Karen Rencountre

Bianca Sopoci-Belknap

Bianca Sopoci-Belknap, is the Director of Youth Allies at Earth Care. She is also a Mayor appointed Sustainability Commissioner for the City of Santa Fe. Hired by Earth Care to launch Youth Allies in 2006 when she was 24 years old, she has spent the last four years developing and leading the program with youth participants and community partners. Bianca is a global justice activist & educator who has been organizing around issues of sustainability and social justice in Santa Fe, her home town, for over a decade. Before joining Earth Care, she worked as an educator and community organizer for Local Energy in Santa Fe promoting locally produced energy as a means for strong local economic development and self-reliance. She also developed and ran an experiential education program for Antioch College that placed undergraduate students at local businesses and nonprofits throughout northern New Mexico and trained them in cultural competency and social activism. She has worked for nonprofits across the country including Global Exchange, Destiny Arts, the Border Network for Human Rights, Del Pueblo Inc., and OffCenter Community Arts. Some of the issues she is most passionate about are: immigrant rights, global justice & sustainable community development, animal rights, anti-oppression & racial justice, decolonization, ecological health, and, of course, youth empowerment. She loves her work and her youth partners in crime and can't think of anything she'd rather do than build community capacity and mentor young change-makers in her home town. She has received professional training in popular education, leadership, permaculture, and anti-oppression. She holds a B.A. from Antioch College in Social and Global Studies with a focus in Sustainable Economic Development.