Mrs. Sonia Lenares

General Secretary

Mrs. Sonia Lenares was educated at the Sacred Heart College and later went on to Belize Teachers College, where she received her trained teacher’s diploma.  Sonia spent 22 years teaching in the Belize education system as a primary school teacher and later as principal of St. Peter’s Anglican School in Orange Walk.



After retiring from teaching, Mrs. Lenares became the General Secretary of the YWCA in 1991 where she has been very active in creating, developing, and promoting educational programmes at the Y to benefit hundreds of women and youths. Some of these programmes are: the Literacy/ESL Programme, Helping Early Leavers Programme for out-of-school and at-risk young girls, Sustainable Livelihood Training Programme for Rural Women and Youth through the Belize Rural Development Programme, HIV/AIDS Education and Awareness Programme which included training barbers and beauticians in HIV prevention education, and Skills Training for urban and rural women to include Life Skills.  She was also the architect of the popular Ms. Y Pageant for women 60 years and over.



In 2007 she was awarded Woman of the Year by Women’s Issues Network (WIN) sponsored by Women’s Department for strengthening the programmes of the Y.  Under her leadership, the Belize YWCA was awarded the “United Nation’s Population Award in the Non Media Category” in 2009.  She was also awarded the first ever U.S. Embassy   “2010 Belize Woman of the YEAR Award” in recognition of her positive accomplishments and contributions to the Belizean community.