Rooted: Stories of Community-Driven Change is a partnership between Island Girls Rock and the Clara Lionel Foundation. We came to this series with a question: what does it look like when change is truly driven by community?

Across Season One, we found not one answer but many, each shaped by a distinct place, a particular history, and the specific kind of courage it takes to keep showing up.

We close with Dana François, Programme Officer for Haiti at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a conversation about long-term investment, narrative power, and what it truly takes to ensure that Haiti is seen not as a place defined by crisis, but as a place of innovation, leadership, and resilience.

If you haven’t yet listened to the full season, all ten episodes are available now and each conversation is worth sitting with.

This is where Season One of Rooted rests. We are so grateful for every woman who sat with us, and for every listener who travelled with us.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from W.K. Kellogg Foundation here: wkkf.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are in conversation with Dr. Renée Rattray, a Jamaican educator, thought leader, and education activist who has spent more than two decades working to transform how Caribbean children are taught, how Caribbean systems are led, and how the region imagines its own future.

Dr. Rattray is the founder of One Love Pedagogy, a Caribbean-rooted educational framework that places love, identity, culture, and community at the centre of how learning is designed and delivered. She is also the President and Founder of Island Futures Fund, a Caribbean-led nonprofit working at the intersection of education, cultural identity, and climate readiness.

She speaks with honesty and depth about choosing teaching over law, moving through classrooms and whole systems until she understood that the work she needed to do could not be contained within structures that already existed. Love, she argues, is not a soft word, it is a rigorous and demanding framework for how education must be reimagined. And at the heart of everything she has built sits one unshakeable belief: that Caribbean children carry brilliance, and that it is our systems not our children that must rise to meet it.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from Island Futures here: islandfuturesfund.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A gentle note before you listen: this episode contains references to sexual violence and the experiences of women living under conditions of extreme danger. We share this with warmth and with care, and we invite you to listen in whatever way feels right for you.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Florence Jean-Louis Vorbe, Executive Director of PROFAMIL, the Association for the Promotion of the Haitian Family, and one of Haiti’s most respected voices in sexual and reproductive health.

Founded in 1984, PROFAMIL has been a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people across Haiti, delivering care through permanent clinics, mobile health units, and community health networks that reach into the country’s most remote and vulnerable communities. Florence has led this work through earthquakes, hurricanes, political violence, the collapse of public services, and now the withdrawal of international aid, and through all of it, PROFAMIL has remained open, present, and committed to the people it serves.

In this conversation, Florence takes us back to the beginning: how she found her way to this work, what Haiti looked like for women and girls when she first stepped into this field, and what made her believe that change was possible even then. She speaks honestly and with depth about women’s bodies and dignity in a moment of acute crisis, about the vision behind PROFAMIL’s commitment to building programmes that do not depend entirely on international donors, and about genuine partnership grounded in listening rather than assumption.

This is a conversation centred on endurance and love, on what it takes to keep showing up for your community decade after decade, and on the quiet, steady courage of women who refuse to let the people around them go without care.

Florence Jean-Louis Vorbe is a woman who has earned her rootedness. We are honoured she is here.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from PROFAMIL here: profamil.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Gwen Chambers, Executive Director of BlacQuity, a nonprofit organisation based in Bluffton, South Carolina, dedicated to promoting, elevating, and empowering Black-owned businesses across the Lowcountry.

Founded in 2020, BlacQuity delivers entrepreneurial education, coaching, and access to capital, including through Black Equity University, a twelve-week accelerator programme that helps entrepreneurs build stronger businesses and work toward long-term sustainability. With a background spanning sales, marketing, and nonprofit leadership, and deep roots in the region, Gwen has committed herself to reshaping the local entrepreneurial ecosystem so that more Black founders can start, scale, and genuinely thrive.

This is a conversation about the real difference between opportunity and equity, about what generational wealth means in the communities Gwen serves, and about what it looks like to rebuild an entire economic ecosystem from the inside out, with intention, with care, and with an unwavering belief that the people most overlooked by existing systems are exactly the ones with the most to offer.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from BlacQuity here: blacquitysc.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Lorraine Mangonès, Executive Director of FOKAL, the Open Society Foundations Haiti. Known in Haitian Creole as Fondasyon Konesans ak Libète, the Foundation for Knowledge and Freedom, FOKAL has for nearly three decades been one of Haiti’s most important civil society organisations, working at the intersection of education, culture, access to information, and civic life.

Lorraine studied theatre and art history in England and the United States, and communications in Canada. She chose to return home after the fall of the dictatorship in 1986, and has been with FOKAL since its founding in 1995. Since 2008, she has led the organisation as Executive Director.

This is a conversation about what it means to choose your country, to build something lasting in the face of unimaginable difficulty, and to believe, without apology, that culture and knowledge are the foundations of a free society. Lorraine speaks about leading FOKAL through the 2010 earthquake, making the case for deep structural work in a world that often demands quick results, and what she wishes the world truly understood about Haiti.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from FOKAL here: fokal.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Jhannel Tomlinson-Evans, co-founder of Girls Care JA, Girls Climate Action for Resilience and Empowerment. Jhannel is a scholar activist whose work is grounded in the belief that climate justice in the Caribbean must centre the voices, leadership, and lived realities of women and young people.

This is a conversation about what it truly means to build a movement from the inside out. What it looks like when mentorship becomes a methodology. When young women are not just included in climate action but trusted to lead it. And what happens when an organisation spends five years holding that commitment, even as the climate crisis intensifies around them.

From youth mobilisation and technical training to visual storytelling and disaster response, Jhannel brings deep knowledge, quiet conviction, and a vision for feminist climate leadership that is both urgent and enduring. We hope this conversation leaves you feeling the weight and the hope of what is possible when Caribbean girls and young women are given the space, the support, and the solidarity to rise.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from GirlsCARE here: rebrand.ly/GirlsCAREJA

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Anna Cadiz-Hadeed, Deputy Executive Director and Staff Partner of the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute – CANARI – a regional non-profit technical institute headquartered in Port of Spain, Trinidad, that has been working across the Caribbean for more than thirty years.

This is a conversation about what it truly means to put people at the centre of conservation. What it looks like when communities are not consulted but genuinely empowered to steward the natural resources their lives and livelihoods depend on. And what happens when an organisation spends three decades holding that belief, even when the world makes it hard.

From participatory natural resource management to regional grant-making, to advocating for small island developing states on the world stage, Anna brings twenty years of experience, extraordinary depth, and a quietly radical vision to this work. We hope this conversation leaves you feeling more connected to the Caribbean – to the land and sea that make us who we are, and to the people who have dedicated their lives to keeping it whole.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from CANARI here: canari.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Rooted, we are speaking with Carine Jocelyn, founder of the Haitian Women’s Collective and the Fund for Haitian Women, the first women’s fund in the entire Caribbean region.

This is a conversation about legacy and the long game. What it means to spend more than 25 years building institutions rooted in the belief that Haitian women deserve to be seen, supported, and centred. And what it takes to create something so foundational that it outlives your own direct involvement.

From establishing a community health centre in Port-au-Prince that continues to be locally run to this day, to making history at Profamil, to founding two landmark organisations, Carine brings both extraordinary depth and quiet conviction to this work. We really hope this conversation moves you as much as it moved us.

This podcast is hosted by Chantal Miller

Produced by BreAnna Holmes & Chantal Miller

Edited by BreAnna Holmes

See more from the Haitian Women’s Collective here: thehwc.org

See more from the Clara Lionel Foundation here: claralionelfoundation.org

See more from Island Girls Rock here: islandgirlsrock.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.