The USA Team’s primary role is to build program capacity

Our USA Team

WCCI-USA is sponsored by Earth Island Institute (EII) a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in the United States, where it is coordinated by Sarah Diefendorf, Elaine McCarty and Tracy Mann.

Elaine McCarty, Co-Director, United States. A dedication and commitment to healthy people and planet have been the trademark of Elaine’s professional life spanning more than 20 years. Elaine has worked with companies, government agencies and nonprofits on issues such as climate change, reducing plastics, recycling, composting and water contamination by through training, research and analysis, feasibility studies and analysis of markets and businesses. She brings over fifteen years of management and consulting experience in education, sustainability, and health care, with an emphasis on developing and implementing strategic, marketing and sales plans with multidisciplinary teams. Elaine has built and managed education programs in sustainability, such as Dominican University’s Green MBA program. As VP of Operations for a start-up medical device company, she helped bring the world’s first biodegradable medical device to market. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise from Dominican University of California and a B.S. in Nutrition and Dietetics from Southern Illinois University, summa cum laude.

Sarah Diefendorf, Co-Director, United States. Sarah has founded and managed numerous nonprofit organizations throughout her career and has specialized in building financial, communications and leadership capacity in the US and abroad.  Understanding that we can all be leaders, she has honed and implemented a wide variety of capacity-building tools in her professional and training life to enable individual and community growth and success.  In 2017, Sarah developed and delivered leadership curriculum to 24 Ugandan, Kenyan and Tanzanian women-led grassroots organizations to build management and fund-raising capacity.

In addition to her leadership work, Sarah has worked with Native American Tribes throughout the American Southwest for over ten years to help build their green economies through strategic, solid waste and recycling, climate vulnerability and adaptation, and water protection planning.

Sarah has also served as a national and international capacity building and leadership trainer for the League of Women Voters of the United States.  She holds a BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University and an MS in Environmental Geography from Cambridge University.

Tracy Mann, Development Chair, United States. Tracy serves as development chair for WCCI and founded Climate Wise Women in 2009. Climate Wise Women creates visibility and support for the global grassroots women whose leadership is essential to the survival of the communities on the frontlines of climate change.  She leads the organization on program implementation and communications strategies.

Tracy has thirty-five years' experience in communications in the international entertainment business and emerging technologies. In 2009, she worked with the Global Campaign for Climate Action on a communications campaign for women's leadership on climate change. Tracy has consulted to the Austin, Texas-based conference company SXSW LLC on international engagement for the past 18 years. Among the many services she provides to the company, she represents SXSW to Brazil and was a co-founder of the SXSW Eco event which was inaugurated in 2011. Tracy was a Rotary Scholar to Brazil in 1973 and subsequently spent four years in that country.

WCCI ADVISORY BOARD

Susan Bazilli, Director, International Women’s Rights Project

Susan Bazilli, is a feminist lawyer, researcher, educator, entrepreneur and advocate who has worked globally on issues of women’s rights and human rights for the past 30 years. A graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B.) and the University of British Columbia (LL.M.) she is based in Vancouver B.C.  She is the author of the groundbreaking text Putting Women on the Agenda: Women, Law and the Constitution in Southern Africa. Her most recent projects include work for UNDP, UNFPA, USAID, UNIDO, ADB, GEF, UN Women, and other institutions and NGOs.

Francesca de Gasparis, Co-Executive Director, Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Institute

Francesca is a long-time consultant focused on organizational development, advocacy, policy and climate change strategies.  She was the Director of the European office of Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement (GBMI) for eight years from its inception in 2005.  Francesca has worked in the environmental sector for over fifteen years, after a previous career in IT, and has a master’s degree in Environment and Community from Antioch University. 

Tracy C. Kajumba, Principle Researcher on Climate Change, International Institute for Environment and Development

Tracy C. Kajumba focuses on climate change adaptation mainstreaming across government and development programmes, public policy engagement, monitoring and evaluation for adaptation, gender and climate change adaptation across sectors, resilience programming and evaluation, and climate risk assessments for IIED. Before IIED, Tracy was the regional senior climate change and development advisor for sub-Saharan Africa with Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Development Cooperation Division; country coordinator, Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance; advisor, gender, climate change and conflict management, Care International in Uganda; Government of Uganda.

Claudia Medina, Founder and Filmmaker, EnMedia

Claudia Medina is a noted Powell River, British Columbia filmmaker, visual artist and educator known for her social activism and advocacy. Medina’s inspiration for making films originally came from her family’s Mexican and Italian cultural tradition and her connection to her heritage.  She has been making films and mentoring students for over fifteen years. She holds a BA in sociology and Latin American studies from SFU and a Masters of Visual Culture from the University of Barcelona. In 2001 she established EnMedia Productions as the container for her diverse projects and work in film, video, performance, visuals, and visual storytelling workshops. All of EnMedia’s projects explore possibilities of reconnection – to nature, to community, to a sense of personal and collective agency as we navigate through times of crisis and renewal.