Seeds of Renewal: Faith-based and Indigenous Leadership on Climate Justice
Agents & Architects Speakers Series
March 25, 2021 | 7 p.m. | Register
Nikki Cooley will share and discuss the spiritual and intimate relationship Indigenous people have and are still trying to maintain with human and non-human relatives on Mother Earth and Father Sky. In her work, she has visited with many Indigenous communities across the country learning about the unique and disproportionate climate impacts affecting their livelihoods. This includes the impact on cultural, spiritual, and subsistence ways of life. The leadership displayed by Indigenous communities and their spiritual faith have and are still contributing to their resilience. They persevere in the face of climate change and its devastating impacts. Ms. Cooley will talk about her own upbringing on the Diné reservation and how the leadership of her family’s matriarchs and Elders have motivated her to continue her faith.
Dekila Chungyalpa will discuss her work doing faith-based organizing for the environment. Over 85% of the world subscribes to a faith. Collectively, faiths are the 3rd largest category of financial investors. Over half of the schools worldwide are run by faith institutions. And yet, for the most part, they are not recognized as a stakeholder group by most environmental and climate efforts, let alone as a crucially important one. For the last 12 years, Dekila Chungyalpa has been working with a diverse group of faith leaders around the world, helping train and design faith-based environmental and climate responses and advising strategies that encompass everything from Buddhist monasteries building solar-powered kitchens in the Himalayas to the Catholic Church messaging on the importance of saving the Amazon. She will speak on the power and promise of faith-led environmental and climate action and the art of finding common ground not only between different faith traditions but also between religion and science in order to build the resilience of people, communities, and of the planet.
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Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 7:00pm
Virtual Event