Wawa Gatheru

Oh my goodness, thank you for having me.

I'm so excited.

Yeah, I would hope so.

I would hope so.

So yes, I am the proud founder and executive director of Black Girl Environmentalist.

We are a national organization that's working to address the unique pathway and retention issue that exists in the climate sector for black girls and black gender expansive folks.

So I can zoom out a little bit as to why that's our mission.

So when we look at the US population, people of color make up nearly 40%, but we don't exceed a 12 to 16% green ceiling.

So we see that there's a gap in terms of diverse talent, but then also there's a gap in terms of who has green skills.

So Gen Z, when we look at folks who have green skills, only one in 10 Gen Z around the world has a green skill.

When we look at women around the world, only 1 in 10 women have a single green skill.

So Black Girl Environmentalists is trying to address these circumstances by building pipelines and making sure that the next generation is properly resourced to be climate leaders.

Yeah, yeah.

A green skill can look like a number of different things.

A green skill could be someone getting the skills to fill in potholes.

It could be a skill to be a policymaker.

It could be a skill to work in conservation.

But the thing is, there aren't as many folks going into the green economy space in general, so I think we also have to shift the narrative to make sure that we're making those roles more sexy.

And that's what Black Girl Environmental is trying to do, make green jobs feel cooler.

Yeah, I would say it was the first summer of our Hazel and Johnson Fellowship Program.