Heiny Palacios is an environmental engineer from Quibdó Colombia, where she has a longstanding history of involvement in her community. From a young age Heiny took on leadership roles in the environmental movement, joining the support team of the Chocó Environmental Police and carrying out training to the members of the group Friends of Nature. Since 2012, she has been part of the youth environment network of the City of Quibdó and later was elected National Coordinator 2017 of the National Youth Network environment, becoming the first and only Afro-descendant woman to coordinate voluntarily the environmental volunteer group with 11,000+ young people from 29/32 departments.