Patricio Chambers Mejía
Guayllabamba Waterkeeper
Patricio Chambers Mejía is the Guayllabamba Waterkeeper in Pichincha, Ecuador. He replaced his father Rafael Chambers, the former Guayllabamba Waterkeeper. He has a civil engineering degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador and more than 25 years of experience in project planning. He has also earned a specialized degree in board management, a Master's degree in higher education teaching, and a certification as an expert in comparative Eastern and Western philosophies.
Patricio has been a university professor at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels for 15 years. He founded and led the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador’s School of Systems in the town of Ambato in the central Andean valley of Ecuador and led the drafting and implementation of a strategic plan for that town. Patricio worked for several years as a project scheduler and web information systems administrator serving as a consultant on various engineering projects, as well as in planning & processes in transparency projects at Quito Municipality.
For more than three decades Patricio has been leading activities linked to the protection of waterways, the environment, reforestation, and building the capacity of concerned citizens around environmental stewardship. Since his youth, he has been a volunteer at PACEINE (Cerebral palsy institute), and an instructor of human values and practical philosophy as a member of the NA Ecuador Educational Foundation.
Patricio writes weekly articles for El Heraldo newspaper and has published several articles for magazines and other newspapers.
Patricio has been linked to Guayllabamba Waterkeeper from its inception as a labor of love of the Chambers family. Guayllabamba Waterkeeper aims to rid the upper reaches of the Guayllabamba River of urban and industrial pollution. Their current project is ravine restoration.