A tribute as part of the Next Stop Campaign

You can hear an audio version of this blog article here and in the video below. 

Some people live like sunflowers, always leaning toward the light, offering warmth and resilience to everyone around them. Cecilia Melgar was one of them.

Cecilia was a young environmentalist and transport justice advocate from Lima, Peru. She believed deeply that mobility is not just about roads and vehicles, but about dignity, safety, and belonging. For her, transport meant safe sidewalks for children, secure routes for women, protected lanes for cyclists, and accessible public transport for all. She imagined cities where people — not cars — stood at the centre.

In 2023, Cecilia’s life was tragically cut short in a road crash. She was only 26. Her passing was not “an accident” in the truest sense of the word — it was a stark reminder of the very dangers she had spent her life trying to change. Yet even in loss, her story became a spark. Friends, colleagues, and fellow youth advocates took up her vision, ensuring that her work and her convictions would continue.

Her legacy is carried forward most vividly by Jeffrey Jossepy Leandro Díaz, who has dedicated himself to amplifying Cecilia’s voice. Through his advocacy, Jeffrey speaks of transport not as infrastructure, but as community: spaces where people can breathe, connect, and move freely. He insists, as Ceci once did, that safer mobility is not a privilege but a right.

 

Out of her passing emerged Pacto por Ceci — the Pact for Cecilia. More than a remembrance, it is a living promise: to design streets for life, not for speed. To demand equity in the very asphalt of our cities. To ensure that sustainability is woven into every journey, and that dignity moves alongside us with every step.

Cecilia’s story is one of both loss and continuity. Like Van Gogh’s sunflowers — painted with both joy and sorrow — her legacy radiates still, urging us to keep turning toward the light she left behind.

Through the Next Stop Campaign, we honour her vision. We amplify youth voices, reimagine our streets, and build movements for mobility that protect both people and the planet. Cecilia taught us that mobility is not just transport. It is freedom. It is justice. It is love in motion.

And as long as we keep moving, so does she.🌻

 

By Sana’ Khasawneh, Youth Ambassador for Inclusion & Sustainable Transport (Next Stop Campaign, TUMI)

Learn more about Cecilia, Jeffrey and other Remarkable Young Voices in Transport here.