Patricia Elisa Rivera

Patricia Elisa Rivera is a Director for the Issue Advocacy team at Vital Voices Global Partnership. She manages both the Peace Fellowship, a program for gender-based violence advocates related to Women, Peace & Security in the Balkans, as well as the Voices Against Violence Fellowship, a cross regional program focused on creating a global network of community-based organizations combatting gender-based violence.

Prior to joining Vital Voices, Patricia worked on international development and peace efforts in various parts of the world before settling for some time in her family’s native Dominican Republic. A former Fulbright Fellow, for the past ten years she has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she has conducted research, worked with grassroots organizations and participated in various women’s and feminist movements whose efforts focus on the elimination of gender-based violence and gender inequality. In 2017, she completed her Ph.D. in Social Science at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). An Afro Latina and feminist, Patricia’s dissertation focused on the strategies Brazilian Black women use to organize, politicize and engage with the government, civil society and the private sector to combat gender-based violence.

What was the last good book you read? 

Love Letter to an Afterlife by Ines P. Rivera Prosdocimi