Meet Rising Regenerative Leader Anahita Verahrami
This spring, Planet Women launched the first cohort of the Regenerative Leadership Project, an intimate, one-of-a-kind leadership course for environmental practitioners. To make this transformative experience accessible to more people, we also launched the Regenerative Leadership Rising Scholarship, which provides full funding to participate in the course.
This scholarship is for people who have been historically under-represented in the environmental movement – especially those who identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+. The first recipient of the Regenerative Leadership Rising Scholarship is an inspiring human named Anahita Verahrami. We can’t wait to introduce you to her and share her reflections on the Regenerative Leadership Project!
A bit about Anahita: She is a conservationist, photographer, and storyteller (we highly recommend visiting Anahita’s website to see her outstanding work). She is a graduate research assistant in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University and completing her ecology master’s degree in Dr. Sara Bombaci's Diversity and Inclusion in Conservation Ecology Lab.
Anahita setting up an acoustic recording unit to deploy in the Republic of Congo to collect data for her master’s thesis. © Phael Malonga.
About her work within the environmental sector, Anahita says: “My research interests lie at the intersection of bioacoustics, conservation, tropical biology, monitoring anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, capacity building, and equitable community engagement. I have a special interest in the application of acoustic monitoring to studying and conserving populations of forest elephants in Central Africa and in completing this work through partnership with local communities using an equitable and decolonized approach.”
Before joining Regenerative Leadership, Anahita had significant experience promoting justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within academia and conservation and was interested in going deeper on these topics in a safe and comfortable space. Additionally, she wanted to continue learning about anti-oppressive ways of engaging in community partnerships.
Here’s what Anahita said about participating in the Regenerative Leadership Project:
Planet Women’s Regenerative Leadership Project was truly one of the most powerful and activating experiences I have had. The project’s first cohort includes twelve phenomenal women, environmental protectors, and strong leaders who began this journey with me to understand what Regenerative Leadership is and how we may apply it to our future actions, both professionally and personally. Throughout the program, we made space for reflection on our roots, identities, privileges, and sense of belonging and how they interact with the norms, constructs, and systems that exist within our world. We discussed historical and current systems of power and oppression such as capitalism and colonialism and how tools such as racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and more are used to propagate the marginalization of people with diverse identities. By having this opportunity to deepen our understanding of the power and influence these systems have on our individual, family, community, and professional lives, we learned how to identify oppression in these spaces we are a part of and began the critical task of catalyzing the transformation of these systems. The foundation to these transformations is grounded in the Regenerative Leadership skill set we gained in building resilience, cultivating trust and safety, integrating reciprocity, and incorporating our own medicine into both our personal and professional lives.While I know that throughout my journey, I will continue to further develop my skills in these realms, the Regenerative Leadership space that was created by Planet Women, and by our extraordinary facilitator Liza Keānuenueokalani Williams especially, was a phenomenal example of what qualities a regenerative space should hold. This communal and safe space nurtured great personal growth, resilience, community, healing, and compassion in all of us. I have no doubt that this Regenerative Leadership space and experience has laid the foundation for all leaders to build new powerful systems in our lives that can create lasting positive change for both our culture and the environment. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity afforded to me by Planet Women to participate in Regenerative Leadership and am so excited to apply all that I have learned as I continue my work in environmental conservation in a way that supports and fosters social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Want to join Regenerative Leadership? We are accepting registrations for the Fall 2022 cohorts until October 11, 2022. You can register here.