reported in some cases, due to feelings of fear or economic helplessness that make women continue in those positions to retain their jobs. Then, it was when she understood that she had to do something so that things like that did not continue to occur. The time had come for training in gender equality issues because, according to her: “We are 51% of the world's population, we do not have the voice that we should have based on that percentage, we are the less visible side of the world and, moreover, we must stop considering ourselves only in terms of reproduction, we are sexual beings who need to explore their sexuality.”

To learn more about Comunidad Mujeres Agro, find her as Yanneth Gómez Prada on LinkedIn; Mujeresagro on Instagram and Twitter.