Constanza Martínez Buendia

I am a journalist who has been living in the UK since 1999. Since then I have been developing the ideas behind Guayaba.live in one way or another.

I worked in journalism in Colombia, initially writing about co-operative organisations and television, while studying Media and Journalism at the University Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. After I graduated I worked as a radio reporter in Ibagué, one of the provinces of Colombia, and as a free-lance feature-writer, contributing to various magazines, including Diners and Carrusel ( the magazine for El Tiempo). For more than six years I wrote for the Avianca inflight magazine.

I also worked on some editorial projects about Girardot with my father Ignacio Martínez Izquierdo.  We published three titles: Come to Girardot, An adventure called Girardot, and Rivers and Routes: Girardot beyond its limits.

Since moving to the UK I have worked at different times as an administrator for children and social care services in Hackney and other London boroughs. I have also contributed to various community projects with young people, including Vital Regeneration (Westminster), Talent Factory (Hammersmith) and Haringey Shed.

Later, while working as a Teaching Co-ordinator in the Central and North West London (CNWL) Hospitals, I worked on the departmental newsletter and studied for an MSc in Management. Subsequently I returned to journalism, completing an MA at Birkbeck with a dissertation on the Latin American communities in London.