BY KAREN BOSSICK
One young woman is helping the poorest off-grid populations in Uganda secure clean energy. Another has created B’Brod, an experiential education program equipping young adults 18 to 25 with environmental literary education and skills in digital storytelling.
These are two of the five Wild Gift Fellows who will emerge from the Sawtooth and White Cloud Wilderness areas this week to meet the Wood River Valley community.
The Wild Gift Fellows will be introduced to the community from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, at Ketchum Innovation Center, 180 West Sixth St. in Ketchum. Appetizers and drinks will be served.
The Fellows will talk about their experiences in the wilderness and the projects that they are working on.
The 2018-19 class of Wild Gift Fellows features:
- Sashti Balasundaram, whose WeRadiate’s mission is to help municipalities and communities harness technology to create healthy high quality compost and build stronger closed-loop ecosystems and economies.
- Diamonique Clark, whose B’Broad equips young adults in Baltimore with environmental literary and digital storytelling skills.
- Justin Falcone, whose ShAID is dedicated to building economic opportunity and climate resiliency in developing communities through affordable and adaptive green technology.
- Laura Fieselman, whose Transplanting Traditions Community Farm provides refugees access to land, healthy food and entrepreneurial opportunities as they build community and celebrate their agricultural traditions.
- Aneri Pradhan, whose ENVenture helps rural cooperatives in Uganda launch sustainable clean energy enterprises in the last mile.
Wild Gift was founded as a 12-month fellowship by Ketchum resident Bob Jonas to mentor entrepreneurs bent on creating a better world. The nonprofit has funded 52 fellows over the last 15 years.
One has taught 90,000-plus students about the North American wilderness. Another has distributed 10,000 clean energy cookstoves in Nigeria. One has built 150-plus websites for environmental initiatives reaching thousands of people around the world, And another has created five different moringa-based products, with $300,000 in capital going back into West African women’s co-ops.
The Wild Gift program includes a 20-day expedition in the Idaho wilderness where fellows learn new ways of problem solving, mentorship by Wild Gift alumni and exposure to potential angel investors interested in socially impactful business