Valentina Alazraki, empowering women through journalism

During the commemoration of International Women's Day, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon invited Valentina Alazraki to share her experience in journalism from the perspective of female empowerment.

A series of events led Valentina Alazraki to study journalism at the University of Rome. Among these events, the important role of her mother is particularly relevant, who somehow encouraged her to make a decision of utmost importance in her life: to study journalism.

Since 1974 Alazraki has been the news correspondent for Televisa, and this was enough merit to become the first woman president of the Foreign Press Association in Rome, which is a community that has the Vatican as its source of information.

In the presence of the University’s board of governors and President Santos Guzman Lopez, the journalist got to know UANL’s posture towards the new social paradigms, such as gender equity and equality.

“Commemorating this day commits us to act permanently to make our society more equitable, respectful, and egalitarian. Therefore, in our institution, we promote and defend the principles of equality, equity, respect, integrity, justice, and solidarity”.

Valentina said that at first, some Vatican colleagues refused to approve her work as a foreign press correspondent. This eventually changed when she was elected as the first woman president of the Foreign Press Association in Rome.

“I would walk into work, that is, into the Vatican Headquarters, and no one ever said hi to me, not a single man. All those who were covering the Vatican were middle-aged men. It wasn’t until after Pope John Paul II’s second trip to Mexico when they saw that I was the one covering for Mexico, that they would actually start to welcome me. I was 24 years old,” said Alazraki.

Finally, Valentina Alazraki called on every woman to change in order to prevent violence against women and achieve a more egalitarian society.