Wilmer Vanegas is from Pueblo Nuevo, in the town of María La Baja, Bolívar, in the Colombian Caribbean. Since he was 15 years old, he has exercised social leadership in the community where he is from: first, as part of the Committee of members of the National Association of Peasant Users (ANUC) in María La Baja and, later, in different processes, having been legal representative for 12 years of the Asopueblo Nuevo Association, and currently as a member of the Montes de María Ethnic and Peasant Displaced Population Organizations (OPDS) and coordinator of the Interlocution Table articulation strategy, of the same platform.

He has also actively participated in the work of civil society organizations such as the Solidarity Development Corporation (CDS), Gernica, Movement for Peace (MPDL), with whom he has worked as a co-investigator in research on the peasant economy, land and justice. transitional in Montes de María. He has also worked as a professor at the Technological University of Bolívar.