About
Us

Lawyer Diana Esther Guzmán Rodríguez has been the director of Dejusticia since November 2022. She is supported by deputy directors, also lawyers, Maryluz Barragán González and Paulo Illich Bacca, as well as the administrator Carolina Reyes Rey.

Dejusticia's work is organized into ten thematic areas: rule of law, gender, environmental justice, economic justice, fiscal justice, ethnic-racial justice, transitional justice, drug policy, judicial system, and land and peasantry. To achieve results, these thematic areas are closely linked with six transversal areas: Communications, D School, Institutional, International, Litigation, and Regionalization.

We are committed to ensuring that all our regional, national, and international work is carried out in collaboration with other actors, including grassroots organizations, state and intergovernmental agencies, widely circulated media, social movements, professionals from other disciplines, research centers from both the Global South and North, and other NGOs from the world of human rights and social justice.

We are a research-action center for legal and social studies that aims to empower and mobilize an inclusive citizenship at the individual, community, and network levels to ensure democratic institutions that respect human rights.

The best way an organization like ours can drive change is by using our expertise to expand, enrich, and support the actions of individuals and communities in their claims for rights. We also aim to increase and democratize access to human rights training and action strategies for communities, activists, and researchers, and finally, to make concrete proposals to improve institutions so that they can protect and guarantee the rights of citizens.

Hybrid strategies and plural networks: Our strategy is designed to be implemented by plural networks at regional, national, and international levels. We contribute to these networks with our strengths in advocacy and research, aspiring to learn other languages, types of knowledge, and forms of social mobilization.

Horizontalism: We believe in the virtues of mutual learning that arise from horizontal relationships. Therefore, we are always attentive to how hierarchies can undermine relationships and reduce the potential for mutual learning and joint problem-solving.

Research is action: Generating ideas and conceptual frameworks based on rights that favor social inclusion is a vital task for producing social change. To be effective, ideas must be translated into institutions and norms.

A learning organization: We periodically review our goals and success indicators to ask ourselves if we are effectively generating new virtuous cycles of material, institutional, and conceptual change.

Independence and autonomy: We contribute to political, social, legal, and economic debates while maintaining our autonomy and independence from governments, political parties, and private actors across the ideological spectrum.

Use of new media: We recognize that innovation is part of the advocacy work of an organization like Dejusticia. Consequently, we pay attention to the effectiveness and adoption of each new tool in a responsible yet bold manner.

Leveling the playing field: Global social change involves reconfiguring north-south inequities and creating opportunities for south-south collaboration. Dejusticia contributes to this through training programs, structured networks, and exchanges of experiences.

Guarantees for social mobilization: Dejusticia supports leaders and communities in the face of events, threats, and risks derived from their work, as well as strengthening the freedoms that allow for their democratic participation.

The transformative regional power: Through reflection and the exchange of comparative knowledge, without replacing territorial change agents, we aim to build horizontal networks for encounters that allow the construction of an inclusive, empowered, and transformative citizenship.

Yes, indeed. Our Diversity, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination Policy was developed in 2020 for everyone linked to Dejusticia. It aims to promote an inclusive culture regarding the plurality of life forms and to establish behavior models associated with ensuring equality, non-discrimination, and the recognition of diversity within the organization's different work environments.

We are a non-profit organization that receives donations and grants from national and international funds to develop our projects and sustain our administrative expenses. You can review the origin of our resources in detail in our financial reports.

You can email us at info@dejusticia.org We will try to respond as quickly as possible.

For interview requests or information about our work, you can email press@dejusticia.org.