Indigenous Wisdom and Climate Science
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, this year’s Jolli Humanitarian Award recipient, spoke today via Zoom about her mission to bring the wisdom and experiences of indigenous peoples into climate policy.
A member of the Mbororo pastoral community in Chad, a semi-nomadic society of cattle herders, Ibrahim described how extreme temperatures and water scarcity are threatening the Mbororo way of life. She has led a project in Chad that involved 3D mapping and indigenous knowledge to develop strategies for climate adaptation and mitigation. You can watch her talk here.
The Jolli Humanitarian Award assembly is an annual event. Members of the sophomore class nominate candidates for the honor, and Lea and Kai Hostetter-Habib ’22 proposed Ibrahim and introduced her today.
Previous honorees include Dr. Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist, explorer, author, and lecturer; Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project; Frank Mugisha, a Ugandan gay-rights activist; Pernille Ironside, a child advocate for UNICEF who has worked in war zones around the world; Rachel Lloyd, an anti-human trafficking advocate; Geoffrey Canada, the president of the Harlem Children’s Zone; and Leymah Gbowee, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner who launched a movement in Liberia to promote peace and the rights of women.