Core Team

Sox Sperry

Sox is the founder and curator of Proven Sustainable™. His vocation has been to design and implement structures by which small groups can work collectively to deepen awareness of the role of the individual in family and community and to act on that awareness. He began his teaching career at the Learning Center, a parent teacher cooperative elementary school in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He went on to co-found the Center for Nonviolence in Fort Wayne, working there from 1985-2007 as a collective staff member and facilitating nonviolence education classes for adult and teen men. Since 2007 Sox has worked as primary curriculum writer with Project Look Sharp, a media literacy integration initiative at Ithaca College.

Kelsey Greene

Kelsey is the designer of the Proven Sustainable™ website. She also serves as the Program Director for the Proven Sustainable™ Conversations series and co-interviews guests with Ketu Oladuwa. She has overseen communications and operations for nonprofits, startups and well-established organizations for the past ten years. She also has a BA in Documentary Production, a M.Ed in Education Studies and extensive media and research skills, which she draws on for the Proven Sustainable site and Conversation Series.

Ketu Oladuwa

Ketu is the lead interviewer for the Proven Sustainable™ Conversations series. He is the founder of the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble and the Three Rivers Institute of Afrikan Art & Culture, Inc. He has raised funds and resources for these projects from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Foellinger Foundation, the Fort Wayne Community Foundation and the James L. Knight Foundation among others. In 2006 he spearheaded a major fundraising campaign to bring ten students and five adults to West Africa to learn more about themselves, their music and Afrikan roots.  

Sara Abouchaaoua

Sara is Proven Sustainable’s social media content curator. She is currently studying Global Development and Environmental Sustainability at Cornell University. Her work, both with Proven Sustainable and at college, revolves around understanding and amplifying Indigenous perspectives, particularly in relation to climate change initiatives and liberation narratives. She previously created curricula with FXB International for their TedEx Student Talks Program, which brought students together from around the world to build their public speaking and advocacy skills while sharing their climate stories. Drawing from her personal experiences as an Indigenous Amazighen North African and the experiences of communities featured by Proven Sustainable, she aims to recenter climate and humanitarian conversations, framing Indigenous and marginalized narratives as the starting point for climate resilience.

 

Guiding Council

Our Guiding Council aims to shepherd the development of the Proven Sustainable™ Conversation Series through sincere the relationship-building efforts.

Nichole McIntosh

Nichole is a senior nurse, poet, digital broadcaster, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Editorial Advisor of the Royal College of Nursing Institute’s Nursing Management Journal. In 2020 she launched the Maroon Mindset Unlimited Ltd consultancy, which supports individuals and teams to think, and learn to be more inclusive, and fair.

Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows)

Formerly the Director of Education at Oglala Lakota College, Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D., is currently a professor in the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University. He is the author of 24 books and numerous other publications on Indigenous Worldview.

The Proven Sustainable™ Conversation Series is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Transformative Action, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Any funding directed towards the Conversation Series will go towards production efforts to ensure the the recorded discussions are diligently captured and meaningfully distributed. This Conversation Series and website are not-for-profit and created with the intent of channeling support directly to the Peoples represented.