An Interview with Nahuai Badiola, one of our Green Web Fellows 2023.
Katrin: Nahuai, how has your Green Web fellowship experience been so far?
Nahuai: My experience has been great. I enjoy meeting the whole cohort every week, and to listen and learn from the other fellows. It’s been an eye opening experience so far. I already entered with a project idea, trying to bring holistic sustainability approaches to the WordPress community.
And it is still opening new doors since there are other fellows doing things that I was not aware of. It’s nutritious. Nutritivo in Spanish, can you say this in English? [laughs]
Katrin: Maybe… fruitful? [laughs]
Nahuai: Yeah exactly, fruitful. That’s the word I was looking for. I’m honoured to be part of this fellowship experience, and of this fellowship cohort.
Katrin: Were there any particular learnings you had along the journey or any realisations during the project that you would like to share?
Nahuai: Yeah, definitely. For example, how sustainability is an umbrella term for so many things. I even wrote a blog post about this. During my fellowship, I realised that there are so many different interpretations of the word “sustainability”. For example, I’m part of the WordPress Sustainability Team, and we had to make it very clear that sustainability, for us, goes beyond the environmental aspects and also includes social and economic aspects. I was also invited to a podcast by SustainOSS and realised, during the podcast, that their understanding of sustainability was very much concerned with the question of maintenance. That’s a learning as well. For open source communities ‘sustainability’ often means durability and maintenance.
Initially, I was planning to create a workshop on sustainability for WordPress, but a few days ago I changed my format. I didn’t realise this was possible, until Hannah Smith said that I should just do it! So now, I am working on a podcast series with a special focus on the WordPress community. I want to talk about the different aspects of sustainability, and highlight different expertises and interests.
Katrin: Who would you recommend this fellowship to? Are there any specific people that you have in mind?
Nahuai: I would actually encourage anyone who is interested in sustainability, climate justice, or technology to apply. Curiosity is key. Spending time with the other fellows has been great, and there is so much to learn!
You also have time to develop your own ideas further, and it’s nice to have some money and other resources provided by the fellowship. The fellowship opens doors, and provides me with time to work on the things I care about. For me, working on sustainability and WordPress, it also means that I come from a community – and that I can give the knowledge back to this very community. It’s a great reward.
Thank you so much, Nahuai.
