March 9, 1996
El Espectador
(Noticol 622 3/11/96)
This Antioquian woman, who has struggled ceaselessly for her community and who is most known for her accomplishments as Mayor of Apartadó, was the winner yesterday of the Eight Annual CAFAM Award for the Colombian Woman of the year.
She is Gloria Isabel Cuartas Montoya, born in Sabaneta, Antioquia where she studied in the Colegio El Carmelo, later moving to Medellin where she graduated in social work at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. She began her social work with the victims of the Popayan earthquake and continued working with these people in preventive programs and disaster assistance.
As a staff member of INURBE in Bogota, she traveled to Israel where she completed a course in community rehabiliation. Her speciality is inter- institutional coordination to carry out programs to assist communities burdened with extreme poverty and problems of violence.
"I am an energetic woman and very disciplined, up to the point that this occupation has become my way of life". This is how Gloria Isabel Cuartas described herself in an interview with El Espectador in early 1996.