Ellen Chigwanda

Ellen Chigwanda is the Senior Technical Advisor for CARE Zimbabwe’s Education and Climate Change work. She has a history of leading and supporting education and leadership development initiatives focusing on adolescent girls and young women in Zimbabwe, as well as other countries in Africa and Asia.

In 2016, she was selected as an Echidna Global Scholar (EGS) – a prestigious Girls’ Education research fellowship at the Washington DC based think tank, the Brookings Institution, where she explored the link between girls’ education and climate change. Thereafter, Ellen was responsible for conceptualizing CARE Zimbabwe’s first Building Climate-Resilient Schools Pilot Project as a post residency initiative of the Brookings fellowship.

She has engaged with key education, gender and climate change global influencing moments such as CSW, UNGA, CIES, COP and EEASA, in addition to penning several blogs, a policy paper, and academic journals on the topic of education and climate change. In addition, Ellen has contributed to the development of CARE’s Education and Climate Change Brief as well as the Youth Leadership for Climate Adaptation module, among other materials.

Ellen is a 2019 Obama Africa Leader as well as the Founder and Trustee of GENVI Trust, a local non-profit legally registered in Zimbabwe in August 2011. Currently based in her home country Zimbabwe, Ellen is pursuing a Ph.D. (Development Studies), focusing on the nexus between climate change and adolescent girls’ education in rural Zimbabwe.