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Franci and Stella met while they were both volunteers at an animal sanctuary in Bolivia, and began sharing their lifelong dreams of working with and helping animals. From their talks, "Esperanza de Libertad" was born.

Franci's story

Francisca was born in 1977 in La Paz, Bolivia. In 1999, she was working in a family-run hotel. Part of her work in the hotel was caring for a nocturnal monkey named Monica, kept by the hotel owners as a pet. Monica ran free in the hotel and followed Franci during her daily chores. As Monica got bigger, she started to get into more and more trouble. After she broke a few things, the owners decided to put her in a cage. The idea of Monica being locked up shocked Franci, and she fought against it.

For a couple of months Franci was able to ensure Monicas freedom by running after her and picking up and hiding the scraps of things she broke. This eventually caused problems between her and the hotel owners. After Monica broke a very special vase, the owners decided they did not want her any more. Franci begged the family to let Monica stay, taking full responsibility for her actions.

Monica started to get into even more trouble. One of her favorite mischievous acts was waiting by the showers and biting people’s shoulders as they walked out with their towels on. Eventually, Monica was taken to a sanctuary.

As soon as Franci could take a vacation she went to visit Monica. Seeing her in nature was a very special experience for Franci. She planned to stay for a week, and she stayed more than four years.

Stella's Story:

So, what is my story? I guess I should start from the beginning. I was raised on a spiritual community in Tennessee. One of the basic beliefs I was raised with was respect for all living creatures. Part of this philosophy was veganism, for the sake of the earth, people and, of course, for the animals. I was born into this environment and was raised there until I was age seven, when we moved to California. California has been my home base ever since.

Being raised in a community and by parents who taught me to have respect for all living beings, I knew from a very young age that helping animals was going to be a large part of my life. At 15, I started attending meetings with Sonoma People for Animal Rights (SPAR). At 16, I became vegan once again. I soon became very involved in animal rights. I protested against slaughterhouses, McDonald's, stores that sold fur, circuses, laboratories, and many other forms of animal abuse.

One of my biggest goals in the process was a campaign I took on with Animal Rights Direct Action Coalition (ARDAC-sf) and In Defense of Animals (IDA) in 1997. The University of California at Berkeley had used 17 langur monkeys for research and was planning to euthanize them because the research was finished. We staged protests, went to university meetings, and fought in every way we could think of in what seemed to be a no-win situation. Five friends and I took over the chancellor's office at UC Berkeley and refused to leave until it was guaranteed that the langur monkeys would be given to the sanctuary. To our surprise the school, tired of all the publicity and disruptions, agreed and signed a paper sending the monkeys to a sanctuary. We were all very excited and left, feeling that we had won and our job was done. However, I was not happy. Yes, the langur monkeys were being sent to a sanctuary, but I could not get the idea of them not returning to their natural habitat out of my head. The idea that they were never truly going home tore me up. At that time, dreams of working at sanctuaries where the animals were from started forming in my head.

When I decided to travel throughout South America many years later, this thought was still in my heart. I went there with a strong desire to work with the animals I had been so actively fighting for; I wanted to directly make a difference in their lives. I found what I was looking for. I volunteered at an animal sanctuary for nine months and the experience changed my life.

Our story:

While volunteering , I met and became amazing friends with another volunteer from Bolivia named Franci. We talked of our dreams of working together for the animals for months, but nothing was serious until April 4, 2002, when I got the devastating news that Baloo (a howler monkey I had been watching for 8 months) had died. Franci came to my hotel the next day, and we started to talk. We talked all day and all night and all the next day and began to seriously discuss making our dreams a reality. We settled on the name "Esperanza de Libertad," which translates to "hope for freedom."

We talked about what we needed to accomplish and how we needed to do it. in July of 2002, we went traveling in search of price estimates on land throughout Bolivia. First, we traveled to La Paz and had a meeting with Patricia, a Bolivian lawyer who is very excited about the project. She agreed to help with the legal aspects of purchasing land and to continue helping us throughout the project. Next, we went in search of land.

Our search led us to Rurrenabaque, a town in the heart of the Bolivian rainforest. After observing some very disturbing situations for animals in Rurrenabaque, we went to the local TV and radio station and talked about the problem. We mentioned that we worked at an animal sanctuary, and the next day it became extremely obvious how important Esperanza de Libertad could be for the animals of northern Bolivia. In the morning, people started showing up at our hotel with animals they no longer wanted, including two coatimundis, two toucans, a tyra, a sloth, a nocturnal monkey, and two capuchin monkeys. We thought of attempting to take the animals with us to the sanctuary in central Bolivia, but it was impossible. These animals belonged in the climate of Rurrenabaque. Several had been recently caught and belonged in a rehabilitation center where they could be taken care of and released back to their native habitat--which was right outside their cages. All these animals needed Esperanza de Libertad. And all of them are still sitting in cages, waiting for us to return.