Froilan G. Grate or Kuya Froi as he is commonly called, is an environmental educator and volunteer at heart.
He first joined Mother Earth Foundation as its Program Coordinator in
early 2006, after which he was elected as Vice President in 2007 and President in 2009. Prior to joining MEF, he was the Program Director of the Center for Environmental Awareness and Education where
he was first exposed to the transformative power of education,
especially as a tool in making people act positively towards the
resolution of various environmental issues.
He is also the Chairman of Add Up! Volunteers, a
group he founded in 2003 with the goal of engaging the youth in active
nation building. They have provided volunteer support to MEF and other
environmental organizations.
Currently, aside from being President and Trustee, he is also serving
MEF as an active trainer on Inner Ecology and Ecological Solid Waste
Management Trainings (ESWM), and as Project Manager for MEF-Puerto Princesa Partnership on ESWM. He is also working as Consultant for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) for the Zero Waste Alaminos Project and as Project Manager for Rotary – USAID’s Ecological
Solid Waste Project – a support project for Maynilad’s Sewerage
Treatment Plant Project for the San Juan River basin.
He currently works as the Executive Director of GAIA Philippines and as the Asia Pacific Coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
His other current engagements are the following: Project Manager and Senior Facilitator of Project Water Education for Teachers (Project WET) and Project Learning Tree, and as General Manager of GreenMinds Interactive.
An avid blogger, mountaineer and traveler, he backpacked across 30 countries before he turned 30. A passionate advocate against the use of plastic, he has not used a single plastic drinking straw or shopping bag in more than 10 years. This, and his love for composting has allowed him to reduce his household waste to less than 2 kilos for the whole year of 2015.
