Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma was born on October 26, 1959 in Isallawi, Bolivia. Both of his parents were ethnic Aymara natives who worked as subsistence farmers in Orinoca Canton.

Evo's father, Dionisio Morales Choque, and his mother, Maria Ayma, had seven children but only three survived past childhood: Evo, his sister Esther and his brother Hugo.

As a child, his favorite past-time was soccer. But he had little time for sports as he worked on his family's farm, planting crops and herding llamas.

Although his family spoke the Aymara language at home, he quickly learned Spanish while attending elementary school in Argentina. He completed his high school studies in Orinoco, Bolivia.

In 1974, Morales attended the ‘Agrarian Technical Institute of Orinoco’ but dropped out before his final year.

In 1977, after graduation he moved to Chapare Province to begin his mandatory service in the military. The following year, he began touring all over Bolivia, working as a journeyman laborer and bricklayer. He also earned money as a trumpet player, touring with the ‘Royal Imperial Band’.

In 1979, he joined his family in Cochabamba where he learned to grow local crops, including coca. The same year, he joined the trade union for coca growers and was appointed to the position of ‘Secretary of Sports’ there.

In 1982, he was promoted to General Secretary of his region's union syndicate. A year later, Morales and other coca growers were offered $2,500 by the United States government for each acre of coca that they eradicated. Morales refused the payout and began organizing fellow coca growers to resist the offer.

In 1989, he gave a commemorative speech on the anniversary of the ‘Villa Tunari Massacre’. The following day, government agents assaulted him, abandoning him in a remote mountain pass to die.

In 1994, he was arrested by the Bolivian government and brutally beaten while in custody. The next day, thousands of his supporters marched on the jail and he was released soon afterwards.

He is the President of the State of Bolivia since January 22, 2006. The leader is known for his policies aimed at successfully eradicating illiteracy, and improving the economic conditions of the country. He also voices his support for environmentalist causes and rights of indigenous people.