Inspiring Community Action
Welcome Keynote Guests for our Third Conference Keynote Session: Inspiring Community Action
Friday, September 24th | 9:00AM – 10:15 AM EST
Agnes Scott College announces the keynote speakers of the morning session on day two of the Building a Better World: Women and Climate Justice conference, taking place September 23-24, 2021. The All We Can Save Project co-founder, Katharine Wilkinson, will lead a conversation with three young voices – Seva Gandhi, Leah Trotman, and Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru – exploring the analysis of climate impacts along with future solutions that are possible for women leaders around the world.
Meet Your Moderator, Katharine Wilkinson
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is an author, strategist, and teacher working to heal the planet we call home. Her books on climate include the bestselling anthology All We Can Save (2020), The Drawdown Review (2020), the New York Times bestseller Drawdown (2017), and Between God & Green (2012), which The Boston Globe dubbed “a vitally important, even subversive, story.” Dr. Wilkinson co-founded and leads The All We Can Save Project with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, in support of women leading on climate. She also co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees, telling stories for the climate curious with Dr. Leah Stokes.
Previously, Dr. Wilkinson was the principal writer and editor-in-chief at Project Drawdown, where she led the organization’s work to share climate solutions with audiences around the world. She speaks widely, including at National Geographic, Skoll World Forum, and the United Nations. Her TED Talk on climate and gender equality has more than 1.9 million views. She serves on the boards of the Doc Society, Chattahoochee Now, and Wild Ark and advises numerous climate-focused initiatives.
A homegrown Atlantan, Dr. Wilkinson holds a doctorate in geography and environment from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA in religion from Sewanee, where she is now a visiting professor. Formative months spent in the Southern Appalachians, as a student at The Outdoor Academy, shaped her path. Time Magazine featured Dr. Wilkinson as one of 15 “women who will save the world” and Apolitical named her one of the “100 most influential people in gender policy. She is happiest on a mountain or a horse. Find her @DrKWilkinson.
Seva Gandhi
Seva is a facilitator, trainer, and consultant working on both community and organizational development in Chicago and with partners around the US & globe. She continually seeks out new tools and innovative processes that center inclusion, participation and strategic thinking in group planning efforts.
Seva received her Master’s in Social Work (MSW) with a focus on community organizing and nonprofit management from the University of Michigan. She is the founder and executive director of Collaborative Connections. She is Mentor Trainer and Certified Facilitator in Technology of Participation facilitation methods. She currently serves as Board Chair for the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, and is on the Leadership team for Chicago Regional Organizing for Anti-Racism. Much of Seva’s work focuses on the intersection community engagement, environmental justice, and anti-racism.
Leah Trotman
Leah Trotman (she/her/hers) is a recent Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Agnes Scott College ’21 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, a minor in Public Health, and a Global Learning Specialization. She was born and raised in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, a community she aspires to return to and build resilient healthcare systems and infrastructure in the face of natural disasters.
In April 2021, she was named a Marshall Scholar (the US Virgin Islands’ first-ever Marshall Scholar) and, upon arrival to the United Kingdom in September, will pursue her first master’s degree in Health and International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Following this, she will pursue a second master’s degree at the University College London in Caribbean and Latin American Studies. She was also selected as a 2020 Harry S. Truman Scholar based on her leadership, public service, and academic achievement. Leah is Agnes Scott’s first Truman Scholar since 2009, and the fifth since the program’s inception in 1975.
Leah has interned in Atlanta, GA at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) in their Center for Preparedness and Response. She has also interned in St. Thomaslocally back home with the Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Plan (HMP) Health Sector team at the University of the Virgin Islands in collaboration with the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She hopes to pursue a career in Global Health focused on emergency preparedness and response and humanitarian health efforts in English- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. Using a sociopolitical lens, she hopes to enact effective institutional policies and community interventions that 1) acknowledge climate change’s role in the present-day uptick of natural disasters and 2) address the impacts of natural disasters on health and healthcare systems.
Leah has been featured in the Virgin Islands Source, the Virgin Islands Daily News, USNews,
and NPR, and her most recent article on the nexus between climate change and forced migration
was published in Latin American Policy Journal, a Harvard Kennedy School Publication.
Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru
Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is an environmental justice advocate, writer and current graduate student at the University of Oxford. She is a first generation American of Kenyan descent and the first Black person in history to receive the Rhodes, Truman and Udall Scholarships. As the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, Wawa is motivated to uplift the voices of those most adversely impacted by environmental inequities through changing conservation conversations. For her work in collaboration with other activists and thought leaders, Wawa has been recognized as a 2020 Young Futurist by The Root, a 2020 Grist 50 FIXER, a 2020 Glamour College Woman of the Year, a 2021 Victoria Secret PINK with Purpose winner and has spoken on her work across the country.
