I want to live in a world where Earth Day is everyday - Our origin story

Hi, my name is Mireya and I am the founder of Mia Strada London.

I have a deep love for nature. For me, it was always the animals, the landscapes and the local people that made me stop and just observe and marvel at the beauty, the diversity and the rawness of life.

Having celebrated Earth Day last Sunday and with Fashion Revolution Week ending today I thought it a great opportunity to explore and put into words how I got so passionate about conservation.

Cultural identity matters

Mine is a weird amalgamated mix of a the South American woke socially invested intellectuality (my dad was Bolivian and that is where I was born and grew up for the most part) and the worldly awareness and outspoken nature of the peculiar Dutch society and its well exercised social control (my mum is Dutch and took us over as often as they could afford to do a few stints in school and help solidify the language)

As a little girl I was taken all over the Bolivian countryside when my mum and dad travelled for work - they were both sociologists and had their own consultancy specialising in research for development projects, which meant their work took them to places far and wide. I have very early recollections of spotting the prettiest tiny flowers growing inside the cracks of rocks in indigenous communities in the Andean Mountain range. I remember the crackled skin of the people who received us, the wonderful coloured clothing they wore and the interesting houses in which they lived. I remember how the brown and bare landscapes, where the wind was so sharp it felt like it cut through my cheeks, gradually turned into green lush endless rolling mountains on our road trips. I remember the sweet smell of the rotting mangoes in the groves of the lodges we stayed at when traveling in the tropics, and I remember learning to be OK jumping into swimming pools full of frogs (and to actually learn to enjoy it even tho those creatures do not understand personal boundaries 😂)

Although Bolivia is very rich in nature, when I was in primary school, conservation wasn't a subject that was much discussed. The talk in Bolivia when I was growing up was more about the importance of democracy, development and social empowerment and this was mainly adult talk, children weren't included in the conversation. This was not the case when I visited friends and family in The Netherlands, there, all my friends seemed to be subscribed to children's magazines that touched subjects like animal welfare and the need to stop animal testing, Greenpeace's work to save whales and baby seals, the WWF's work to save the panda's and tigers, and even in school work was carried out to support some famine ridden communities in Africa. 

I guess my love for nature and natural diversity is innate because of where I was born and grew up, and I became aware of the need to preserve it through my stints in Europe. When it was my time to choose a university degree, there was only one study that dealt with this subject and it had been created just one year before I graduated! The Environmental Revolution was JUST starting and I felt honoured and compelled to join it 💪 (Little did we all know that it would take almost 30 years for Climate Change to be taken as a serious issue, much much too late to be able to prevent it 😔)

As much as I enjoyed my uni studies, the highlight for me was the research I developed for my master thesis, it showed me I was full of bias and my view of poverty was kind of askew, you can read a bit about it on this other blog post if you feel so inclined 😘

I LOVE that you are here reading this and it would mean the world to me if you told me a bit about how and when YOU started your sustainability journey! What inspired you to take action? I’d love it if you shared this with us in the comments 🌻

xx Mireya 🌱