Josefina Klinger Zúñiga

Josefina Klinger Zúñiga (born 1965) is a Colombian environmentalist and community activist from Nuquí. She is the founder and director of the organization Mano Cambiada, which promotes sustainable tourism in the Chocó Department through a model of community self-management. Klinger Zúñiga received a Cafam Woman Award in 2015 and an International Women of Courage Award in 2022.

Early life and family Josefina Klinger Zúñiga was born in 1965 in Nuquí, Chocó, the only child of a Nuquiseño mother and a German father. She has 21 half-siblings. She worked as a salesperson in a drugstore.

Mano Cambiada In 2006, Klinger Zúñiga founded the organization Mano Cambiada (Changed Hand) (Mano cambiada refers to a local, moneyless ancestral practice of exchanging goods between equals.) They collaborated with external stakeholders and joined with 30 different local businesses, including restaurants, hostels, guidance centers, fishing and farmers markets to develop sustainable tourism. Mano Cambiada promotes environmental and social initiatives that emphasize cultural identities of the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities in the cove of Utría. The organization founded an environmental and cultural school that gathers dancers, musicians and environmental clubs in the Utría National Natural Park. Due to the success of the organization, the Colombian government granted it the right to administer tourist services within the Utría National Natural Park.

Klinger Zúñiga received a Cafam Woman Award (Premio Cafam a la Mujer) in 2015.

Personal life Klinger Zúñiga lives in Nuquí and has three children. When she was 32 years old, she almost died from cerebral tuberculosis. She has previously lived in Medellín, Bogotá, Cali, Bahía Solano, Quibdó, and Panama.