Building a Better World: Women and Climate Justice – Agnes Scott College Women’s Global Leadership Conference

Building a Better World: Women and Climate Justice – Agnes Scott College Women’s Global Leadership Conference

Agnes Scott College’s second annual Women’s Global Leadership Conference will convene internationally recognized scholars, private sector experts, political leaders, and community activists to engage in intentional conversations, form innovative partnerships for addressing climate injustice, and develop creative strategies for building more resilient communities.

Women frequently bear the brunt of the social violence, political instability, and environmental degradation caused by climate change but at the same time, they are also important to change agents in the transition to a more sustainable and just future.

With the “Building a Better World” conference Agnes Scott combines its strong commitment to sustainability and its innovative SUMMIT global learning and leadership experience to address the full range of climate-justice experiences of women and other marginalized identities.

• Day 1 – Thursday, September 23rd, 8:30 am- 7:30 pm
• Day 2 – Friday, September 24th, 9:00 am- 5:00 pm

View the full 3-day agenda here.

Register by: September 15, 2021 11:59 PM.

Keynote One: Building Strong Connections – Thursday, September 3rd | 10:00 AM-11:15 AM

Agnes Scott College announces the keynote speakers for the opening session at the Building a Better World: Women and Climate Justice conference on September 23-24, 2021: Wanjira Mathai and Pat Mitchell set the stage in a conversation about global women’s leadership for climate action.

Meet the Featured Speakers

Wanjira Mathai

Wanjira Mathai is the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa at WRI.

She formerly served as Co-chair of WRI’s Global Restoration Council and a Senior Advisor to the Global Restoration Initiative. She is the current Chair of the Wangari Maathai Foundation and the former Chair of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.

An inspiring leader, Wanjira has over 20 years of experience advocating for social and environmental change on both local and international platforms. Over the years, Wanjira has also served important strategic and advocacy roles raising the prominence and visibility of global issues such as climate change, youth leadership, sustainable energy, and landscape restoration, at Women Entrepreneurs in Renewables (wPOWER), the Wangari Maathai Foundation (WMF), and the Green Belt Movement (GBM) the organization her mother, Wangari Maathai (2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) founded in 1977.

Wanjira currently serves on the Board of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and as a Leadership Council member of the Clean Cooking Alliance. Wanjira is one of a few Six Seconds EQ Practitioners in Kenya and was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Women in 2018 and 2020.

Pat Mitchell

Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor, and mentor.

In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator, and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World Forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and the Women of the World (WOW) festival in London. In 2017, she launched the Connected Women Leaders Initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation focused on women leaders in government and civil society. In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Leadership. She is a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership and wrote the introduction to the recently published book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she served as a congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council.

Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the Sundance Institute Board and as chair emerita of the Women’s Media Center Board. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Woodruff Arts Center. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master’s degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren. In October of 2019, she published her book Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World.

Keynote Three: Inspiring Community Action – Friday, September 24th | 9:00 -10:15 AM

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 the 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.

Meet the Featured Speakers

Seva Gandhi 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 a​nd 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 (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 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.