Climate Sisters is a national movement supporting women from racialised and marginalised communities to lead on climate action. Through the programme, women explore their priorities for climate action, develop creative projects, and build confidence to speak and act in decision-making spaces. It’s about redefining what counts as “expertise”, valuing lived expertise, cultural wisdom and community knowledge.
Now, Climate Sisters is entering its next chapter: a five-year national movement spanning North West England and Scotland, supported by over £1.5 million from The National Lottery Community Fund, the UK’s largest funder of community activity.
This exciting new phase is being led by Wen’s Climate Sisters team, bringing together experienced and passionate leaders committed to ensuring that racialised and marginalised women have a voice in shaping climate action and policy at local, regional, and national levels.
The new regional Climate Sisters team includes: Meray Diner, Climate Sisters Programme Manager, and Titilayo Farukuoye, Climate Sisters Project Coordinator, in Scotland; Anisa Saleh, Climate Sisters Programme Manager in the North West of England.
Meet the new Climate Sisters team and listen to their hopes, motivations and calls for collective action:
Meray Diner – Climate Sisters Programme Manager, Scotland
A former Climate Sister herself, Meray brings over a decade of experience in the arts and cultural sector, with a strong focus on amplifying underrepresented voices in climate and social justice. As a filmmaker, her work explores the relationship between people, land and water, examining conflict, identity and borders through a feminist lens.
Hear from Meray about her vision and hopes for Climate Sisters:
What made you join the Climate Sisters team?
Until now, all my work has involved working with underrepresented groups in various cultural, artistic and environmental projects where individuals explore their own interest in building individual action. It felt like it was always lacking something which I couldn’t put my finger on. But then, I got involved with the Climate Sisters project in 2021 and when this role came up, I knew that I could be part of a team that focuses on building a community through exploring personal knowledge and expertise. Climate Sisters team is about connecting individuals to a community and a movement that can have a real change and impact in the climate justice agenda and influence the systems we want to challenge that might not be possible with other projects and strategies.
What are you most looking forward to as part of the Climate Sisters team?
I am looking forward to meeting the rest of the team across the country properly and in person, get to know each other, create a real bond and learning opportunities, explore our own individual experience and expertise in this area and nurture our own Climate Sisters agenda as a team; and then use this to support each other to enable and empower our Climate Sisters groups and participants.
“Climate activism doesn’t need to be scary, our feminist activism approach is built in friendly, welcoming and caring environments to provide a safe space to build awareness by learning from each other”
What is the potential for Climate Sisters in your area/ region?
There are always local community groups and strong organisations with climate experts that are active in Scotland, but I don’t think there is anything quite like the Climate Sisters here. There is a real potential to bring small groups and experts in Scotland together through this project and put the Climate Sisters in Scotland on a map for feminist voices and movement building. We can do this through creating a stronger network and representation of racialised and marginalised women/genders in Scotland and pushing for change where everyone feels included and can really get on board because they see themselves in it and they can really feel represented.
What do you want people to know about Climate Sisters?
Climate Sisters Scotland is here for marginalised and racialised women/genders to explore their own knowledge and agenda on a personal and then a wider level to connect and create a bond to gradually set up a network that is inclusive for all the voices to be heard on climate agenda. Climate activism doesn’t need to be scary, our feminist activism approach is built in friendly, welcoming and caring environments to provide a safe space to build awareness by learning from each other. Therefore, underrepresented communities in the climate platform are empowered with tools and methods that are nurturing and inspiring for them first, before it grows into a bigger network in the next 5 years.
Titilayo Farukuoye – Climate Sisters Project Coordinator, Scotland
Titilayo is a writer, educator and community facilitator based in Glasgow, Titilayo centres systemically marginalised people, community care and non-hierarchical collaboration in tackling climate injustice. They co-direct the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and lead anti-racism work across Scottish education.
Read Titilayo’s vision for climate justice across Scotland’s communities:
What made you join the Climate Sisters team?
When I really think about it, the Climate Emergency leaves me with a lot of despair and hopelessness. But I know I don’t want to and even more so it doesn’t help us to feel this way. Instead I surround myself with people who also want to tackle the climate crisis in their own way, even if we don’t always know where to start, or how to keep going. I feel extremely honoured to be Glasgow and wider Scotland Central Belt Climate Sisters Coordinator and am privileged to make sure that we can come together and strengthen each other as racialized and gendered communities to champion climate justice in our communities and globally.
What are you most looking forward to as part of the Climate Sisters team?
I think I learn as much as the programme participants every day! The experiences, knowledge and strategies we have in our communities and what happens when we actually create time, and resources (financial and otherwise) to explore them together, is infinite! Climate Sisters & Siblings is a generative space that centres what is possible when we come together and uplift each other!
“Climate Sisters & Siblings is a space that centres what’s possible when we come together and uplift each other.”
What is the potential for Climate Sisters in your area/ region?
Scotland is faced with unique challenges when it comes to climate. We are also one of the most resource rich regions in the British Isles. Considering our diverse communities, Scotland’s colonial history and legacy that shape our lives today and our natural resources and climate conscious initiatives led by communities – possibilities for powerful, community led change are endless.
What do you want people to know about Climate Sisters?
We are always looking to connect and find ways to link our struggles and champion climate solutions together. In that way, please join us, please connect with us, together we are stronger!
Anisa Saleh – Climate Sisters Programme Manager, North West England
Anisa Saleh is a coach, facilitator and consultant working at the intersection of environmental justice, arts, culture and social impact. Rooted in anti-oppressive practice and nature-based leadership, she brings over a decade of experience supporting individuals and organisations to embed equity, care and inclusion into their work.
Read Anisa’s reflections on community-rooted climate leadership:
What made you join the Climate Sisters team?
I was drawn to Climate Sisters because it centres the lived experiences and leadership of women and non-binary people who are so often excluded from mainstream climate spaces. As someone rooted in earth-centred facilitation and community organising, I saw an opportunity to support a programme that weaves climate justice with creativity, cultural wisdom, and collective care. I wanted to be part of a movement that doesn’t just respond to the climate crisis, but reimagines our relationship with land, power, and each other.
What are you most looking forward to as part of the Climate Sisters team?
I’m excited to hold space for deep connection – between people, place, and purpose. Whether that’s co-creating rituals that honour seasonal change, supporting participants to share their climate stories, or walking alongside local leaders as they grow in confidence, I’m most looking forward to witnessing transformation. I’m also energised by the peer learning, the joy, and the creativity and sense of empowerment this programme brings to climate work.
“Manchester is rich with wisdom, activism, and cultural diversity – but there’s a real need for spaces where marginalised voices are not only heard but nurtured”
What is the potential for Climate Sisters in your area/region?
Manchester is rich with wisdom, activism, and cultural diversity – but there’s a real need for spaces where marginalised voices are not only heard but nurtured. The potential for Climate Sisters here is huge: to act as a catalyst for community-rooted leadership, intergenerational knowledge-sharing, and climate solutions that come from care, not extraction. It can bridge grassroots movements with institutional change, and build a future that feels local, loving, and liberatory.
What do you want people to know about Climate Sisters?
Climate Sisters – it’s a relational space. It’s where climate justice meets storytelling, healing, and empowerment. It recognises that leadership doesn’t always look like being on stage or at the front of a room – it can look like tending a garden, holding grief, or speaking up for the first time. Climate Sisters invites people to lead from who they are, where they are, with the Earth as teacher and companion.
Looking ahead
The Climate Sisters programme continues to grow, with hundreds of women across the UK now part of this national movement. By centering the voices, leadership, and lived expertise of racialised and marginalised women, the programme is helping to build a climate movement that is inclusive, equitable, and transformative. Every story, every project, and every connection strengthens a movement for climate justice that truly leaves no one behind.
