The Wekesa Earth Center at the University of Maryland represents a collaborative effort of scholarship and recognition across multiple disciplines to promote, equity, reconciliation, and healing in nature and to build a world where every human being is granted their right to enjoy and experience the privileges of these ancestral lands. Wekesa (pronounced: week-a-sah), a name of African Luhya origin for births occurring during the harvest season, will generate nature-based research, honor transgressed communities of nature disenfranchisement, and use programs to advocate the restorative benefits of nature.

Funded by the REI Cooperative Action Fund, the Wekesa Earth Center conducts work to increase belonging and justice in outdoor spaces. Run by accomplished and faculty, staff and students, members of the Center’s offices include scholars, advocates, and thought leaders, all of whom bring a relentless commitment to nature, earth and equitable active living in the outdoors.