Nandi Walcott is a Washington, DC–based, faith-rooted climate leader whose work engages the nexus of environmental justice, Caribbean diasporic resilience, and interfaith collaboration. She draws on training in strategic design and management at Parsons School of Design alongside a St. John’s College Great Books education, integrating systems-oriented analysis with classical humanistic inquiry. This dual formation informs a leadership praxis that is analytically rigorous and ethically grounded, framing climate action as simultaneously a moral, spiritual, and structural imperative.

Her public service emerged through liturgical dance, offering embodied worship across cultures and denominations internationally. These formative experiences developed fluency within interfaith contexts and cultivated an understanding of spirituality as communal, incarnational, and inseparable from care for creation. Movement, ritual, and ecology therefore remain constitutive of her account of leadership and responsibility. Her commitment to intergenerational formation was further reinforced through international ministry, including an invitation from the Government of Saint Lucia to engage youth on faith, purpose, and social responsibility. This work clarified a central conviction animating her approach: that climate justice, youth formation, and spiritual agency are mutually implicated and should be pursued in concert.

She serves as a representative of the Caribbean and African Faith-Based Leadership Conference, an international convening body that promotes collaboration among faith leaders, policymakers, and business communities across the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States. Nandi’s passion for peacebuilding and years as a mediator allow her to curate high-level dialogues, global workshops, and diplomatic convenings on topics like economic development, social justice, and religious freedom. Her environmental leadership is grounded in community-based engagement across the Caribbean. Fieldwork in St. Kitts and Nevis examining the social and ecological impacts of the sargassum crisis on coastal communities refined her focus on climate adaptation, regional marine policy, and locally governed solutions.

 

She also leads a sustainability initiative that converts invasive lionfish into eco-friendly leather goods, applying circular-economy design principles to marine conservation. The project was nominated for the 2025 Earthshot
Award, recognizing its integration of environmental restoration, economic opportunity, and design strategy.
During the 2024 UN Summit of the Future, she spearheaded the Caribbean Parliament of the Future, a futures-thinking simulation tasked with drafting legislation responsive to climate change and food insecurity, particularly where fisherfolk’s livelihoods are disrupted by climate impacts. She has also partnered with the Anacostia Watershed Society on watershed restoration, ecological monitoring, and public education, thereby linking local stewardship to global climate responsibility. In addition, she serves on the Montgomery County Caribbean American Advisory Group, advocating for Caribbean American communities and amplifying diasporic perspectives in local governance. Guided by Christian ecological theology and narratives of courage amid uncertainty, she approaches climate leadership as a spiritual discipline marked by humility, imagination, and hope. Through this fellowship, she seeks to deepen interfaith climate leadership, advance policy-relevant climate communication, and apply strategic design methodologies to develop durable, community-centered environmental initiatives across the Caribbean and the United States.