Youth On Climate - #YouthOnClimate
Spokesperson List
To schedule an interview, contact:
Susan Tonassi, +49 160 9327 9327, stonassi@burness.com
Katy Neusteter, +1-303-880-0634, katy@greengrants.org
Ekai Nabenyo, Lorengelup Community Development Initiative – Kenya
Ekai Nabenyo, age 24, is the founder and chair of Lorengelup Community Development Initiative in
Turkana County, Kenya. This is the largest county in the country and its poorest. Ekai’s village of
Lorengelup is mostly pastoral, and more than 95 percent of people are illiterate. Due to climate changerelated droughts, water scarcity is putting extreme pressure on the local pastoral culture. It is becoming
increasingly difficult to provide water and food for livestock, and the quality of the local water has
diminished considerably. To make matters worse, oil and gas companies have pushed into the area and
grab land without the consent of local people.
Faced with the challenge of giving back to his community, in 2012, Ekai mobilized student-elites in his
village who were pursuing degrees from various universities and together, they formed Lorengelup
Community Development Initiative. The organization focuses on three thematic areas: youth
empowerment, community development and environmental conservation, with a special emphasis on
youth and disadvantaged women. The organization hosts community youth summits to raise awareness
of climate change and to help local people understand their rights to free, prior, and informed consent
when oil and gas developers want to displace people from their lands.
In 2014, Ekai was named a Spark Change Maker by Australia-based Spark International thanks to the
environmental conservation and community empowerment work Lorengelup has undertaken.
Lorengelup Community Development Initiative is the recipient of two grants from Global Greengrants
Fund to support environmental conservation efforts in Turkana County. In April 2015, Ekai graduated
from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor of Law degree.
Keidy Transfiguracion, People’s Center for Cordillera Culture – Philippines
Keidy Magtoto Transfiguracion is an indigenous youth leader from the Bugkalot tribe of Central Luzon,
Philippines. She lives in Baguio City, where she has been a fulltime organizer with Dap-ayan ti Kultura iti
Kordilyera (People’s Center for Cordillera Culture) since 2007.
Focusing specifically on youth and student empowerment, Keidy works with various indigenous
grassroots communities in the Asia Pacific region. She facilitates cultural workshops, leadership training,
and participatory video training on indigenous peoples, climate change, and youth activism. She has also
produced various videos on climate change and education in the Philippines and across Asia-Pacific
region as part of her work with the Regional Secretariat of the Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network
(APIYN).
An active member of Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network (APIYN) in the Philippines, Keidy is
responsible for youth education and community outreach, and has coordinated several international
gatherings and activist training workshops on climate change. Keidy attended UN COP15 in Denmark,
where she presented her community’s films about climate change and the environmental impacts of
mining, which were shown to the public and screened at the National Museum of Denmark. Alongside
other indigenous women, Keidy led the million-strong march in Copenhagen to protest for tougher
commitments on carbon emission cuts.
Luis Canelos, Youth Coalition For Our Forests – Ecuador (Spanish speaking)
Luis Fernando Vargas Canelos, 28, is Kichwa person from Canelos Rune, Ecuador. He is a member of the
countrywide youth movement Coalicion Juvenil por los Bosques (Youth Coalition for Our Forests), which
networks together young people from Ecuador’s various regions and indigenous groups to advocate for
the protection of forests and indigenous people’s ancestral lands. A civil engineering student in Quito,
Luis also works in the Centre Sacha Warmi, to address community health issues, forest protection,
indigenous people’s issues, and intercultural health. He works with young people on environmental
education and medicinal plant gardens.
The eighth of nine children, Luis grew up in a traditional pueblo in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In the mid90s, when rural people in Ecuador started mass migrating to urban centers, a highway was built to Luis’s
community. In 2001, he left Canelos to search for better opportunities to pursue his studies and sports.
He started to experience a way of life separate from his family and people, and began to feel a void that
had no explanation. He had lost some of the cultural values of his childhood. With a mentor’s guidance,
he found a path of spirituality with sacred plants of the Amazon. This allowed him to reflect on his life,
origins, identity and culture—and ultimately led to Luis reconnecting with his indigenous identity.
In 2008, Luis won an Ethnic Diversity Program grant to attend the Universidad San Francisco de Quito,
where he studies civil engineering. In 2014, he represented Youth Coalition For Our Forests at the UN
climate talks and Conference of Youth.
Juan Soriano, Next Generation Climate Board, Global Greengrants Fund – Peru
Juan, a Peruvian citizen, is a founding advisor to Global Greengrants Fund’s Next Generation Climate
Board, which supports youth-led initiatives on the front lines of climate change. He is also the Latin
American Regional Coordinator for 350.org. Since 2008, he has been part of the international youthclimate movement and has advocated to empower youth at a number of UN negotiations on sustainable
development and climate change. At College of the Atlantic, Juan majored in Human Ecology—an
interdisciplinary program that studies the relationship between humans and the environment. While
there, he helped develop [Earth in Brackets], a project that provides information and policy analysis
from UN negotiations to a wider audience, and he also served on the steering committee of the youthled NGO SustainUS. Juan is a strong advocate for grassroots work on social and environmental issues.
When he is not helping build a movement to solve the climate crisis, he is playing soccer.
Terry Odendahl, Global Greengrants Fund – United States
Terry Odendahl is the Executive Director and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund, the leading
environmental fund supporting grassroots action on a global scale. Known for her forthright style, Terry
trained as an anthropologist. She is commonly overheard saying, “Local people know best how to
address the environmental issues affecting their own lives.” In fact, she has spent more than 30 years
working to bridge the gap between our natural and human worlds.
Prior to joining Global Greengrants in 2009, Terry helmed the National Network of Grantmakers for over
a decade, and later the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers. She also worked to protect public lands
in the western United States, as a program officer at the Wyss Foundation. She has held faculty
positions at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute; the University of California, San Diego; and
Yale University. Terry’s background in anthropology and philanthropy is complemented by her expertise
in women’s studies. She is the co-author or editor of four books: Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and
Self-Interest Among the Philanthropic Elite; America’s Wealthy and the Future of Foundations; Women
and Power in the Nonprofit Sector; and Career Patterns in Philanthropy, as well as numerous articles on
a variety of topics. Terry is co-founder of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, D.C.,
and the Institute for Collaborative Change in New Mexico.
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