Topic: Promoting biodiversity conservation in Gorongosa National Park

Hours: 12:45-13:00 (Mozambique time)

Day: Wednesday, October 06, 2021

Panelist: Larissa Sousa

Position: Associate Director of Communications, Gorongosa National Park

Larissa Sousa, 30 years old, works for Gorongosa National Park. For the past 4 years she has been honored to be a part of this integrated project to help change the lives of many women and girls around the buffer zone, as well as raise awareness about conservation in general. This is being done by implementing after-school programs such as Girls Clubs and working with girls between the ages of 10-16 years old in the communities with the objectives of keeping girls in schools, avoiding early marriages and improving their life skills to ensure they have the tools they need to face the world.

Recently she joined the Communications team and is very happy to be able to continue contributing to women’s empowerment by giving them a voice this way, and she is very passionate about the work she do with both human development and communications towards conservation efforts of this beautiful National Park and the country.

She is very fortunate to have an excellent and diverse educational background which led her to where she is today. She is an E-MBA graduate (Africa University in Zimbabwe) and trained in International Business Management and Controlling (Finland & Germany), her secondary education was done under the Cambridge curriculum in Mozambique

Prior to joining the Park she worked in different places, in Germany at Daimler-Benz as the contact person for the PLS (Production Learning System) in Germany and Brazil (1yr). In Mozambique, she worked as a Location Manager for the American Demining company called The HALO Trust (2yrs) and as a school administrator in Njerenje Chimoio (2 yrs).

She believe that we are so blessed with all the world has to offer, but not everyone has the same opportunities and that’s where each one of us can play a part. Now more than ever we have to work together as one to create solutions to the continuously emerging issues on climate change.