Sulma Arias

It takes a special kind of organizer to lead Sunflower Community Action. But the organization has finally been blessed with a great fit: Sulma Arias. As Executive Director, Sulma is responsible for providing leadership to a diverse team of highly qualified individuals and the community she and her team care so much about. Sulma has been oranizing since 1999, when she started out doing door-knocking campaigns.

"I am moved by a deep conviction that Community Organizing, first and foremost, transforms individuals... no one decides our limitations but ourselves."

A transformed individual, Sulma notes, "seeks to create healthy, vibrant communities," by breaking out of dogmatic group-think about how to change a system. "We seek to change a system rooted in racial and economic inequality by exposing injustices in order to bring about equality." Sulma cites "having had the honor of walking alongside thousands of such individuals" as they overcame their own illusory limitations as her greatest accomplishment.