Sustainability Leadership From The Grassroots: Lupe Avalos

KGNU is partnering with FLOWS, a sustainability leadership and climate action group based out of CU Boulder for a new series on grassroots sustainability. We’re sharing the stories of FLOWS leaders and how their culturally diverse and often international backgrounds make them, and the communities they work with, valuable assets to the sustainability movement.

Lupe Avalos, a recent CU graduate and member of the FLOWS program, says she may not have known it at the time, but growing up in a community that maximized resources was excellent training for sustainability leadership.

“I’m from a family of immigrants from Mexico. [I] grew up in a huge family in a little house in an area that’s typically all immigrants.”

Lupe is learning the most effective ways to translate her sustainable living skills to others living outside an environment where conscious, responsible resource use is the norm.

“Having this attitude of disapproving of people’s habits is never going to help them change. You have to really give them the knowledge to see what’s wrong with that habit and to see what else can you do within your own means or resources [to be more sustainable].” 

This FLOWS radio series is made possible by a grant from Boulder County.

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