More than 1.4 million women and girls in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, live in a state where equal representation of women and men in Executive Branch government positions is required by law. 

Rise Up Leader Yair Jazim Govea Vallada helped make that change possible. 

With funding and support from Rise Up Together, Yair worked to advance a reform to state law requiring equal representation of women and men in key government positions, helping expand opportunities for women to participate in the decisions shaping their communities. 

The reform was approved in 2019. Seven years later, Yair says its impact is still visible. 

“I have seen more women taking on leadership roles across different public institutions,” Yair shared, reflecting on the changes he has witnessed since the reform. He has seen women take on leadership roles across different levels of state and municipal government and beyond. 

For Yair, seeing more women in these positions matters not only for the decisions being made today, but also for what girls and young women can imagine for their own futures. 

Yair’s commitment to gender equity began long before he started working to change policy. 

Growing up, he noticed an imbalance in the lives of women around him. Women faced significant expectations in their jobs while also being expected to take responsibility for serving, caring for others, and maintaining their households. Men, he observed, were often not expected to contribute equally. 

At the time, Yair didn’t yet have the language of gender equity to describe what he was seeing. He simply knew that it felt unfair. 

Later, through work related to gender equity and health, Yair began learning more about gender, masculinities, and the prevention of gender-based violence. His professional path also brought him into work alongside women experiencing violence, women with breast cancer, victims of crime, and other communities facing barriers to health and opportunity. 

Those experiences helped shape his belief that increasing women’s representation in government could do more than change who occupies public office. It could give more women the opportunity to exercise their expertise, shape decisions, and show girls and young women that leadership belongs to them, too. 

The 2019 reform represented an important step. But Yair is quick to point out that equal representation in law does not automatically create equality in everyday life. 

He says women continue to encounter barriers to reaching and remaining in positions of leadership, including the unequal expectations they often carry in their professional and family lives. 

For Yair, that means the work cannot stop at opening the door. 

Greater representation must be accompanied by continued efforts to remove the barriers that prevent women from exercising meaningful leadership and pursuing professional opportunities without being expected to sacrifice other parts of their lives. 

It’s a lesson that has stayed with him long after his Rise Up Together-supported project ended. 

Today, Yair no longer works for the organization he was part of when he became a Rise Up Leader in 2018. But the skills and relationships he gained through Rise Up Together have continued to shape his work. 

In 2025, Yair joined two pediatric physicians, including an infectious disease specialist and a lactation-certified physician, to advocate for legislation in San Luis Potosí focused on protecting and promoting lactation support and access to breast milk banks.

During that work, Yair says the team identified a significant need to better recognize and address women’s needs during lactation, alongside the health rights of infants. The legislation was ultimately approved with modifications alongside another law addressing the issue. 

“Rise Up Together’s advocacy training has helped me enormously,” Yair shared. 

Just as importantly, he says the relationships he formed through Rise Up Together became a network he has continued to draw upon when he needs support. 

Yair now works in Mexico’s public health sector. And although his role and the issues he works on have changed, his commitment to gender equity has remained. 

Since becoming a Rise Up Leader, Yair says he has become more conscious of the inequalities women experience and of the role men can play as allies in addressing them. 

In his work today, that includes considering how the decisions he makes can recognize and support the contributions of the women on his team and women across Mexico. 

He also sees more women preparing themselves to pursue positions of public leadership, something that gives him hope for the opportunities available to the next generation. 

Years after his original Rise Up Together-supported project ended, Yair’s story demonstrates what can happen when an investment in one leader extends far beyond one project. 

A policy changed. More women stepped into leadership. And Yair carried the skills, relationships, and commitment he developed through Rise Up Together with him to tackle future challenges. 

That is what lasting change looks like: equipping local leaders not only to achieve one important win, but to keep building a more equitable future long after a project ends. 

*Quotes translated from Spanish and edited for length and clarity.