Staff

Blerta Avdili
Blerta Avdili is the Director of Sustainability. She is resilient not by choice but by her struggle to survive as an oppressed individual. Blerta is originally from Kosova, the newest country in Europe but with a very old history of oppression and colonialism. She first moved to Colorado as a refugee in 1999 during the genocide in Kosova where thousands were killed, raped and millions were displaced by the Serbian Regime. Blerta has seven years of experience working for various International Organizations and NGO’s in three different continents; however her soul is most at peace with movements and organizations like SOL-BSEEDZ where survivors and activists work together to find and heal the root causes that continue to marginalize different groups of people across the globe. 
 
Blerta is most inspired by her Nena, a survivor of multiple wars and sexual violence. Blerta hopes to be the last generation in her family and country to experience gender based violence and to be the generation that ends the colonialism of the Albanian people in all the occupied lands of Albania. She loves the mountains of Colorado; the beaches of Albania but her soul is most fulfilled in the birth land of her father and grandfather in Gerbac, Medvegje- an Albanian territory that continues to be occupied by Serbia.
Maresol Rosa Gurevitz

When Maresol was a little bud, she uprooted from the humid rainforests of Rio de Janeiro to the dehydrated ocean remains of Colorado. Carrying toucan love in her heart, she has been building with BSEEDZ for a few rotations under the sun. Maresol is passionate about media and art making, whales, liberatory education, waterfalls, building queer family, dismantling imperialism, & amor! Maresol hopes to build bridges between youth organizing in Denver, throughout the US and internationally! Currently Maresol is working on building a queer and trans youth-led radio station at BSEEDZ called Radio Semillas Enterradas/Buried Seedz Radio. You can reach Maresol @. 

Cecelia Kluding-Rodriguez

Cecelia Kluding-Rodriguez is part of the 5th generation of her family to be born is what is today called Colorado. She was raised by young women-her two sisters and mom. Throughout middle and high school, Cecelia worked with groups of students and young people to better inform the community about realities of immigration in CO. She later trained as a sexual health peer-educator and presented in middle and high school classrooms about sexual health and RJ. During this time she also was gaining experience in media by producing news pieces about a full spectrum of human rights issues for the local community radio station. Today Cecelia attends school in Denver and studies integrative/holistic health therapies and works with Buried Seedz of Resistance (BSEEDZ) as the Director of Youth Organizing. She can be reached at .

 

Mimi Madrid Puga

Grandchild of Dolores Puga; child of Norma Puga. Sibling of 4 Mimi Madrid Puga is the Director of Training and Organizing and Co-Executive Director. Mimi has been involved at SOL and BSEEDZ for the past 3 years as a former volunteer, WILDSEEDZ member, Board of Directors and media consultant helping create various media trainings, graphic design and films for the organization. Mimi brings over 9 years of community and youth organizing, curriculum building and implementation, program development and fundraising. She has served and contracted at various grassroots community and youth organizations here in Colorado. Mimi Madrid, a queer creature birthed in border town El Paso, Texas over a quarter century ago and raised by the montañas of Denver, Colorado. Mimi is a queer 2Spirit IndiaMexicaXicana who believes in: the power of youth, reproductive justice, elimination of borders, popular education, all forms of art expression, multi-generational learning, storytelling, swaying on the continuums of gender expression, identity, and orientation, singing out-loud, leaving to come back, dancing in revolution, sistar/brother/familyhood, and sana-sana-colita-de-rana. As a survivor of violence, Mimi has grappled with many challenges and yet thrives to find faith and love through family, art, spirituality and community organizing. Mimi can be reached at .

Lynne Sprague

 Lynne is the Director of Advocacy and Co-Executive Director at Survivors Organizing for Liberation (SOL). A Texas transplant, Lynne became political around her own experiences with intimate partner violence which set her on a course of doing anti-violence work for the last 20 years. Moving to Colorado and working with community groups with intersectional frameworks helped deepen Lynne's commitment to doing broader community work that is rooted in anti-oppression and liberatory values. CAVP is near and dear to Lynne's heart, as it is a place where there is a strong desire and commitment to developing new models for supporting communities targeted by violence and addressing the root societal conditions that create oppression. Prior to SOL, Lynne was the Director at a Colorado-based safehouse and under her leadership the organization changed their gender-based policy to include survivors of all genders. Lynne was also the co-chair of the Grant Making Committee at the Chinook Fund, an activist-based foundation in Colorado. Lynne developed curriculum for a graduate-level course on Intimate Partner Violence for the University of Denver, which she has taught for the last 8 years.  Outside of work she can most often be found outside hiking or looking in awe at the greens and veggies she's managed to grow in her yard. Lynne can be reached at