Lourdes Maldonado

A Peruvian social activist who established rural education initiatives impacting over 200,000 children.

Lourdes Maldonado is a Peruvian educator and founder of Caminando al Futuro, a non-profit that revolutionized rural education access. Born in 1972 in the Andean region of Ayacucho, Maldonado witnessed firsthand the educational disparities faced by indigenous communities. After earning a teaching degree from Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, she pioneered mobile classrooms in remote villages starting in 1998. Her innovative approach combines bilingual education (Quechua/Spanish) with community-driven curriculum development. By 2010, the program had built 150 schools and trained 3,000 teachers, reducing primary school dropout rates in target areas by 65%. Maldonado's work gained international attention after a 2015 documentary "The Path to Tomorrow" highlighted her efforts.

In 2005, she introduced the "Andean Knowledge Network", a digital platform connecting rural schools with urban universities. This initiative led to Peru's first national policy on indigenous education integration in 2018. Maldonado's 2020 book Teaching the Mountains: Lessons from Rural Education has been adopted in teacher training programs across Latin America. Her organization now operates in Ecuador and Bolivia through partnerships with UNICEF, reaching over 200,000 students annually. Maldonado's advocacy contributed to Peru's 2022 law mandating bilingual education in all rural public schools.