Faith in Her: Investing in faith-based women climate leaders

Francesca Reznik, our outgoing Communications and Engagement Manager, had the opportunity last month to participate in Faith For Our Planet’s inaugural Faith in Her: Women of Faith Climate Leaders fellowship at Harvard Divinity School as an instructor. Read about her experience below.

Last month I got to return to my alma mater Harvard Divinity School, this time as an instructor and mentor for other female climate leaders as a part of Faith For Our Planet’s inaugural Faith in Her: Women of Faith Climate Leaders fellowship. It was a full-circle moment I'm still wrapping my head around, and will be thinking about for a long time to come.

Seeing my name on the program next to “clean energy consultant and faith-climate advocate” already felt surreal. Sharing the agenda with my former ecotheology professor, Dan McKanan, was a “pinch me” moment. And to top it all off, being listed as faculty alongside the likes of a living legend like Marshall Ganz was something that just two years ago as a Harvard graduate student I would have never even dreamed of. 

Throughout the week, I taught a session on running climate campaigns that work, and co-led a mentorship circle with Yve Torrie, CC-P (2026 Boston Climate Leader Award winner) and Roseann Bongiovanni (executive director, GreenRoots). I also got to connect the fellowship organizers with director Otilia Portillo Padua through a mutual friend, which led to a screening of the ecotheology documentary Daughters of the Forest and a live Q&A with the producer.

The mentorship circle allowed me to reflect on something that has always been at the core of my own personal climate journey: morality and ethics. I was specifically tasked with using the session as a vehicle for lessons about staying grounded in values under pressure. Last year, I published a piece in Atmos on this very topic, called Climate Change has a Trolley Problem. Unpacking what it means to build and maintain your own moral code in a world that mandates compromise was reaffirming of the choices I make and will continue to make as we tackle the biggest threat the world has ever known. 

Two parts of the closing ceremony are still echoing within me. Dean Theodore Hickman-Maynard's assertion that faith is the conviction that fighting for a future we cannot see is worth it, because life is sacred, encapsulated the feeling that climate work is bigger than all of us. And the words of Fasiha Hassan, who spoke on behalf of all the fellows: we may all come from different faiths and different soils, but we all share one covenant–the earth was given to us in trust, not ownership.

The women in this program have done — and will do — more than I could fit in one post. From Amanda Da Cruz Costa, who has coordinated six youth delegations to UNFCCC COPs, to Siti Hawarina Simbolon Mulia, the founder of Women in the Future, a faith-rooted movement advancing gender equality, economic inclusion, and climate justice in Indonesia, they demonstrate what moral conviction and leadership looks like, even in the most difficult of circumstances. 

I left inspired, grateful, and energized to get back to work. For all the ways life brought me back to this full circle moment, I’m looking forward to the future (unimaginable and unseeable) opportunities to be a faith-climate advocate.

If you’re interested in learning more about the intersection of faith and climate change work, check out this Spotlight on Solutions blog post we put together at innoFaith earlier this year. 

Author: Francesca Reznik