Lima, Peru, 2008

Esther Leven lives in an unformalized shantytown in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima. She is the director of her town's governing board—a woman who garners incredible respect from those within her community, and one who takes great joy in her role there. She is shown here in the vest and hat she wears when checking the quality of the drinking water, brought in on trucks because the state cannot provide running water to communities that it does not recognize..