Marta Arango is co-founder and Director of CINDE - the International Center for Education and Human Development, a child focused research and development center, the most prominent NGO working with and for children in Colombia.
She was born in Colombia and educated there and in the United States where she received a Ms in Curriculum from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Education and Psycholinguistics from the University of California in Berkeley. After her graduation she worked at Far West Laboratory for Research and Development where she participated in training teachers for Head Start and Follow Through programs and at Nova University where she co-directed an Ed.D Doctoral Program in Early Childhood Education. She returned to South America in 1974 and, after 18 months in Venezuela, returned to Colombia with her husband Glen Nimnicht and founded CINDE.
Through her publications, consultanships, training programs, publications, participation in seminars, and public presentations, she has become an international advocate of innovative programmes for young children and excluded people. In cooperation with several universities CINDE has Master´s programs in Education, Human and Social Development and a doctoral program in Social sciences, Childhood and Youth.
She has received a number of awards including the Simon Bolivar award, Colombia´s highest award for personal contribution, the Teacher of Teachers´s award granted by Pontificia Universidad Bolivariana, the Government of Colombia´s recognition to a life dedicated to Early Childhood and was honoured by the Inter-American Development Bank at its 1999 meeting for her contributions to Early Childhood Education in the region. She is also and Ashoka Fellow. Mrs Arango belongs to several global ECCD networks like the Consultative Group on ECCD, CWI and The World forum on Early childhood Education.