Our Team

Destiny Hodges
Destiny Hodges
Founder & Executive Director (Lead Steward)

Destiny Hodges (they/she) is a Black queer organizer, multimedia director/producer, and senior interdisciplinary communications major at Howard University from Birmingham, Alabama. As a student organizer, they organized Climate Strike HU in September 2019, a platform to unite students on Howard’s campus to engage in climate activism. Destiny then spearheaded the formation of a key stakeholders coalition (students, faculty, and alumni) before going on to found Generation Green alongside fellow HBCU students and alumni. As a student of Black liberation movements with a love for narrative organizing, Destiny’s storytelling methods are rooted in their lived cultural experience and connections to the more-than-human world. Their work is rooted in the belief that climate justice and environmental justice are key components of Black liberation, along with building community and solidarity across the Global Black/African Diaspora to build collective power needed for systems change.

They are the owner and Lead Director/Producer at Efunyale Productions, and they are exploring the role of African/African diasporic traditional religions in movements as a practitioner in the Ìṣẹ̀ṣe Lágbà (Yoruba) tradition as a priest of Ifá (Ìyánífá) and several Òrìṣà (Olòrìṣà). As a singer songwriter, their stage name, Emere, means the child who roams between the spiritual and physical world at will. The music they write does the same, as they create R&B that blends in elements from their practice in the Ìṣẹ̀ṣe tradition and contemporary alternative influence. They are also a producer for the award-winning climate and culture focused podcast The Coolest Show presented by Hip Hop Caucus. Destiny supports the growth and care of the climate and environmental justice movement as an advisor on the boards of Climate Critical, People's Justice Council, and Young Black Climate Leaders.

Jaylin Ward
Jaylin Ward
Storytelling & Communications Consultant

Jaylin “Ifalade” Ward is an Osun priest, digital storyteller, producer, and singer. Sitting at the feet of their grandmothers, they developed a knack for storytelling and writing. In her mother’s and aunt’s quest to make her hang out with kids her own age, Ward became a Girl Scout. In a working class neighborhood like Co-op City, selling cookies was an afterthought. By the age of 9, Jaylin was organizing against food apartheid and practicing environmental stewardship in a troop of Caribbean and Latina girls.From 2018 to 2021, Ward completed a bachelors in interdisciplinary journalism at Howard University, became an urban grower at the Halo G.R.E.E.N. Garden, and co-founded the mĀK Collective. Working at the intersections of multimedia writing, art and agriculture connected her to comrades oriented to Pan-African reparations, Environmental and Climate Justice, and liberatory arts practices. Before her degree arrived in the mail, Jaylin was already working in the nonprofit sector of social justice movements to strengthen collective power amongst students, artists, farmers, and workers. These experiences created fertile ground to co-found Generation Green (the home of the environmental liberation manifesto) and report on Afro-Antillean Panamanian experiences under U.S. imperialism with the Pulitzer Center.

Currently, Ward works at the New Economy Coalition providing collective governance tools, narrative strategy, and participatory grantmaking support to a solidarity economy network of worker-self directed organizations, cooperatives, intentional communities, and university centers. She also sings and produces R&B fusion music published under the moniker LAD3, a play on “Ifalade” a name bestowed upon her through a Yoruba traditional rite of passage.

Mitchelle Mhaka
Mitchelle Mhaka
Community Learning Coordinator

Mitchelle Mhaka is a socio-environmental justice activist, born in Zimbabwe and currently based in South Africa. She works in youth-led organizing at the forefront of the fight for climate, ecological, and social justice across the African continent.

Mhaka's activism is deeply rooted in her commitment to social and environmental justice. She tirelessly works to raise awareness about the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities in Africa. Her advocacy extends to challenging the dominance of the fossil fuel industry in Africa and  investigating alternative sustainable energy solutions as a pathway to a sustainable and equitable future.

Her life’s work is around social and climate justice, demanding a world where the rights of all people, especially those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, are protected and upheld. Mhaka’s work has been recognized by various organizations, and she has been featured in several media outlets for her contributions to the climate justice movement.

For years, her work has mainly addressed the climate literacy issues that exist in [South] Africa and changing the narrative around ideas of sustainability, decolonization and environmentalism. She deeply believes that people, especially those in purposefully ignored (underprivileged) communities, should have the same access to information about environmental justice. Mhaka firmly supports arming the youth with knowledge and tools to decolonize spaces as this is critical to strong and impactful movements. She is the Community Learning Coordinator for Generation Green, which organizes the Black/African diaspora to fight for environmental liberation.

Natalie Mebane
Natalie Mebane
Director of Campaigns & Advocacy

Natalie is a sustainability and policy expert with extensive grassroots organizing, fundraising and campaign experience. She has been named as one of The Hill's Top Lobbyists in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Natalie has served on the board of directors of the Power Shift Network, Young Voices for the Planet, and Care About Climate and currently serves on the boards of the Partnership Project and the Student Conservation Association. She has a Master of Science in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona Sweden and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of Maryland College Park. Natalie has worked at some of the largest and most influential environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club as the National Dirty Fuels Lobbyist, as the Policy Director at 350.org, as the Senior Director of Climate Solutions at the Wilderness Society and as the Climate Campaign Director at Greenpeace USA. She has served as the Vice President of Government Affairs for Rise to Thrive, an organization with a mission to empower and support women and femme leaders of color in the climate, environmental, and conservation movement. Today Natalie is the Chief Program Officer for the international youth climate organization Zero Hour and works with youth around the world, to build a powerful and inclusive movement of activists, fighting for a just and sustainable future. She is the Director of Campaigns and Advocacy for Generation Green, which organizes the Black/African diaspora to fight for environmental liberation. She works to build an environmental movement that truly fights for the people most harmed by fossil fuels and impacted by climate change.

Nayo Shell
Nayo Shell
Healing & Wellness Strategist

Nayo Shell is a gifted writer, environmental scientist, urban planner, and the visionary founder of EcoWell Co. LLC. She is on a mission to further bridge the connection between our minds, bodies, spirits, and the Earth to spark mindful, radical (r)evolutionary change. As a Maryland-native eco-wellness teacher, Nayo works to help people (re)connect with the Earth through wellness practices and eco-education, (re)awakening a reverent, ancient, and interconnected union. Nayo stands on the belief that it is possible to create a reality where we all live joyously and harmoniously with ourselves, each other, and the natural world starting right now.

Rachel Stevens
Rachel Stevens
Director of Solidarity & Community Engagement

Rachel Stevens (they/she) is a Black, mixed-race, queer femme, southern tree hugger, herbalist, yoga teacher, dancer, writer, facilitator, educator and agitator from central Florida.  She's deeply cared and fought for justice for humans, non-human beings and land since childhood and spent the last decade in the environmental and climate justice movement as an organizer, trainer, facilitator and disrupter on a national and local scale, with a focus on anti-racism, disability justice and uplifting care work. Rachel is an Apetebi (caretaker of Ifa) and Iyanifa (Ifa priest) in the Isese Lagba Ifa tradition, which informs her politics and relationships to non-human beings and land. They founded and own The Honey Apothecary- a plant medicine making lab dedicated to making accessible herbal medicine for holistic well-being, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Writing at the Savannah College of Art & Design.