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Viviana Ramirez Loaiza
Viviana is a psychologist and social researcher from Colombia, with extensive experience working alongside communities exposed to high-risk socio-natural events (such as floods and landslides) and armed conflict in Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. Her practice, grounded in a psychosocial and political-ethical perspective, explores the role of the arts in community-based agency for historically silenced and oppressed groups, particularly women, girls, and elderly people.
She studied psychology at the University of Manizales, where she also worked as a researcher on internationally funded participatory projects. There, she began to explore community theatre and muralism as collective healing tools with survivors of violence. She later co-led humanitarian and disaster risk reduction strategies with international NGOs.
In 2019, she was awarded a four-month fellowship at the University of East Anglia (GCRF), recognised as a success story. In 2021, she received a Chevening Scholarship to pursue the MSc in Creative Arts and Mental Health at Queen Mary University of London. This was a transformative period, where for the first time she turned to poetry and performance as personal practices, reflecting on internalised colonial narratives and her own creative voice.
Viviana has shared her work in Brazil, Switzerland, Scotland, and the UK. She is currently a lecturer and researcher in community psychology and gender approach at Catholic University of Pereira, Colombia, where she also coordinates the postgraduate programme in Community Social Psychology and Psychosocial Action. She is a member of the UNDRR Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Latin American collective Los Sin Fuego.
Social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivianaramirezloaiza/
Links to a webpage with her profile and part of her work:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Q2wp0M8AAAAJ&hl=es
https://www.ucp.edu.co/especializacion-en-psicologia-social-comunitaria-y-accion-psicosocia/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4vSA1cuQup3P9PJVJO1hsE?si=3v6th1t7RLeLvwuwTU0-1g (Podcast in Spanish)
https://www.uea.ac.uk/stories/viviana-ramirez-loaiza
Current action research projects:
https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/projects/improving-post-pandemic-maternal-and-neonatal-health-a-participat (UEA, U. Greenwich, University of Manizales, and Catholic University of Pereira)
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