CCN Organizing Fellowship Retreat 2025

Reflections by Angela Zhao, co-president of Duke Climate Coalition and climate organizer at Duke University

CCN fellows, staff, and trainers at the end of the retreat

There are few experiences I consider truly transformative when reflecting on my climate and environmental work. Campus Climate Network’s Organizing Fellowship and retreat, for me, is one of those experiences! Our fellowship cohort arrived at Pendle Hill during a time of political turbulence and democratic backsliding; for me, this felt like a fracturing of everything I had worked for with Duke Climate Coalition, and for most people, a fracturing of our most fundamental democratic, moral, and social values.

And even after three short days, I think it’s safe to say we left Pendle Hill, not necessarily with a clear perspective or one-and-done solution of how exactly we might tackle these complex issues (although certainly with a more honed and strategic approach), but more importantly, with a renewed sense of direction, community, and empowerment.

This ensuing sentiment of community-based empowerment and mobilization is exactly why this fellowship and retreat is something that I look back upon as a critical foundation for the organizing work I’m currently involved in at Duke University, and also thinking back on a conversation I had with one of my fellow organizers at the retreat about just how much this kind of community work fills our cup. 

In such times where it feels like social organizing feels like a fool’s errand, Pendle Hill and Campus Climate Network provided a constructive space for climate changemakers to form a true sense of community and strategically develop unifying goals and actions amidst our struggles, to put our tensions on paper and translate them into impact. The power of connection and shared solidarity should never be overlooked, and my time at Pendle Hill exemplified exactly why we cannot afford to slip down into political apathy and instead turn to each other to build our movements. I try to express these values of solidarity and authenticity through all the avenues in which I organize around climate at Duke.

Moving from chairs to the floor during a training

Additionally, being able to have engaging dialogue with CCN trainers, who embody the actual success of seemingly unwinnable campaigns like fossil fuel divestment, was a critical reminder of the worth in fighting institutions that appear unmovable, yet are equipped with the ability to mobilize for the benefit of countless communities we care so deeply about. At Pendle Hill, the questions we untangled allowed us to truly think about how we as student organizers could think differently and act differently on each of our campuses and of course, bring others into the movement. 

One of the moments from our training sessions has really stuck with me. At the end of one training, our facilitator asked us all to shout out something that gave us hope. As if we had rehearsed it, almost everyone in the room responded in unison with: “people”. This response epitomizes why it is crucial we strive to build our movements centered around mutual aid and love for each other, instead of hate and villanization. At Pendle Hill, this alternative world of love and care existed briefly. And it is that vision of how things could be that I bring with me in all of my organizing work. 

To be surrounded by a group of individuals characterized by the quite literal opposite of apathy are the reasons I still keep in touch with many of the fellows in my cohort. The people I met were genuine, endlessly curious, ambitious, and radically accepting. For these reasons, I continue to feel incredibly grateful for the space CCN provided for us to begin to deconstruct these difficult questions armed with solidarity and connection.