On leave
Email: LBarreno@mtroyal.ca

Education
PhD University of Saskatchewan
MA (Justice) University of Regina
BA Honours. SIFC, University of Regina

Leonzo Barreno, an Indigenous K’iche-Mayan from Guatemala, is a Sociology professor. He came to Canada in 1989. His work, research, and teaching experience focus on Indigenous peoples, social justice, and media issues.

Leonzo’s work experience includes coordinating international Indigenous programs (1994-1997) where more than 70 Indigenous leaders from 20 countries received a certificate in International Indigenous Management. In 1999, with the support of an Indigenous Elders Council, he developed the concept, goal and activities of the Aboriginal Youth Leadership Development Program (AYLDP). In 2000, Leonzo was appointed SIFC’s Director of the Indigenous Center for International Development (ICID), managing the SIFC’s Indigenous program in partnership with the University of Chiapas, Mexico. Canadian and Mexican academic teams created a Masters in Indigenous Education and an undergraduate degree in Management and Self-Development in Mexico.

Leonzo taught the Course "International Indigenous Issues” at SIFC for seven years (1997-2004). Beginning in 2003 he served as the “Global Television Chair” (now called the Asper Chair in Journalism) for the School of Journalism, University of Regina where he taught various courses, linked the School’s students with Indigenous and community groups, supervised students in media internships and shared his knowledge on Indigenous and new immigrant issues with other faculties and colleges of the University of Regina and community groups.

Leonzo has given presentations about Indigenous development and Intercultural relations in Chile, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Mexico and to the Inter American Development Bank in Washington. He is the author of Higher Education for Indigenous people in Latin America (2003) used as a working document by IESALC-UNESCO/Latin America during the gathering of experts in Guatemala in April 2002. In January 2003, he testified to the Senate of Canada Standing Committee on Aboriginal People, about issues affecting Aboriginal youth as the Committee aimed to develop a national "Action Plan for Change.”

In May 2016, he was invited to be the moderator of the workshop “Global Citizens as Stewards of the Planet: Energy, Environment and Climate Change,” during the Sixty-sixth United Nations/Non-Governmental Organizations Conference, United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)/Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) in Gyeongju, Republic of South Korea.

In the summer of 2019, the documentary Mayan in Regina: An Unusual Connection (Toronto: TLN Media Group Inc.) featured Leonzo and his experience living and working with Indigenous peoples in Guatemala and Saskatchewan. The documentary was broadcasted in the United States and Latin America.

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Sociology
• Rights and Responsibilities of the Journalist
• Contemporary Issues in Journalism
• Indigenous Peoples and the Press
• Introduction to Canadian Indigenous Studies
• Media, Power, and Society
• International Indigenous Studies

Selected Publications
Barreno, Leonzo (2015). Indigenous Knowledge: A K’iche-Mayan Perspective. In P. Elliott, P. and Hepting, D. (Eds.) Free Knowledge: Confronting the Commodification of Human Discovery (pp. 137–148). Regina: University of Regina Press.

Barreno, Leonzo. (2008). From Genocide to Femicide. In Anderson, B., Kubik, W., and M. Hampton (Eds.) Torn from Our Midst: Voices of Grief, Healing and Action from the Indigenous Women’s Conference (pp. 69–74). Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre.

Barreno, Leonzo (203). “Educación Superior Indígena en América Latina” [Indigenous Higher Education in Latin America]. In La Educación Superior Indígena en América Latina. Instituto Internacional para la Educación Superior de América Latina y el Caribe/ Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (IESALC-UNESCO): Caracas, Venezuela, 11–54.

Reports
Barreno, Leonzo (2016). Global Citizenship in the Classroom: A Review of Global Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools. Regina: Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, 22 pp.

Barreno, Leonzo (2013). Community Engaged Scholarship and Faculty Assessment: A Review of Canadian Practices. (Co-investigator with Patricia Elliott et al). Guelph: CES Partnership.

Barreno, Leonzo (1997). “Programa Indígena Internacional, Saskatchewan Indian Federated College.” In No’j Xojón, M., Ixtacuy, O., Gómez, M., and P. Mariman (Eds.) Experiencia Educativa de las Organizaciones de Abya Yala Participantes en el Programa Internacional 1996, Canadá. San José, Costa Rica: Ediciones Liga Maya, 12-26.