THE GCFA YOUNG LEADERS
Annie Lennox, singer, songwriter, humanitarian and founder of
The Circle NGO – honored 14 young female leaders at the
Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2023.
Closing the night was a special recognition of female leaders, for their inspirational activism, an understanding and interplay between environmental action, civil rights, equality, global feminism and building a better collective future. Each woman took to the stage in solidarity of positive transformation.
Nalleli Cobo
Nalleli Cobo led a grassroot campaign to permanently shut down a toxic oil-drilling site in her community in March 2020, at the age of 19—an oil site that caused serious health issues for her and others. Her organizing against urban oil extraction has yielded major policy movement within both the Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which voted unanimously on bans of new oil exploration and the phasing out of existing sites. Nalleli, 22, grew up in South Los Angeles and launched her activism as a 9-year-old after noticing foul smells emanating from the oil well across the street from her home. Over the years, she endured headaches, nosebleeds, and heart palpitations caused by pollution from the well. She began attending meetings and rallies with her mother and, at the age of 9, gave her first public speech on the issue. Even as a child, her skills as an orator caught others’ attention and paved the way for her to eventually become the leading spokesperson for banning oil extraction in Los Angeles. She co-founded People not Pozos, which aims to secure a safe and healthy neighborhood, and the South Central Youth Leadership Coalition, which focuses on environmental racism in the community. In March 2020, Nalleli’s tireless organizing culminated in the definitive closure of the AllenCo drilling site across the street from her childhood home. In addition, thanks to her work, AllenCo executives are facing over 24 criminal charges for environmental health and safety violations. Moreover, Nalleli’s leadership spurred preliminary votes in the City Council in favor of banning oil extraction in the city in 2020. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 19. After three surgeries and medical treatment, she was declared cancer-free but cannot have children as a result of her illness. In the end, Nalleli led a citizens’ movement that shut down an oil drilling site and initiated the process to phase out the largest urban oil field in the US.
Wawa Gatheru
Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is a Kenyan-American environmental justice scholar- activist passionate about cultivating a climate movement that is made in the image of all of us. In 2019, Wawa made history as the first Black person in history to receive the Rhodes, Truman, and Udall scholarships. She is the founder and Executive Director of Black Girl Environmentalist, an organization dedicated to empowering Black girls, women, and non-binary people across environmental disciplines. She is a Narrative Fellow at the All We Can Save Project and serves as the Activist Board Chair at the Environmental Media Association, is on the national advisory board of Climate Power and is the youngest council member at EarthJustice. For her work in collaboration with other organizers and activists, Wawa has been recognized as a Young Futurist by The Root, a Grist 50 FIXER, a Glamour College Woman of the Year, and was featured on the January 2023 cover of Vogue alongside Billie Eilish and 7 other climate activists.
Quannah Chasinghorse
Quannah Chasinghorse is a model and Indigenous activist. Since a Calvin Klein campaign in 2020 cemented her status as one of fashion’s fresh faces, Chasinghorse has used her platform to champion Indigenous culture and climate justice. She uses fashion image-making as a means of storytelling about her ancestry, while spotlighting issues surrounding sustainability as well as land and wildlife preservation. Armed with her traditional Hän Gwich’in tattoos, the model is at once redefining beauty, honoring a Native practice dating back more than 10,000 years, and challenging the notion that all models should be a blank canvas.
Helena Gualinga
Helena Gualinga, 20, is an Ecuadorian environmental and human rights activist from the Kichwa Sarayuku community in Pastaza, Ecuador. She has become a spokesperson for the Sarayuku indigenous community, and exposes the conflict between oil companies and her community in local schools as well as the international community to raise awareness. Gualinga is a co-founder of Polluters Out, which was founded to demand refusal of funding coming from fossil fuel corporations by the UNFCCC. She also demonstrated in New York City outside of the UN in 2019. She participated in the COP25 in Madrid, Spain, to speak about her concern on the Ecuadorian government authorizing oil extraction in indigenous land, as well as to criticize the Ecuadorian government for claiming interest in protecting the Amazon during the conference while not having attended to indigenous Amazon women's demands brought to the government in 2019. She has been featured in Vogue magazine, Revista Hogar magazine, and had the documentary “Helena Sarayaku Manta” made about her life and activism.
Vee Kativhu
Vee (Varaidzo) Kativhu, 24, is a Girls’ Education Activist, YouTube visionary and author from Zimbabwe and the UK. She is the founder of Empowered By Vee, an academic empowerment platform focusing on making higher education more accessible for girls. She uses her platform, of over 300,000 followers, to help unsupported and underrepresented students fulfil their academic potential. Vee has been recognized for her outstanding contributions to diversity and female empowerment, receiving accolades such as the Diana Award Legacy Award from Princes Harry and William, the United Kingdom Rare Rising Star award from Members of U.K Parliament, and the Diversity Champion award from Oxford's Vice Chancellor. As of late Vee has been selected as a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations for the 2022-2024 period, and in January ’23, joined Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation as an Advisory Board Member.
Sophia Kianni
Sophia Kianni, 21, is a climate activist studying environmental science and public policy at Stanford University. She is the founder and executive director of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit with 8,000 volunteers in 41 countries working to translate climate information into 100 languages. She represents the US as the youngest member of the inaugural United Nations Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. Sophia’s recent TED Talk “Language shouldn’t be a barrier to climate action” has gone viral. Sophia has been named VICE Media’s youngest Human of the Year, a National Geographic Young Explorer, and one of Teen Vogue’s 21 under 21.
Mary Maker
Mary is an Education Advocate and Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Mary fled the war in south Sudan as a child. She found security and hope in attending school in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya and went on to become a teacher of other students in her community and co-founder of an NGO providing access to higher education opportunities for refugees. Mary is currently pursuing further studies as part of a scholarship programme at university in the United States and continues to passionately advocate on behalf of the forcibly displaced through her role as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.
Diandra Marizet
Diandra Marizet Esparza is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit, Intersectional Environmentalist, and contributing writer to The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet. Diandra has shared her work speaking at Google, Tazo, Clorox, Method, MSU, Berkley, SXSW and more to help learners explore meaningful shifts towards cultural empowerment and inclusive sustainability. Diandra has also been honoured as a 2021 Renaissance Awards Awardee and is based in Houston, TX.
Aditi Mayer
Aditi Mayer is a visual storyteller, sustainability activist, and frequent speaker on topics of social and environmental justice. Her work explores the intersections of style, sustainability, and social justice. Seeing the fashion industry’s disproportionate on people of color globally, Aditi seeks to understand the historical and sociopolitical underpinnings that allow the fashion industry to function in a colonial manner, rooted in exploitation and extraction of both labor and the natural environment. Since then, she has become a voice in the larger sustainability movement, approaching her work from multiple domains: from grassroots organizing in Downtown LA’s garment district to educating folks on the importance of diverse perspectives. In 2020, she was named a Fulbright x National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow and spent 2022 in India documenting the intersections of agriculture and artisan culture in relation to fashion. Her work has been celebrated in the likes of Vogue, National Geographic, The UN, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, and more.
Leah Thomas
Leah Thomas is a celebrated environmentalist, founder of the non-profit, Intersectional Environmentalist, and author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet. She has been recognized for her work in outlets like Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, CNN, ABC News, and NBC, among others, and has been honored on lists including EBONY Power 100, TIME100 Next, and INSIDER’s Climate Action 30. She is based in Los Angeles, CA.
Maya Penn
Maya Penn is a 23 year old award-winning environmental activist, eco-designer, founder, artist, animator, 3 time TED speaker, and author. She started her own global sustainable fashion brand called Maya’s Ideas in 2008 when she was 8 years old. She has been working in sustainability and climate justice for 15 years. She has received a commendation from President Barack Obama for outstanding achievement in environmental stewardship and being an animator and filmmaker, Maya MADE HISTORY at 16 years old during the Obama administration when she was commissioned to create an animated film for the opening of the first ever digital report presented to congress, which was to get an American museum of Women’s History built in Washington. Maya was awarded the Coretta Scott King A.N.G.E.L. Award, as well as honored the SCLC Drum Major for Justice Award. She’s part of Alexis Ohanian’s 776 Foundation Youth Climate Fellowship. Maya graced the January 2023 Cover of Vogue wearing her own eco-fashion designs alongside Billie Eilish and amazing fellow activists. Through her own production company Upenndo! Productions, Maya is directing an original environmental animated short film titled ASALI: Power of The Pollinators, Executive produced by EGOT Viola Davis and JuVee Productions. Maya has taught biomimicry class for Swarovski’s Creatives For Our Future Program. Through her own nonprofit Maya's Ideas 4 The Planet she has launched humanitarian and sustainability initiatives in the US, Haiti, Senegal, Somalia, and Cameroon. Maya is certified by University of Cambridge Business School in Circular Economies and Sustainable Business.
Tori Tsui
Tori Tsui (she/they) is an intersectional climate activist and mental health advocate from Hong Kong but based in the UK. She is due to publish her first book ‘It’s Not Just You’ with Simon and Schuster in July 2023. In her book, Tori reframes eco-anxiety as the urgent mental health crisis it clearly is. She was named one of Stella McCartney’s agents of change her Fall/Winter 2019 campaign written by author and activist Jonathan Safran Foer and narrated by primatologist Dame Jane Goodall. Stella subsequently sponsored Tori to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to the UN climate conference, COP25. After working on this project, she lived in Colombia working with Latin American and Caribbean youth on a project called Sail For Climate Action, which aimed to amplify the voices of environmentalists from the global south. She has spoken at the International Hay Festival and Stella McCartney’s roundtable at Paris Fashion week, COP26, Glasgow 2021. In Nov 2021, Tori was invited by actor Emma Watson to speak at The New York Times Climate Hub, alongside youth climate leaders such as Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai (Malala Fund) to discuss the need for collective, coalition-led leadership to accomplish intersectional thinking that the climate challenge requires. In January 2023, she was featured on Vogue’s digital cover with Billie Eilish to spotlight youth activists. She runs a collective called Bad Activist which aims to shed the guise of perfection in climate activism.
Dominique Palmer
Dominique Palmer (she/her) is a trailblazing climate justice activist, an accomplished storyteller, writer, and a captivating speaker based in the UK. She is a coordinator in Climate Live, a youth led organisation to unite young people through music, and an Arctic Angel ambassador for Global Choices. She engages and empowers people to create a better future. Her journey towards becoming a youth activist started when she discovered how air pollution was impacting her community, and then was part in mobilising 100,000 people for the climate strikes in 2019. Her work earned her a spot in the Forbes 2020 Top U.K Environmentalists List and various features. Her remarkable leadership and activism have been felt across the world, as she has graced world stages and spoken about climate justice and protecting our earth at iconic events such as the UN Climate Conferences, NY Times Hub ho sted by Emma Watson alongside Malala and Greta Thunberg, the UN Women CWS66 Youth Forum, at the O2 with Billie Eilish, CultureCop in Egypt alongside Mary Robinson, at COP25 with the Indigenous Pavillion, and TEDxCountdown with Climate Reality. She harnesses the creative power of the arts to communicate climate issues, and create a cultural shift for the wellbeing of our planet. She was awarded with fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts. Dominique's passion for sustainable lifestyle and fashion is matched only by her commitment to her cause, she has walked Kornit Fashion Week with Anyango Mpinga, featured in the Sunday Times Style for Mother of Pearl, and worked with brands such as Pangaia and Kurt Geiger. She believes that fashion does not have to harm our She harnesses the creative power of the arts to communicate climate issues, and create a cultural shift for the wellbeing of our planet. She was awarded with fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts. Dominique's passion for sustainable lifestyle and fashion is matched only by her commitment to her cause, she has walked Kornit Fashion Week with Anyango Mpinga, featured in the Sunday Times Style for Mother of Pearl, and worked with brands such as Pangaia and Kurt Geiger. She believes that fashion does not have to harm our
Vanessa Nakate
Vanessa Nakate, 26, is a Ugandan climate justice activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, she was Uganda's first youth climate striker, and went on to found the Rise Up Movement - a movement of young people protesting for climate action across Africa. In 2020, Vanessa received global attention after being cropped out of a press photo, taken with other white climate activists, at the World Economic Forum. She now campaigns internationally to highlight the impacts of climate change already playing out on the continent. Vanessa is the author of ‘A Bigger Picture’.