Caribbean Climate Justice
Leaders Academy

Mya is a Mechanical Engineering student from Antigua and Barbuda who is interested in connecting her engineering expertise with sustainable development. Previously gaining exposure to climate change issues and disaster management during her role at the Suriname Red Cross Society, Mya is keen to integrate more climate-related activities in her organization and make tangible sustainable impacts. More specifically, she is looking to address intersectional climate-related challenges and implement gender-inclusive strategies using sustainable technologies in Antigua and Barbuda and the wider Caribbean.

Oriana is a Aquaculture and Marine Resources MSc graduate, policy advisor and marine data scientist working on a syntropic agroforest project in Aruba, where she helps build food forests with balanced ecosystems that can sustain and replenish themselves. Through collaboration with different partners, she has been able to teach syntropic agroforestry principles to the Aruban community, as well as climate adaptation methods that help strengthen food security and carbon sequestration. She wants to help Aruba become resilient to climate change, as well as to develop their economy in order to help communities that have been negatively impacted by poor development. This includes developing a more equitable distribution of finance and technology, inclusion in decision-making and nature/human positive economic development. 

Yemi Knight is a Barbadian Dean’s List scholar and conservationist who works alongside a coalition of LGBTQ+ advocates, campaigning for the inclusion of comprehensive protections for gender identity, sexual orientation, and environmental provisions in the Barbados constitution. Through their NGO, AnchorBridge,  they have also submitted proposals to enhance the standard of services provided by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), some of which have been successfully incorporated.  They are also collaborating with the International Organization for Migration to conduct an inclusion training session as part of their webinar series focused on Migration, Environment, and Climate Change. Yemi has a strong commitment to promoting environmental justice and plans to strengthen their advocacy, exchange ideas, and contribute to positive change through their attendance at COP.

Dejea is a Global Development and Sustainability student from the Cayman Islands. She has previously worked with  Protect Our Future, a youth-led organization in the Cayman Islands, that successfully campaigned against a government cruise berthing facility initiative. She has also worked at the Cayman Islands Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resilience and as a Planeteer Alliance Ambassador. She is passionate about learning about global climate justice issues and how different countries deal with challenges facing their communities, in order to take these lessons back home and meaningfully apply them to the Cayman Islands development plans. 

Muskaan is an International Relations and Earth and Environmental Science graduate who is engaged with two organizations located in Curacao, Amigu di Tera and Kolektivo. Muskaan helps these organizations elevate environment and climate issues on the island through a variety of activities including grassroots organization, annual conference planning and submitting impact grants. She has been working on helping elevate the capacity of these projects through her research expertise, finding grants to continue to fund these projects, and building a global community between Curacao and the United States. Muskaan is eager to learn how to implement climate justice for the Caribbean, and promote climate action on the global stage. With her lessons learnt from COP28,  she hopes to work towards building up climate justice in her home country of Curacao, focusing specifically on the impacts of climate change and health on minority communities.

With a background in international relations and diplomacy, Kimara was the first Dominican to be selected by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) for the 2022 AOSIS Fellowship Programme. This programme provided her with hands-on United Nations level training to build knowledge of climate change, environmental protection, sustainable development and ocean issues. She is trained in interdisciplinary issues, winning the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility scholarship to pursue a Master of Science degree which combined the study of environmental sustainability, policy and governance frameworks for environmental action, with advance training in techniques, mechanisms and policy for sustainable use and management of natural resources in the Caribbean. Kimara was also an Assistant Project Manager Assistant at the Climate Resilience Execution Agency for Dominica (CREAD). She is eager to broaden her scope on the specific areas of unfairness, inequalities, liabilities and compensation and strengthen her analytical thinking as it relates to the moral and legal responsibilities in climate Justice. 

As an environmental specialist, Riddhi works across a portfolio of climate change mitigation and adaptation projects ensuring that environmental and social frameworks are integrated from design, build and implementation. One of her university research projects explored collecting data that indicated climate change in her home country. Working with the St. Maarten Nature Foundation, she compiled her research by conducting PADI certified scuba-diving to gather data on water toxicology, coral reefs, and marine biodiversity. Riddhi built on her scientific studies to apply her talents to real-world issues at the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. for six months. In her free time, Riddhi works as a project coordinator for Environmental Protection in the Caribbean on a data collection project titled, ‘Why Do We Litter, Sint Maarten?’. She has also worked with the St. Maarten Pride Foundation (a local environmental NGO) and was instrumental in passing environmental legislation by voicing concerns from a youth perspective to parliament and Holland’s Royal Family. She believes in the power of cooperation and shared responsibility and is interested in understanding strategic methods of starting a climate justice movement, how to reach marginalized populations and increase engagement.

As a Political Science bachelor and fashion designer, Kerese’s project aims to reuse old materials to create bags or clothing. Kerese has founded a sustainable fashion brand, ClutchED, which is geared towards achieving SDG 9. ClutchED uses scrap pieces of designer fabric from local clothing stores to create bags.  She is also intent on pursuing projects that tackle issues with water scarcity which plague her island of St. Kitts, and is currently researching the possibility of alleviating this scarcity through the construction of a desalination facility powered by renewable energy. Her dedication to sustainability is driven by an awareness of the need to protect the planet for the enjoyment of future generations, and she wishes to highlight the role that sustainable fashion can play in alleviating the harmful effects of the climate crisis.

Luciano Jozef Doest is a trilingual Environmental Sciences BSc graduate currently working as a research assistant at the Center for Agricultural Research on projects related to forests. He provides critical support for indigenous communities who face challenges from the forestry industry, and he possesses a unique, multidisciplinary background as a result of working with the Red Cross. He was the lead researcher for a resilience-building project that delved into disaster management, gender and climate change, and hopes to highlight indigenous voices at COP28.

Raeann is an Environmental Science and Sustainable Technology BSc student who has worked on several sustainability projects, including gathering data to determine if the installation of a photovoltaic (PV) system to power the lightbulbs in households in Trinidad and Tobago would be cheaper than using electricity from the grid of the country’s utility company. She started a blog in 2018 dedicated to raising awareness about the effects of plastic and Styrofoam pollution on our environment. She explores the multiple dimensions of plastic pollution, contextualizing the issues in relation to her home country of Trinidad and Tobago in order to emphasize the importance of starting with your community. She is keen to expand her knowledge and skills related to climate justice and translate these findings into meaningful storytelling in order to fill in gaps in information and drive change to ensure a sustainable future for Trinidad and Tobago, and worldwide.