To Be Seen, but Not Known
Not Many Know Me Not many know me For they only know my exterior Amidst people who are unaware of reality I remain the unseeing eye. Who desires me? Those who do, only want my body Not my heart I seek a toe-hold Not felicity. Why are they so blind? If I can quench the […]
Confluence of Life: When Personal History Meets Environmental Action
Two Origins, One Current I come from two origin stories that meet within me as if they had always been destined to cross paths: a rural maternal family and an exiled father. My mother, now 67, is a woman who made herself with the tools life gave her. She did not complete even the second […]
Giving Water a New Language: Community Science & Care in Claypole, Argentina
Our history in Claypole (Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina) is repeatedly marked by the same image: the San Francisco stream overflowing after heavy rain, advancing through the streets, entering homes, and reminding residents that water-related and sanitary risk is part of everyday life. For years, the community lived with these overflows, until in 2018 we […]
Gifts From Mozambique to The Gambia: Reflections on ORA Africa’s First In-Person Retreat
This October, the 3rd cohort of ORA Africa Fellows gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe for our first in-person retreat. Held under the theme “Imagining a New World Beyond the Polycrisis,” the gathering invited us to explore both personal and community resilience, share the projects we are nurturing across the continent, and support one another in the […]
Could Rest Re-Shape How We Meet the Climate Crisis?
When Jennifer Uchendu first began climate organizing in Lagos more than a decade ago, her energy was directed outward on action. She founded SustyVibes, a youth-led nonprofit that has since trained and mobilized many young people across Africa to take measures toward a more sustainable future. But in recent years, her attention has turned to […]
Introducing the Feminist Political Ecology School in Uruguay
In July, 21 women from different territories along the río de los pájaros pintados—the Guaraní name for what is now Uruguay—gathered for the first Feminist Political Ecology School in this corner of Abya Yala. This school was born from the need to name the violence that shows up in our bodies-territories, and the everyday strategies […]
The Canopy Collective: Weaving Science, Art, and Indigenous Knowledge For Conservation
What is the language of love that mahouts use to communicate with their elephants? How deep is the ecological wisdom of forest women, preserved through oral traditions and folklore? These questions drive the work of ORA India Fellow Dr. Nandini Velho—a scientist, field biologist, and conservationist whose research lives at the intersection of the biophysical, […]
Articulating Crisis, Creating Alternatives: Lessons from Global Weavers
In a time of overlapping crises—from ecological collapse to inequality and conflict—it’s easy to feel that the fabric of life is unraveling. But for ORA Research Grant recipients Shrishtee Bajpai and Vasna Ramasar, members of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), these ruptures also reveal pathways to weave something new. Their report, Articulating Crisis and […]
Rooting in Collective Memory: An Afternoon with Las Gurisas
We arrived around noon at Unidad Cooperaria No. 1, in the town of Cololó, department of Soriano, about 300 kilometers west of the capital. As soon as we got out of the van, we were met with a suspicious heat that foretold a storm—and a swarm of teenagers. Las Gurisas—Lucía, Mariana, Lucía, and Laura—were fully […]
Listening to the River: How Indigenous Peoples Weave Story and Science to Chart a New Course
In these times of polycrisis—where ecological collapse, systemic inequality, and a loss of communal meaning intertwine in a spiral of destruction and disharmony—the dominant economic model continues to operate like a devouring machine. In the face of such voracity, we must urgently turn our gaze toward those who have maintained, for centuries, a reciprocal relationship […]