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Thanks to Emerald Cities Collaborative for being our fiscal sponsor and temporarily hosting our landing page. Website coming soon!
We invite you to explore the journey with us below.
Our Belief
Ubuntu: an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’,
often translated as “I am Because You/We Are”
We are responding to the call from our ancestors to return balance to our environment. They tell us that all is not well. They are asking for our help to return our environment and our community to a state of harmony and balance. They tell us that it is NOT too late; the time is NOW.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” (African proverb)
Our Values
Nyansapo - Wisdom. A symbol of wise leadership, ingenuity and intelligence. It conveys the idea that ‘a wise person has the capacity to choose the best means to attain a goal’ thereby rejecting false solutions to climate change
Sankofa (alt) - Go back and fetch it. Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The literal translation of the word and the symbol is “it is not taboo to fetch what you forgot that is at risk of being left behind.” It asks us to look back to our ancestral earth-affirming beliefs, values, and practices to learn from it to move forward.
Wawa Aba - Seed of the wawa tree. A symbol of hardiness, perseverance, and strength. It symbolizes the strength needed for transformative change.
*These are all Adinkra symbols from the Akan tribe in Ghana.
Our Vision
We envision a joyful world. One that celebrates our ‘Oneness’ and recognizes our interdependence with each other and mother earth. A world in which investments in relationships and communities are valued above material resources.
Our Mission
Catalyze a Climate movement rooted in Ubuntu values dedicated to the Commons, restorative economies and lifestyles. Through the cultural reweaving of traditional, ancestral, and innovative African and pan-indigenous communal world views, values, and practices.
who we are
We are a U.S. based, global network of African and Pan Indigenous creatives, community leaders and organizations, academics, and all allies working to rebuild our relationships with each other and nature to mitigate and adapt to climate change by advancing eco–centered vs. ego-centered cultures, knowledge, policies, and practices.
We are reclaiming our Afro-descendent and Pan-indigenous practices and knowledge, we believe our greatest act of love and contribution is to steward Mother Earth’s regeneration, heal our communities, re-story our current consumer-based, ego-centered world-view to the story that understands and celebrates interdependence, cooperation and interspecies harmony.
We are a mycelial network of leadership, talent, knowledge and community.
We have been here for a long time.
We are ready
‘THE UBUNTU CLIMATE DECLARATION’
“I am because you/we are”
I/We ___________ support the Ubuntu Climate Initiative to heal both people and the planet by targeting
the cultural underpinnings of our climate crisis and building a movement for the cultural reparation of
destroyed traditional communal belief systems, values, and practices of Black, Brown, Indigenous, rural
communities as an asset to climate mitigation and adaptation for the most vulnerable.
OUR PILLARS
*click on each tab to see mission & updates
Heal the Spirit
(Cultural/Creative Arts)
(Cultural/Creative Arts)
Heal the Land
(Regenerative Land & Economic Policies And Practices)
(Regenerative Land & Economic Policies And Practices)
Heal the Mind
(Knowledge/Education)
(Knowledge/Education)
Heal the Spirit
(Cultural/Creative Arts)
(Cultural/Creative Arts)
We are envisioning the cultural reweaving of traditional, ancestral and innovative Afro and pan-indigenous world views, values, and practices as an integral path to healing people, place and planet.
We invoke past, present and future knowledge that support our capacity to regenerate and re-imagine our partnership with the trees, the soils, the ecosystems, the water bodies and restore our right relationship with all that is animate and the spirits that are our relations.
for we are listening.
We are Cultural Creatives who are speaking, dancing, singing and imagining the world our hearts know is possible. For we are listening to the ancient ones and wisdom keepers. We are sensing into the present and leaning to the future; inviting in new story-tellers, artists, poems, songs, ceremonies and those cultural creatives who already know and envision this beautiful collective ethos. We can and will rewrite the story that calls us forth to a new way of being.
To heal the HeART and the Spirit (cultural arts/rituals/ceremonies, decolonize & raising our relationship to liberation and consciousness)
The first spark was the Ubuntu Arts showcase. We invited the community to let us hear and know “What does Ubuntu mean to you?”.
The fire was lit and the embers, lifted by the airs and wind of our support networks and influencers galvanized into a generative, ignited fire. Spores of the talented mycelia resulted in 147 submissions from across the country. Now, we continue forward: defining what ways Ubuntu can re-story our role as stewards, integrated partners, and family in Pachamama’s wholeness and wellness.
Our team whittled it down to 40 winners to share in the $100,000 prize money. These amazing productions were shown during our live-streamed event on April 22nd, Earth Day. We invite you to explore the winners and finalists on our Ubuntu Youtube page in the categories of Women, Youth, Returning Citizens, General and our respected Elders.
*Note: We are excited to highlight these films and stories over the next two years and invite our talented community of artists and you as well, to co-create and reimagine our thriving, healthy, generative cosmology of interdependence “I am because you are”
We remember and We are excited to envision.
We invoke past, present and future knowledge that support our capacity to regenerate and re-imagine our partnership with the trees, the soils, the ecosystems, the water bodies and restore our right relationship with all that is animate and the spirits that are our relations.
for we are listening.
We are Cultural Creatives who are speaking, dancing, singing and imagining the world our hearts know is possible. For we are listening to the ancient ones and wisdom keepers. We are sensing into the present and leaning to the future; inviting in new story-tellers, artists, poems, songs, ceremonies and those cultural creatives who already know and envision this beautiful collective ethos. We can and will rewrite the story that calls us forth to a new way of being.
To heal the HeART and the Spirit (cultural arts/rituals/ceremonies, decolonize & raising our relationship to liberation and consciousness)
The first spark was the Ubuntu Arts showcase. We invited the community to let us hear and know “What does Ubuntu mean to you?”.
The fire was lit and the embers, lifted by the airs and wind of our support networks and influencers galvanized into a generative, ignited fire. Spores of the talented mycelia resulted in 147 submissions from across the country. Now, we continue forward: defining what ways Ubuntu can re-story our role as stewards, integrated partners, and family in Pachamama’s wholeness and wellness.
Our team whittled it down to 40 winners to share in the $100,000 prize money. These amazing productions were shown during our live-streamed event on April 22nd, Earth Day. We invite you to explore the winners and finalists on our Ubuntu Youtube page in the categories of Women, Youth, Returning Citizens, General and our respected Elders.
*Note: We are excited to highlight these films and stories over the next two years and invite our talented community of artists and you as well, to co-create and reimagine our thriving, healthy, generative cosmology of interdependence “I am because you are”
We remember and We are excited to envision.
Heal the Land
(Regenerative Land & Economic Policies And Practices)
(Regenerative Land & Economic Policies And Practices)
The Ubuntu Economic Program works at the intersection of climate and community. It engages community residents in eco-system restoration of degraded urban and rural lands within low-income, Black and Indigenous communities. It utilizes traditional world views and practices – rituals, taboos, Afro-indigenous ecologies – to inspire greater respect, appreciation, connection to, and stewardship of the land among Afro-descendent communities. The program includes policy, project and skills development. The co-benefits include : 1) leveraging $1.5 billion in federal investments for community-driven land restoration projects, 2) increase nature-based solutions to climate mitigation in communities that need it most; 3) decreased community vulnerability to climate change, 4) 20,000 Opportunity Youth trained in regenerative land skills in 10 years (see Healing the Mind), 5) diversity in the environmental/climate sector, and 6) community and personal healing.
Goal: Increase policies and community initiatives to steward the land and builds alternative economies that reduce consumption based emissions to heal people, place and planet
Objectives:
Our remembering brought us to stories unknown, untold, and forgotten. One such chapter involved the land and our ancestors. Ubuntu Climate initiative sparked the next ember of bringing practices of joy, song, story, gathering, and filming of Juneteenth events across the country. Juneteenth became a federal Holiday in 2021. Juneteenth (though the dates vary in different parts of the country) marks the FINAL date of freeing slaves from Texas on the 19th of June 1865. Its remembrance has been called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, and Freedom Day.
Read our Freemen’s Settlement Resolution and a congressional bill to fund and protect (from enclosure/displacement) the freedom settlements across the country this Juneteenth.
As a part of our Juneteenth: Taste of Freedom Mini-Grant Program, we had 13 finalists receive $5,000 to celebrate, feed, provide community planting, story sharing, and capture the festivities on film to gather this thread of the tapestry “I am because we are: Ubuntu”. Some of these amazing events took place in small local community gardens, while others highlighted another remarkably underheard story of The Freedman Settlements. Ubuntu invites you to explore with us the incredible history of freedom, resilience, land stewardship, community creation, and healing of collective trauma through spirit, love, song, food, and support. Here is a short video with some deeper context on the history. We invite you to deep dive into this incredible history of the collective ingenuity and resilience of our ancestors.
Goal: Increase policies and community initiatives to steward the land and builds alternative economies that reduce consumption based emissions to heal people, place and planet
Objectives:
- Develop and implement local policies related consumption-based emission standards, including:
- Corporate Durability Standards
- Non-GDP measures of well-being
- Land-use allocations dedicated to the Commons sector
- Leverage federal climate investments ( IRA) for regenerative land and projects
- Train and engage Black/Brown youth and young adults (18-35) in culturally relevant natural resource protection and restoration (Afro-Indigenous Ecology), and climate change mitigation and adaption strategies (see also education).
- Policy Development
- Develop culturally relevant workforce and career curricula/pathways;
- Initiate pilot projects in targeted sites/cities;
Our remembering brought us to stories unknown, untold, and forgotten. One such chapter involved the land and our ancestors. Ubuntu Climate initiative sparked the next ember of bringing practices of joy, song, story, gathering, and filming of Juneteenth events across the country. Juneteenth became a federal Holiday in 2021. Juneteenth (though the dates vary in different parts of the country) marks the FINAL date of freeing slaves from Texas on the 19th of June 1865. Its remembrance has been called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, and Freedom Day.
Read our Freemen’s Settlement Resolution and a congressional bill to fund and protect (from enclosure/displacement) the freedom settlements across the country this Juneteenth.
As a part of our Juneteenth: Taste of Freedom Mini-Grant Program, we had 13 finalists receive $5,000 to celebrate, feed, provide community planting, story sharing, and capture the festivities on film to gather this thread of the tapestry “I am because we are: Ubuntu”. Some of these amazing events took place in small local community gardens, while others highlighted another remarkably underheard story of The Freedman Settlements. Ubuntu invites you to explore with us the incredible history of freedom, resilience, land stewardship, community creation, and healing of collective trauma through spirit, love, song, food, and support. Here is a short video with some deeper context on the history. We invite you to deep dive into this incredible history of the collective ingenuity and resilience of our ancestors.
Heal the Mind
(Knowledge/Education)
(Knowledge/Education)
The Ubuntu Cultural Education Circle is a network of like-minded educators/scholars, justice organizations and activists, and Afro-indigenous communities facilitating the build-out of the educational/learning infrastructure for the Ubuntu movement. A cultural transformation of society starts with self-awareness, knowledge and skills as essential capacities for social/climate change. The Highlander School and the Penn Center in South Carolina, for example, were such centers for the last, seemingly, impossible movement – the desegregation of America. It was the learning hub for everyday folks to take individual and collective action in their own communities to change where they spent their money, how they would change policies and laws, and how they would organize and work together.
Learning Objectives:
Inviting our deeper roots of ancient wisdom, practises and honoring by creating programs, policies and needed platforms/infrastructure that will support expanding our understanding and knowledge, while letting go of what is detrimental to our collective wholeness.
On Juneteenth – June 19th, 2024- The Black Scholars Juneteenth Roundtable: Ubuntu Climate, Freedmen’s settlement and Black Psychology was publicly offered. We established our Heal the Mind pillar with a deep honoring of our African cosmology, history and practices. We invite you to take a dive into this ancient and timeless yet profound cosmology and wisdom shared in this conversation.
Read our Freemen’s Settlement Resolution and a congressional bill to fund and protect (from enclosure/displacement) the freedom settlements across the country this Juneteenth.
‘Freedmen’s Settlements remember the past, heal in the present, and imagine the future’– on our campaign and mission. Here’s a peak “From 1865–1920, hundreds of “Freedmen’s Settlements” across the South and beyond were established by people emancipated from enslavement who strived to ensure land and housing security — a place to call home and build community. These communities embody the arc of our history: the scars of slavery, the hopes of Reconstruction, the federal government’s broken promises, the enduring harms of racism, and the solidarity, determination, strength, and resilience that has sustained African-American communities for centuries. The past is alive in the present.” Read more at this Medium article link.
Learning Objectives:
- Ubuntu educational participants will appreciate and reclaim (know) their Afro-indigenous roots to shift their consciousness and their lifeways , including knowledge to:
- Distinguish African-indigenous from Western cosmologies, epistemologies and ontologies;
- Understand climate science basics and the impact of the carbon economy on: a) community health, b) personal health and well-being, C) earth health;
- Experience and appreciate our relationship to and interdependence with the natural world;
- Identify alternative economies; redefine work, wealth, progress and well-being;
- Explore and co-create alternative, well-being and eco-based cooperative economies;
- Pursue Afro-ecology and nature-based skills/competencies/career opportunities
- UBUNTU labs – multi-platform educational network/infrastructure in U.S., African and South/Central American afro-descendent and indigenous communities.
- Multi-purpose Curricula (modularized)
- 1,000 skilled/trained facilitators for labs
- 20,000 Opportunity Youth trained in nature based climate solutions
Inviting our deeper roots of ancient wisdom, practises and honoring by creating programs, policies and needed platforms/infrastructure that will support expanding our understanding and knowledge, while letting go of what is detrimental to our collective wholeness.
On Juneteenth – June 19th, 2024- The Black Scholars Juneteenth Roundtable: Ubuntu Climate, Freedmen’s settlement and Black Psychology was publicly offered. We established our Heal the Mind pillar with a deep honoring of our African cosmology, history and practices. We invite you to take a dive into this ancient and timeless yet profound cosmology and wisdom shared in this conversation.
Read our Freemen’s Settlement Resolution and a congressional bill to fund and protect (from enclosure/displacement) the freedom settlements across the country this Juneteenth.
‘Freedmen’s Settlements remember the past, heal in the present, and imagine the future’– on our campaign and mission. Here’s a peak “From 1865–1920, hundreds of “Freedmen’s Settlements” across the South and beyond were established by people emancipated from enslavement who strived to ensure land and housing security — a place to call home and build community. These communities embody the arc of our history: the scars of slavery, the hopes of Reconstruction, the federal government’s broken promises, the enduring harms of racism, and the solidarity, determination, strength, and resilience that has sustained African-American communities for centuries. The past is alive in the present.” Read more at this Medium article link.
Get Rooted in the Ubuntu Movement
Our Ubuntu Climate cosmology was initiated in 2022, with the gathering of the feminine: 9 women from an abundance of skills, leadership, position, age, culture and experience. We understood that our own work in policy, non-profit leadership, education, healing and community arts was in the relentless battle with the capitalist growth model that continues to eviscerate the land, the waters, the air and all ecosystems. That as we spoke, our hearts longed for and opened to our remembrance of our ancestors, music, stories, song and interdependence within our community. That our voices were larger when in collective resonance. And our longing for re-turm, re-membering, and restory-ation was calling us in.
May we remember – Beauty all around us, Beauty all through us.
May we remember – Beauty all around us, Beauty all through us.
- Stay tuned for so much more (newsletters, invitations, articles).
- Do sign our Declaration!
- We are excited to build partnerships, highlighting Ubuntu programs of learning (uplifting the amazing mycelial network of efforts, programs and organizations in this work!) and more over the next 18-24 months.
- Newsletter forthcoming!
MORE INFORMATION (check all that applies):
OUR advisors
Denise Fairchild, Ph.D
2021 Climate Breakthrough Awardee President Emeritus, Emerald Cities Collaborative
Jacqui Patterson
Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project Legacy Project
Afia Zakiya Ph.D
Water Infrastructure, Environment & Climate Justice; WASH & Public Health Expert
Colette Battle
Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy
Dayna Cunningham
Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
Tara Marchant
Writer, Storyteller, Creative, sound/song alchemist, council holder for healing and meditaion. With fifteen years as a Non-profit Director in the Green Economy, Community Resilience and policy forums.
Hunter Jones
Multidisciplinary Creative & Storyteller Eco-Communicator at Emerald Cities Collaborative
Elfleda Utiaruk
Project Coordinator for the Ubuntu Climate Initiative Project, Visual Artist & Healer
Mary Lee
Consultant, Attorney, and Community Advocate
OUR MYCELIUM (PARTNERS)
Education Circle:
Dr. Joyce King
Founder of Guardians of Heritage youth civic leadership collaborative
Dr. Wade Noble
Professor Emeritus, Black Psychology and Africana Studies, San Francisco State University
Candace Hollingsworth
Director of Programs, Corps Network
Angelica Mayolo
MIT Mel King Fellow and MIT Environmental Solutions consultant,
Former Minister of Culture of Columbia
Rosa Garcia
Executive Director of The Community Learning Partnership
Martin Kalungu
Founder of Presencing Lab and faculty at the Presencing Institute at MIT
Ali Moussa Iye
Founder of Afropectives
Douglas Edwards
Co-Founder of The Revitalize STEAM Greenhouse Program
Dr. Melissa Spreight Vaughn, Ph.D.
Vice President of Public Discourse & Engagement, Africa Center for Strategy & Policy
Dr. Folami Prescott-Adams
Lead Facilitator, CREATE
(Advisors: Afia Zakiya)
Cultural Arts Circle:
Mustafa Ali
Executive Vice President, National Wildlife Federation
Sterling Cunio
Spoken word poet,
Arts for Social Justice Fellow and Oregon Literary Arts Fellow
Pat Prescott
Radio Personality, WBGO
(Advisors: Hunter Jones, Tara Marchant, Elfleda Utiaruk)
Alternative Economies Circle:
Omar Brownson
LA Community Gardens Director and Full Spectrum
Co-host of the Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Sonia Kikeri
National Director Of Policy And Civic Engagement at Emerald Cities Collaborative
Ife Kilimanjaro, Ph.D.
Incoming Executive Director, US Climate Action Network
Maria Stamas
Energy Justice Attorney and Strategist.
Founder and Principal at EnerGaia Consulting LLC
Yorman Nunez
Co-founder of 20 Moves & Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative
Desiree Williams-Rajee
Founder, Kapwa Consulting and PolicyLink Fellow
(Advisors – Mary Lee, Dayna Cunningham, Colette Battle, Jacqui Patterson)
Contact
Reach out to us for more information about the
Ubuntu Climate Initiative
Submit your message below.
202-449-9780
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www.emeraldcities.org