María Gloria Penayo De Duarte - Extraordinary Ambassador

“At present, a hunger-free world is still a dream.  It is up to us all, the international community as a whole to take decisive action to end hunger, the most cruel expression of poverty, which still affects an estimated 854 million human beings, 200 million of them children, and causing the deaths of 12 children a minute.
In my capacity as Extraordinary Ambassador of FAO, I will do my best to foster an even stronger commitment to ensuring that millions of innocent victims from hunger have access to the necessary resources to cultivate their hope for a better life”.

Appointed as first Extraordinary Ambassador on 16 October 2006, María Gloria Penayo de Duarte, First Lady of Paraguay, has always been extremely active in helping the most vulnerable sectors of society, taking part in activities to help children with special needs and leading voluntary women's groups active in the social integration of marginalized and deprived populations.

Mrs. Penayo de Duarte is restlessly pursuing a number of programmes in support of education, health, cultural awareness and other activities to provide assistance and substance to the population, with a special attention to development of women, in their role as providers of life, conveyors of values and focal points for change in the family and society.

By promoting training for self-management and the building of values, María Gloria aspires to realize her dream of helping the human advancement of her compatriots.

She is a founding member of the "GANAR" Foundation (Support Group for Children at High Risk) which helps children and adolescents working and living in public areas, and is the Chairperson of the Paraguayan Network for Human Development (REPADEH), a non-profit organization focusing primarily on programmes, projects and activities of social assistance and human development for the most vulnerable sectors of the population, especially families living in extreme poverty, and the generation of solidarity networks to help the most needy. María Gloria Penayo de Duarte has also championed the Programme of Resource Generation through the Soybean (PROGRESO) and the installation of more than 100 soybean processing machines.

Immediately following her appointment as FAO Extraordinary Ambassador, the First Lady organized and was patron of the mega concert “Música vs. Hambre”, held at the Estadio de Chaco in Asunción, Paraguay, on 21 September 2006.  The event, the first concert of this magnitude ever organized in Paraguay, featured a prestigious international casting which included FAO Goodwill Ambassadors Al Bano, Noa and Ronan Keating. The concert was very successful in terms of public attendance, media coverage, awareness-raising and fundraising in support of TeleFood projects.

In her capacity as Extraordinary Ambassador of FAO, Mrs. Penayo de Duarte tirelessly attends intergovernmental meetings in the Latin America Region and organizes press conferences and encounters with the media during which she speaks about her role as FAO Goodwill Ambassador.