When listening shifts what we ask for - With Marina Navarro

Marina Navarro’s moment does not centre on a single event, but on a pattern that repeated itself across her career.With over two decades of experience in development and human rights, Marina Navarro has held leadership roles across the United Nations and civil society, including leading Amnesty International Perú, coordinating the UN Millennium Campaign in Spain and working with organisations such as Peace Brigades International Colombia and InteRed. She has also volunteered and worked with grassroots organisations in Colombia, Peru and Spain.The first moment took place early on, when she was working with a grassroots organisation of working children in Colombia. At a public hearing, an eleven-year-old girl named Angie stood up and addressed the room. Adults were debating policies to eliminate child labour. Angie interrupted them with a simple question: if she stopped working, who would support her family?What struck Marina was not only what Angie said, but what it revealed. Decisions were being made about children without listening to them. The policies, though well-intentioned, were based on assumptions that did not hold in the reality those children lived.Years later, in a very different context in Peru, Marina encountered a similar moment. Meeting with families who had lost relatives during protests, she spoke with Señora Celia, a Quechua-speaking mother whose son had been killed. Amnesty International came with proposals that felt responsible and achievable: reparations, public apologies, institutional recognition.Señora Celia rejected them.She did not want charity. She did not want apologies. She wanted justice. She wanted those responsible to be held accountable.Again, the gap became visible. What institutions considered reasonable did not match what those affected experienced as right.Across both moments, the assumption that organisations know what should be done quietly collapsed.What followed was not a better technical solution, but a shift in understanding.Listening was no longer a step in the process. It became the basis for defining the problem itself.In Marina’s work, this has shaped how campaigns are designed and led. Right holders are not only consulted, but involved in defining messages, priorities, and demands. External expertise still plays a role, but it is no longer treated as the primary source of knowledge. The most relevant knowledge is held by those who live the reality the intervention seeks to change.Her moment points to a recurring tension in humanitarian and development work. Interventions are often built on assumptions about what people need, what is feasible, and what constitutes a reasonable outcome. But when those assumptions are not grounded in lived experience, even well-designed actions can miss their mark.Listening, in this sense, is not about inclusion alone. It is about alignment.When people are not heard, we risk solving the wrong problem.When they are, the terms of action change.Marina’s moment shows that responsible leadership begins not with deciding what is possible, but with understanding what matters to those affected, even when it challenges what institutions are prepared to offer.