Cristina Ávila-Zesatti

Born in Zacatecas, Mexico in 1972.  She has a Bachelor Degree in Communications from the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac, a Master in Documentary Films from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and a Specialized Degree in Culture of Peace, from the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona.

Her specialization is in the so-called “Peace Journalism,” which seeks to provide an informed perspective focused on peaceful solutions, compassion, and hope. She has been key speaker on this topic in several cities of Spain, Colombia, United States and Mexico, and has also given presentations and workshops in the World Peace Forum (Santiago de Compostela) at the World Peace Summit (Bogotá), TEDx-Talks, among others

Cristina Avila-Zesatti is the founder and Main Editor of Corresponsal de Paz (Peace Correspondent), an online media dedicated to show a different side of journalism, the one focused on creative solutions of social conflict.

Corresponsal de Paz, founded in early 2009, currently has an average of 30 thousand monthly unique-visitor from over 70 countries spanning 5 continents.  In 2011, Corresponsal de Paz was also selected as one of the 25 more inspirational stories of peace, and published in the book “Peace 2.0” edited by The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), an international organization based at The Hague, Netherlands

Active reporter since 1993, Cristina Ávila-Zesatti used to be a producer and editor of International News for mainstream media such as CNN and NBC, and Chief Correspondent for NBC Telemundo-International. In addition, she was associate producer of news documentaries for MS-NBC Investigatives, CBC Canadian Television, and ARD-German Public Television. In 2008, she left behind her career on conventional media, to start-up Peace Correspondent’s news-website.

Her peaceful-journalistic work has been published in many sites, magazines and journals from several countries, and her organization ‘Corresponsal de Paz’ has also leaded peaceful initiatives beyond journalism, such as the serie of concerts in Mexico of The World Orchestra, to promote music and peace instead of arms and violence, and the Poetic-street performance in local female jail, in order to free the souls of the women prisoners in México.

She is author of the books: “México: how to pacify a country that is not officially on war”, an essay that intends to explain the Mexican violence phenomenon from a journalistic and peaceful approach, and also of “The peace that does exist, but journalism decides to ignore”, a compilation of 20 stories of unrecognized peacemakers, from all around the world. In 2017 she received the “Women of Peace Award” by the Women’s Peace Power Foundation, and in 2019 the Woman Have Wings Courage Award.

Cristina has also worked as a volunteer with many civil organizations, including the Red Cross in Spain, with children suffering AIDS; with the NGO Human Community which helps Tibetan children, and with the Foundation World 21 through the social news portal ‘Humania-TV’. She is also a very active animal-rescuer: at this very moment she owns 18 cats and 20 dogs saved from the streets.