Melania Canales Poma is a leader of the Quechua People in the Ayacucho region, Peru. She is currently president of the National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Women of Peru - ONAMIAP, and coordinator of the Southern Region of the Continental Link of Indigenous Women of the Americas (ECMIA SUR) and part of the ECMIA Collegiate Council.
She has held different positions in the Rural Community of Lucanas, in the Federation of Women of Lucanas and in the Regional Federation of Indigenous Women of Ayacucho. She was elected mayor of the Lucanas district for the period 2011-2014.
Her organizational and political trajectory is based on the vindication of her identity, as well as on the struggle for autonomy and full exercise of the rights of women and indigenous peoples.