I come from a small town in southern Chile, so Spanish is my mother tongue, but I was fortunate to learn to speak French and English as a young student, which were both useful when I began to work for the United Nations.

From age 12, I was sent to live with an aunt in Santiago, the capital of Chile, so that I could study in French at the Alliance Française secondary school. At the age of 17, I spent one year as an exchange student in California, where I lived with a wonderful family and attended the local high school. This experience really broadened my horizons and enhanced my language skills, and I have kept in close touch with my host family ever since.

The following year I began to study sociology at the Catholic University in Santiago. I was concerned about my country’s history and social movements, and I thought sociology would give me the tools to understand the behavior of human groups, so I could do something for a better world.

After graduating, I taught at the Catholic University and worked for the Women's Study Center before joining the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), an intergovernmental organization I helped to research, write and produce publications on a number of topics, most notably a collection of books on the situation of women in each of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. During my 14 years with FLACSO, I realized how much I loved the editorial production process, so in 1993 I founded my own editorial and graphic production business. It was a way to marry my creative talents with my personal passion for producing all kinds of publications.

One of my clients was the Santiago-based headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a regional commission promoting economic and social development. My freelance projects for the Commission evolved into full-time contract work, and eventually I gave up my business to join ECLAC’s Printing and Publications Section. The team produces such publications as the Statistical Yearbook, and the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, among others.

I share the goals of the United Nations, and I love how my work serves as little bricks in the building of a better world. Information gathered and distributed by the United Nations is very important and strategic, so it needs to be presented in an attractive way to better communicate the Organization’s message and accomplish its objectives.

My job is to produce publications that are well-designed and nicely printed, with text and figures presented in a correct, consistent manner for easy reference. I use graphics to make socio-economic reports as well as statistics more easily understood and appealing visually - it is the perfect challenge for a sociologist with a love of publications. Also challenging is producing top quality work while keeping costs down.

I have noticed that new ideas are welcomed at the United Nations. At ECLAC’s headquarters, I was instrumental in modernizing my section’s technology, bringing in new software and updating standards of graphic styles as well as creating templates to simplify production and quality control.

The United Nations offers many opportunities for advancement to those with the appropriate skills and motivation. In 2007, I passed the exam to move to from what is called a “General Service” position to one at the “Professional” level, and in 2009, I moved to my first international posting at ECLAC’s Subregional Office in Mexico City, where I am the Associate Publications Officer of the Editorial, Documents and Conference Services Unit.

ECLAC’s Mexican office focuses on 10 Central American and Caribbean countries: Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama. My primary duties are coordination, budgeting, design and page layout revision of publications on various subjects, including international trade, as well as economic, social and agricultural development. My unit also prepares documents for conferences, such as agendas and post-conference reports.

For the moment, I like discovering Mexico - my new home. A diverse country full of warm people and many cultural attractions, it’s also a great place for me to practice my hobby of photography. In the future, however, I would love to work in other duty stations as well as for a peacekeeping mission in a different country, perhaps helping with Administration or Human Resources. Employees of the United Nations are international civil servants, so you must be willing to serve - and I look forward to doing so, in any way I can.