Kumi Naidoo
President, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty; Co-Founder, The Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism
Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and environmental justice activist, who currently is the President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University. He is the former Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2018-2020) and also the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International (2009-2015). He is an advisor for the Community Arts Network. He serves as a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. His family has started the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism to build on the positive legacies left by popular South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through his music and life’s work. Kumi is the author of award-winning Letters To My Mother: The Makings of a Troublemaker. Kumi is also the host of the podcast Power, People and Planet.
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Satish Kumar
Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine; Founder, Schumacher College
Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years. Aged 9, Satish renounced the world and became a wandering Jain monk. Inspired by Gandhi, he decided at 18 that he could achieve more back in the world and soon undertook a peace-pilgrimage, walking without money from India to America for the cause of nuclear disarmament. Now in his 80s, Satish has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration, social justice and spiritual fulfilment.
An acclaimed author and international speaker, Satish appears regularly on podcasts, radio and television shows. He has been interviewed by Richard Dawkins, Russell Brand and Annie Lennox, appearing as a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Thought for the Day and Midweek. Satish presented an episode of BBC2’s Natural World documentary series, which was watched by 3.6 million people.
Satish’s autobiography ‘No Destination’ sold over 50,000 copies, inspiring change around the world. Through his writing, teaching and international talks, Satish passionately shares visions of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Satish co-founded Schumacher College and founded The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity that seeks to inform and inspire a just future for all. He was the Editor of the charity’s change-making magazine, Resurgence & Ecologist, for over 40 years, making him the UK’s longest-serving editor of the same magazine. He continues to serve this publication as Editor Emeritus and by writing for each and every trailblazing issue. Satish would like to offer you 20% off membership of The Resurgence Trust. When you join, you will receive a range of membership benefits including the hope-inspiring, bi-monthly Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, and support Satish (and the charity he founded) in protecting the future of people and planet.
Find out more about Satish’s work and this offer: https://www.resurgence.org/membership/satish-offer.html
IN KUMI’S WORDS
How do you think individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing are connected?
Today we live in a world with increasing evidence of climate anxiety and eco-anxiety coupled with growing anxieties that people feel as a result of the rise of fascist sentiment from the United States to Europe and ongoing failures in governance at significant scale corruption corrupted behavior by our leaders. The manifestation of that anxiety of what’s happening with regard to the climate crisis the governance crisis and so on increasingly impacts on people’s individual sense of wellbeing. I am of the view that one of the best antidotes to despair and depression is that participation is the antidote. Public participation in public life is the best antidote to despair and depression. Therefore in my work I am constantly trying to promote creative ways in which people of all classes and backgrounds can be enabled to participate in the communities at the national level and beyond. So I see a fundamental connection between individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing.
What do you hope the outcomes are from the global Hearth Summit?
Firstly, I hope that whatever happens at the global Hearth Summit is communicated beyond those that attend the summit itself. I’m hopeful that the organizers will find ways to make what’s going on at the summit accessible to a much broader audience than those of us who would be privileged enough to attend for those of us who attend. I hope it will be as the first Global Summit in Bilbao was a place for deep learning of new wellbeing techniques and capabilities as well as a place for deep connection with like-minded folks from around the world who are seeking to contribute to a just world and while being able to nurture themselves and take care of themselves.
I also hope in particular that those who are entering the discourse and engagement around wellbeing as I did in 2022 at the Bilbao summit would be encouraged to leave the summit with a sense of being able to contribute in a substantive way to the challenges of dealing with the world in crisis but maintaining the strength and the capability to be strong while contributing to addressing the polycrisis while taking care of their own wellbeing, so that activists don’t burn them burn themselves out as I have done multiple times in my life.
