WIPO’s newest and youngest IP Youth Ambassador is Dayana S. Meléndez Vargas. She is an eleven-year-old writer and avid equestrian from the district of Huambo in the province of Rodríguez de Mendoza, a region of the Peruvian Amazon jungle.
Dayana is inspiring children in her community to chase their dreams and promote gender equality in sports through an inspirational true story she wrote and illustrated. She learned about intellectual property (IP) shortly after writing her story, and became an avid IP enthusiast in her school.
Beyond the finish line
Dayana’s family are all animal lovers, and traditionally raise animals such as chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, and cattle for consumption and sale. They also have a domestic horse, which is the main form of transportation for the family. She started horseback riding at the age of five, and dreamed of entering races.
Earlier this year, Dayana was listening to the local radio channel when the mayor announced an upcoming horserace. She wrote a letter to the mayor asking if she could enter the race with her horse, “Guapo” (“Handsome” in Spanish). The mayor agreed, making her the only woman to participate in the race. Her father helped her train every morning until the day of the race, where decked out in her pink bicycle helmet, and matching elbow pads and kneepads, she won!
Dayana wanted to share her victory with other children in her community, to motivate them to push for what they wanted and to chase their dreams. She wrote a story about her adventure entitled “The Adventures of Dayana and Her Horse, Guapo” and even made her own illustrations for the story.
Dayana’s community had been a great source of inspiration and support to her, and in recognition of this, she drew from the stories of her former neighbor and favorite writer, Julián Arista Perea. She also included reference to various cultural traditions through chapters of her story dedicated to the production of local guava jams and the weaving of traditional clothes.
Illustration made by Dayana showing the process of making guava-based jams, a tradition from the district of Huambo in the Amazonas Region of Peru.
Illustration made by Dayana portraying the process of weaving traditional bedspreads, table runners and hand clothes from her region and community.
Illustration made by Dayana portraying herself and her horse Guapo at the race.
Crafting the story for “The Adventures of Dayana and Her Horse, Guapo” was not a challenge for her, as the oldest of four sisters, Dayana creates bedtime stories from her imagination every night to help put her younger siblings to sleep.
A community of knowledge
The National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property of Peru (Indecopi) reached out to Dayana and her family through their Regional Office in the Amazonas region, which runs the "Ancestros" program, dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of protecting the stories and drawings of children and adolescents of the indigenous and farming communities. Currently more than 100 children have registered their creative works in the Amazonas region under the program.
In 2023, WIPO and Indecopi launched Uchi CreActivo, a project that builds on the success of the "Ancestors" program to empower the children of the Awajún indigenous community in Peru to use IP to promote and benefit economically from their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions for generations to come. The project, to be implemented under WIPO’s COVID-19 Response Package, will also build local capacities to replicate this successful experience in other regions of the country, especially those heavily impacted by the pandemic.
Through her parents, and with the support of Indecopi, Dayana learned about IP and was able to register her creative work. She felt comforted knowing that her creative outputs are protected under copyright.
IP is very important to me, as a writer, and as a member of the Huambo community, because it is very comforting for me to know that my creativity is something that can be protected. I want to learn more about IP in school, because I want other children in my community to know about it too.
Dayana S. Meléndez Vargas, Peruvian Writer and Illustrator
WIPO’s next IP Youth Ambassador
In recognition of her creative work, Dayana has been awarded with the WIPO IP Youth Ambassadorship for Peru in 2023. The WIPO IP Youth Ambassadors initiative is part of the IP4Youth&Teachers service. The service was designed and launched by the WIPO Academy in 2018. Its primary purpose is to engage young people involved in the creative process to leverage IP for the benefit of their communities and jointly, with national authorities, promote the use of IP among young people.
As a WIPO IP Youth Ambassador, Dayana will be part of a pioneering network of past and future candidates, to communicate and promote the importance of IP to other young innovators and creators in her region. She will also benefit from tailored IP education facilitated by the IP4Youth&Teachers service.
When she grows up, Dayana aspires to be a painter and writer. In the meantime, she hopes to continue developing her storytelling skills in her favorite school subject, communications, and learning more about IP, particularly traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and copyright. In her free time, she likes to enjoy and take care of her seven pets and her horse, Guapo.
