Cynthia Ellis-Topsey is a community advocate who works to promote sustainable development by building on the achievements of previous generations for future generations. Much of Ms.Ellis-Topsey’s professional experience centred around placing women and families at the centre of sustainable development. She began her career working in Kingston, Jamaica, where she trained in project management and development with the United States Agency for International Development and served in the Office of the Prime Minister as an advisor on women’s issues and women in development. Ms Ellis-Topsey went on to join the United Nations as a representative of Belize where she worked to develop the first Five-Year National Development Plan for Belize. In the nineties, Miss Ellis-Topsey served as a Deputy Programme Manager for Women, Youth, and Community Development with the Caribbean Community in Guyana, and later, in 2005, she continued her work with CARICOM as a consultant at the Regional Forum on Youth, Crime, and Violence. She furthered her international engagement as the Board Director for Outreach for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Western New York Peace Center in Buffalo. From 2010 until 2019, Ms Ellis-Topsey remained involved with the United Nations as a facilitator at the annual Commission on the Status of Women in New York. In addition to her international accomplishments, Cynthia Ellis-Topsey has also done extensive work within Belize, particularly as an activist for both women and the Garifuna indigenous community. In 1985 she was a founder, and subsequently a director, of the Belize Rural Women’s Association, which focused on the economic empowerment of women in Belize to promote sustainable development. In 2018, she served as a consultant for the Belize Women’s Department in the Ministry of Human Development providing leadership and mentoring workshops to women throughout Belize. She also advocated for the Garifuna community as a consultant at the Central American Garifuna Strategic Planning Workshop on Agricultural Development. Most recently, Cynthia Ellis-Topsey’s activism has led her to her current position as a consultant on the Alternative to Violence Collaborative Project, a partnership between multiple universities and organizations, which seeks to provide conflict training and find solutions to violence in Belize. She has also remained involved with the El Pilar Four Pillars Project with Dr Anabel Ford to study cultural preservation and support conservation of the El Pilar Archeological Preserve through utilizing traditional Mayan conservation methods. Miss Ellis-Topsey is also currently working on a memoir recounting her life’s accomplishments and the personal adversity she faced to get there. She hopes that this memoir will serve as an example and an inspiration for future indigenous women leader.
