Isabel Anangono

70 years old, Isabel is a powerful Afro-Ecuadorian writer and activist, who was born in the infamous Intag valley, where generations of her family have lived. She gave birth to six children, and buried two in the fertile valley soil where she and her husband farm. Now, she has more than a dozen grandchildren, who often make her home — a beautiful handbuilt masterpiece of timber and riverstone, incorporating their story and lives as art within the very walls — ring with laughter. Isabel and her husband have watched the rainy season become dry, and the Intag river become polluted from the towns upstream. She has given her life to fighting for environmental justice, and is passionately invested in protecting northern Ecuador for generations to come.