Judith M. Alpuche
Judith M. Alpuche is a Belizean social worker with more than 25 years of experience advancing children’s and women’s rights, social protection, and human rights in general across the Caribbean, Central America, and the Pacific. Her career spans the full continuum of social work practice, from direct fieldwork with vulnerable children and families, to a brief stint in academia to the design and development of national policies and programmes, and the negotiation of international agreements, giving her a grounded, systems-level understanding of what it takes to protect and empower the most vulnerable.
For over a decade, Judith served as Chief Executive Officer of Belize’s Ministry of Human Development, leading reforms in child protection, gender-based violence, social safety nets, and human rights-based legislation, and representing Belize at high-level human rights-related international forums and regional bodies. She has since brought this expertise to Small Island Developing States as a social protection consultant in St.Vincent and the Grenadines and as a UNICEF-funded Child Protection Technical Advisor in Kiribati and Samoa. She currently works in a similar role in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, continuing her engagement with island nations where the legacies of colonisation, climate vulnerability, and limited resources intersect with urgent social welfare needs.
Judith holds a Master of Social Work from St. Louis University, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Sociology, and a Certificate in Executive Leadership from the Canadian School of Public Service and the University of the West Indies.