Among the many advantages of living in rural Asturias, and without wanting to mythologize or soften a life that sometimes becomes hard, there is that of being able to enjoy a “pure sky”. Otherwise, tell it to a girl who was born in Pola de Allande, in the southwest of the Principality, in 1985 and, fascinated from an early age by the stars and the night sky, she insisted on asking her parents to take him to the roof. “to see the sky”. Not only did she ask to see the sky, but she was also the best known in the town bookstore because “I liked the ugliest books, those with black covers, without drawings” and she only wanted books of astronomy, at the bookstore and at the library. It was his obsession.
When one night, at seven or eight years old, Lucía González’s father took her to the roof of their house so she could finally see the stars, this girl who loved stars and stars decided that she wanted become an astronomer. He doesn’t remember how old he was, his parents tell him, but he remembers that moment and how he felt.
Today, this girl has grown up. Thirty years have passed since that first visit to the roof of the family home and she is the proud promoter of “AllandeStars”, a project in which, as she herself recognizes, she is not alone, but which was worthy of being rewarded. as Rural Woman of Asturias 2024.
Lucía wanted to become an astrophysicist, she was clear about it, but she didn’t know how to get there, so she asked at school what a girl from Pola de Allande should do to become an astrophysicist. After completing his technological baccalaureate he went to Oviedo where he obtained his degree in physics at the University of Oviedo and as astronomy was still in his head and he needed to know if it was something something real or something he had idealized, he went to the University of La Laguna, in Tenerife where he enrolled in a master’s degree in astrophysics.
The years spent in the Canary Islands bring back only good memories for Lucía. With affection and admiration, he speaks of his teachers, from whom he learned a lot, but also of all the people he met there. He was awarded a fellowship that gave him a four-year contract to develop a doctoral thesis on solar stars, with or without planets, observed by NASA missions.
As Lucía prepares for her doctorate, she discovers that there is a new passion in her life, which accompanies the one she feels for astronomy and astrophysics, namely scientific dissemination. Thus, in 2020, this woman from Allander decided to participate in a national competition entitled “We are scientists”, obtaining a prize which allowed her to launch her dissemination project. This is how AllandeStars was born.
A project that combines scientific dissemination and cultural heritage
Lucía González launches AllandeStars to connect astronomy and cultural heritage with a dual objective, scientific dissemination and promotion of critical thinking as well as heritage conservation and maintenance. She does it in Pola de Allande, in homage to that sky where she was born and this happens during a weekend in which scientists decide to start traveling through the towns of southwest Asturias to bring science closer in its different aspects of its inhabitants.
So, for four years, from 2020 to 2023, and during a weekend in August, Lucía and her companions traveled through the town of Allande to show people how astronomy is present in the heritage. From the church of Santa María de Celón to a pre-Roman fort with 3000 years of history or an equinoctial braña in which they took the opportunity to explain what the solstices, the equinoxes, the rotation of the earth or its translation.
At the Cienfuegos Palace, we talked about radioactivity and radon gas emitted by the ground. In the church of Villaverde, we discussed the relationship between music and astronomy… and that’s how four years passed.
Lucía González defended her doctoral thesis in March 2023, left Tenerife and returned to settle in Pola de Allande with the firm intention that AllandeStars would move from an entrepreneurial project to a scientific dissemination company in Asturias. Today the test is more than successful, since the idea with which four people started today includes more than 20, and for Lucía it is the work that occupies all her time.
Currently, they carry out their work, in addition to Asturias, in Castile and León, Galicia and the province of Alava. They organize observation days, conferences, presentations and astronomical workshops in schools, to make children aware of the fact that protecting the sky is everyone’s business.
AllandeStars “is a project made with the heart”, as its founder recognizes, a childhood dream to disseminate science and help “the territory not to die”, but which would in no way be possible without a sister like Raquel , who is the architect of the family, and without parents like Manuel and María Ronte who were always there for whatever they needed.
Lucía González Cuesta felt “surprise and enthusiasm” when she learned that she had been chosen Rural Woman of Asturias 2024. Surprised because she did not expect it and enthusiastic because this award represents important recognition for a innovative and disruptive commitment, like his project. , and a clear example that it is possible to create a scientific dissemination company in a municipality in southwest Asturias.
Part of the goal of this project is for people to know where Allande is and how to pronounce all the letters of a town that has a lot to offer.
This native of Allanda by birth and heart is an ardent defender of her land and affirms that the southwest of Asturias needs entrepreneurship that generates socio-economic activity because it has a very important and largely unknown, the sky. In fact, part of the goal, he assures, is for people to know where Allande is and “how to pronounce all the letters of a council that has a lot to offer,” he emphasizes.
“Amazing things have happened since AllandeStars launched,” acknowledges Lucía, but there is still much to do and the rural area offers “endless” opportunities.
The Asturian Network of Rural Development and Rural Women of Asturias
The Jury valued the career of Lucía González, for the innovative activity it carries out, consisting of the scientific dissemination of astronomy in rural areas and the consequent generation of scientific tourism and astrotourism resources.
Lucía joins Isabel Rodríguez, from San Antolín de Ibias, as a rural woman from Asturias; Josefa Vega, from Carreño; Ana Inmaculada Adeba, from Villayón; Ana Labad, from Colunga; Rosa Rodríguez, from Trabáu (Degaña); María Teresa Costales, from Lastres (Colunga), awarded as “rural women” in the six previous editions.
The Asturian Rural Development Network (READER) has been, since its formation in October 1999, a meeting point, reflection and cooperation, in which 71 municipalities of the Principality of Asturias promote projects or other types of economic initiatives and social activities targeted to create jobs, wealth and build population in rural Asturias.
Its objectives are numerous, in addition to those mentioned previously, the READER seeks the exchange of experiences and methodologies between other autonomous communities and even countries of the European Union and third countries, to promote the qualification of the unemployed in associated areas or to represent and defend the interests of the Asturian rural environment.
Lucía González will receive her recognition as Rural Woman of Asturias 2024 during an event that, like every year, will take place on October 15, International Day of Rural Women, and which, on this occasion, will take place in a specially enclave designated, the Old Ortiz Cannery, in Candás (Carreño), in a day which, due to the chosen setting, will be linked to women and the sea.
The Asturian Network for Rural Development organizes, for the seventh consecutive year, events to celebrate the International Day of Rural Women.
