Sergio Oceransky

Sergio’s passion for social and environmental justice began when he was a child. His parents separated and his mother, a Mexican Jew, found herself living in Spain, in which divorce and Judaism were prohibited and where women had very few rights and protection under Franco’s laws. However, his mother continued to fight a very long and difficult child-custody battle. A dedicated social activist ever since, Sergio’s mother opened Spain’s first refuge house for abused women and advocated for immigrant rights. Sergio was deeply influenced by his mother’s work and by the age of 14 he was involved in a number of social justice organizations. In his second year of high school, Sergio co-founded a student group for social justice. He has continuously pursued social and environmental justice since that time.

Sergio also had a variety of experiences during his upbringing that cultivated his interest in grassroots and community organization. As a teenager, he used money he had won from a Spanish national peace prize to live in Israel for four months. He lived on a kibbutz, and learned about that model of self-organization of rural communities. While in Israel, the first grassroots Palestine uprising took place, nurturing Sergio’s commitment to defending the rights of oppressed communities. While Sergio lived though a violent experience in Israel, he was also captivated by the community-organized collective action.

Sergio attended University of Aachen in Germany to study development economics. He became disillusioned as the program taught students how European businesses could gain wealth by taking advantage of the global South. Sergio joined the student union and devoted himself to anti-globalization activism within a network that eventually grew to encompass 200 universities. After graduating, Sergio spent four years developing a network of grassroots organizations around the globe. He had no permanent residence and travelled constantly meeting with indigenous and peasant leaders and organizing seminars, protests, and forums. From this experience he learned to work with complex systems and communicate with people at different levels.

Sergio’s life-work took a turn in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September, 2001 when he began reflecting on the urgency of solving social and economic problems and decided to change his approach from launching protests to offering proposals. He focused on renewable energy because he saw the transition from fossil fuels as a historic opportunity to promote social justice. 

Sergio gained technical expertise and many valuable connections in the wind energy field while working as Coordinator of the World Wind Energy Institute (WWEI). WWEI is a network of universities and technology centers dedicated to democratizing access to information and training related to wind energy, which currently is in the hands of a few powerful companies that dominate the sector. From this experience, Sergio has established excellent contacts within the energy sectors. He served on the board of directors for the European International Network for Sustainable Energy and also the European Renewable Energy Federation. He was frustrated that WWEI trained leaders in renewable energy but could not offer financial support to start community energy projects. In response, Sergio founded Yansa to carry out major community-owned wind farm projects in the developing world, working with indigenous groups in Mexico and other countries in a manner which will allow local communities to participate in and control much of the benefits of these projects.