International Languages and Cultures
Psychology
Portland Magazine
Alumni
November 5, 2019
Meet Lupita Ruiz-Tolento ’13, a Gates Scholar, first-generation college graduate, and French, Spanish, and psychology major (with neuroscience minor). After earning her MA in Latin American Studies at UCSD and a year of teaching English in Quito, Ecuador, Lupita is now director of institutional development for SembraMedia, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting independent digital journalism in Latin America.
SembraMedia could be the poster child for 21stcentury business/nonprofit models. Virtual team members live and work in some 15 countries around the world; Lupita works from Portland, OR. Her next annual conference with the SembraMedia team is scheduled for 2020 in Buenos Aires. “I work with highcaliber, top-notch journalists,” she says. “They’re very passionate people, and it’s so contagious.”
Today SembraMedia boasts a regional network of more than 800 digital publishers in Latin America, the US, and Spain. Of the three new initiatives launched in 2019, Lupita feels especially connected to SembraMex, which provides grants and sustainability counseling to independent digital media along the US/Mexico border. The first new grants went to digital news startups in the cities of Monterrey and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The grants help independent media increase their business acumen and revenue. In this particular case, the work is personal. Originally from Mexico, Lupita has an interest in promoting independent journalists there. “SembraMex is very special to me. Anything that has to do with Mexico really tugs at my heartstrings, because it has everything to do with my personal history and identity.”
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