Wawa Gatheru - Closing the Climate Work Gap Through Black Girl Environmentalist | The Daily Show

October 14, 2025

Young Leaders Award recipient and Founder/Executive Director of Black Girl Environmentalist, Wawa Gatheru, sits down with Josh Johnson to discuss her organization’s mission to build a pipeline in the climate sector for Black women and gender expansive people to create more environmental equity and provide resources for the next generation of green leaders. She shares how she stays optimistic in the face of the climate crisis by reframing the narrative as an opportunity to inherit the wisdom of past movements and restructure our world into something better, and emphasizes the importance of telling inspiring stories of climate work to make it more exciting and accessible for everyone.

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Stories

A series of entries from our Walking Softer community that inform, inspire and support change on our planet.

10 Social Impact Solutions Spotlighted at Global Citizen NOW

Global Citizen is driving urgent action to tackle the world’s greatest challenges and end extreme poverty within our lifetime. During this inspiring event, Pooja learned about numerous social impact solutions, which were once ideas but have since turned into urgent action.

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10 Steps to Create a Sustainable Wardrobe

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2024 Impact Report: See What We Achieved Together

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5 Changemakers from LA Climate Week You Should Know

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5 Things I Learned During the SF and DC Climate Weeks - Pooja Tilvawala

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AY Young - 2030 Official Music Video

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America's Stupidest Parking Secret

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COY19 and COP29: Insights from Pooja Tilvawala

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ChangeNOW with Pooja Tilvawala

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Changemaker Spotlight - Mackenzie Feldman

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Changemaker Spotlight - Sea Change

Rowing Around Great Britain Collecting Data and Stories for Nature and Climate.

Checking In WIth Von Wong

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Checking In With Lauren Castelino

Young Leaders Award Recipient Lauren Castelino is the founder of the Green Career Centre, where she prepares underrepresented youth for green careers. Over more than six years, Lauren has reached thousands of youth through developing environmental programs and sharing career development resources.

Checking In With AY Young

Young Leaders Award Recipient AY Young is a producer, singer, songwriter, entertainer, and entrepreneur. He first began writing poetry at 14, a reaction to the great disparity in Kansas City known as “the Troost divide”. While touring the USA, AY learned that over 1 billion people lack access to electricity. So AY began powering concerts using renewable energy, raising awareness about sustainability, and fundraising to bring people electricity.

Checking In With Abhay Singh Sachal

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Checking In With Allison Begalman

Young Leaders Award recipient Allison Begalman is the CEO of YEA! Impact, the co-founder of Young Entertainment Activists (YEA!), as well as the co-founder and EP of the annual Hollywood Climate Summit.

Checking In With Amanda Sun

Young Leaders Award recipient Amanda Sun studies computer science and environmental studies at Dartmouth College. She is the founder and executive director of Green2Go, advisor of Environmental Students of Dartmouth, and a Youth Leadership Councilor on EarthEcho International.

Checking In With Apurva Iyengar

Apurva Iyengar is a 20 year old environmental activist and changemaker based in Boston. She is focused on creating a more cohesive and effective youth climate strategy and broadening access to this movement for young people around the world through her non-profit Youth.ify.

Checking In With Brayan Cruz

Young Leaders Award recipient Brayan Cruz (He/They) is located on the traditional lands of the Acjachemen people in Santa Ana, OC. As a migrant person, their work is driven by the preservation of culture through seeds and food.

Checking In With Dyson Chee

Young Leaders Award recipient Dyson Chee is a youth activist living on the Hawaiian Island of Oʻahu. In 2018, Dyson founded Project O.C.E.A.N. Hawaii to take on single-use plastics, and since 2019 he has been serving as a director for the Hawaiʻi Youth Climate Coalition.

Checking In With Jack Hanson

Young Leaders Award recipient Jack Hanson is the co-founder and executive director of Run On Climate. He started Run On Climate in 2021 to support local-level leaders and climate activists working to advance climate action in their own communities.

Checking In With Jade Algarin

Young Leaders Award recipient Jade Algarín is a community organizer and agriculturalist from Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Checking In With Jasmin Graham

Jasmin’s work encompasses the areas of science communication, social justice, outreach, education, and conservation. She cares deeply about protecting endangered and vulnerable marine species, particularly elasmobranchs.

Checking In With Kennan Adams

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Checking In With Mackenzie Feldman

Young Leaders Award recipient Mackenzie Feldman is an environmental activist from Honolulu, Hawai'i. She is the Founder and Director of Re:wild Your Campus, an organization that works with students and groundskeepers around the country to advocate for an end to the spraying of synthetic herbicides at schools and a transition to organic land management.

Checking In With Miswar Syed

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Checking In With Pooja Tilvawala

Young Leaders Award recipient Pooja Tilvawala is a climate justice community connector who was born in India, but grew up in the US. She has degrees in Economics and International Studies and first worked at the Meridian Institute to advance ocean policy in Mexico and federal climate policy in the US, form alliances to act on plastic pollution, and more.

Checking In With Rollie Williams

YLA recipient Rollie Williams is a Brooklyn-based comedian, video editor, and guy with both student debt and a Climate Science & Policy degree from Columbia University. He is the creator and host of the digital comedy series Climate Town which has been described as a low-budget Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Over the past two years, the channel has amassed 421,000 subscribers, over 10 million video views, and has won a handful of digital video awards.

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Checking In With Serena Mendizibal

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Checking In With Suzanne Pierre, Ph.D.

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Checking In With Tez Steinberg

Young Leaders Award recipient Tez Steinberg is an ocean explorer, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker on mindset, resilience, and personal growth. As Chief Engine Officer of the United World Challenge. Tez has been named “One of the 50 Best Young Minds in the World” by the World Economic Forum, has founded four nonprofits, and is passionate about harnessing the power of business for positive change.

Checking In With Turner Wyatt

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Cycling for Change

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Dairy Is Milking America Dry

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Fast Fashion Is Ruining Merch

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How Social Events Are Reimagining Food Sustainability

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Planting Change: How GreenAllies is Rewilding Their Community

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Powering Climate Justice & Clean Energy Futures - Serena Mendizábal

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Powering the Future with Clean Energy Innovation - Miswar Syed

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Reflections from Lake Tahoe: Launching the Young Leaders Award Cohort 3

The beginning of our Cohort 3 journey in Lake Tahoe felt nothing short of extraordinary. It was a week filled with growth, connection, and inspiration that left me deeply grateful and excited for what lies ahead.

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Restoring Land, Nourishing Community - Keenan Adams

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Seeds, Sovereignty & Stewardship - Brayan Cruz

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Stop The Perpetual Plastic Machine

Young Leaders Award recipient Von Wong constructed a colossal 15-foot tall art installation laying out the toxic union of fossil fuels and plastic production.

Styling with Beth Jones

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Surf and Sustainability: The Startups Highlighted at Progression 2025

Six early-stage startups shared how they are approaching conservation and addressing the threats to our oceans today. From seaweed solutions to ecosystem restoring robots–each presentation was as innovative and inspiring as the next.

Thank You To Our Inaugural YLA Cohort

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The Dark Side Of Free Returns

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The Net Zero Conference & The Changemakers Working Toward A More Sustainable Future

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The Thinker’s Burden

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Think Of The Mother

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Tracking Plastic, Creating Change - Win Cowger

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Turning Climate Goals Into Community Wins - Jack Hanson

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Von Wong's Skull Of Satoshi

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Walk With Us

With eight billion people on the planet deserving a quality life, we must reinvent how we live - our endless cycle of hyper-consumption with a use, trash, repeat mentality must be challenged.

Walking With - Carlos Curbelo

A podcast to amplify the voices of passionate leaders who are reimagining our connection with Earth.

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A podcast to amplify the voices of passionate leaders who are reimagining our connection with the Earth.

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Walking With - Rollie Williams

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Walking With - Tighe Brown

A podcast to amplify the voices of passionate leaders who are reimagining our connection with the Earth.

Wawa Gatheru - Closing the Climate Work Gap Through Black Girl Environmentalist | The Daily Show

We Are Reimagining Our World

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We're Deep Frying The Rainforest

Young Leaders Award winner Rollie Williams digs into the truth behind the products we use and exposes the destructive tactics big corporations use to make them.

Where There’s a Why, There’s a Way: Uplifting Youth to Show Up In The Climate Movement

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Young Leaders Award Inaugural Cohort Retreat

The Young Leaders Award is a year-long program that supports passionate, young leaders who are vital agents of change and innovators of solutions for our planet.

Young Leaders Award Recipients

On behalf of the entire Walking Softer team and the nominating organizations, we would like to congratulate the Young Leaders Award recipients.

Young Leaders Award Recipients, Cohort 2

On behalf of the entire Walking Softer team and the nominating organizations, we would like to congratulate our second cohort's Young Leaders Award recipients.

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