119: Self-Love as Environmental Education; Natural Hair and Beauty; Inclusivity in Cosmetics | Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru

ECO CHIC

We’re continuing our conversation from Tuesday with Wawa! Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru ia a brilliant environmental justice scholar passionate about empowering BIPOC communities. This portion of our conversation centers around the idea of Self-Love as Environmental Education. Wawa shares her experience as a Black woman, growing to know and love her natural hair, and we discuss how natural hair education has evolved in recent years through means like YouTube. We talk about inclusivity in cosmetics, through means like shade ranges and simply ‘cleaner’ products. We discuss environmental racism and community-level environmental hazards that the sustainability movement is advocating justice for. We end on a very positive note: we’re all beautiful. Take care of yourself, take care of your temple, take care of the planet.
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Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is a recent alumnus of the University of Connecticut, and a Rhodes scholar set to attend Oxford in the Fall to continue her intersectional environmental studies. She has had two recently published pieces shake the Internet: her piece in Vice titled “It’s Time for Environmental Studies to Own Up to Erasing Black People,” and in Glamour, “Want to be an Environmentalist? Start with Antiracism.”

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