EWISE Founder Valerie Hill Rawls Honored with Inaugural Womanist WARES Award from Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership

Valerie Hill Rawls, Founder, EcoWomanist Institute Southeast (EWISE)

Atlanta, GA —The EcoWomanist Institute Southeast (EWISE) is proud to announce that its founder, Valerie Hill Rawls, has been named the inaugural recipient of the Womanist WARES Award by the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership (KGCCWL) at Union Presbyterian Seminary. The award was presented during the 2025 KGCCWL Biennial Conference, held May 1–3 in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Womanist WARES Award recognizes outstanding leadership in social entrepreneurship and celebrates those who embrace the womanist principle of self-sustainability for Black communities. This honor is part of the Center’s broader commitment to promoting and supporting Black women’s innovation, activism, and healing across six core tenets of womanist leadership.

Valerie Hill Rawls was selected for her visionary leadership of EWISE—creating pathways for women and girls of color to reconnect with the earth and reclaim their power through environmental justice, eco-spirituality, and sustainable development—as well as for a lifelong commitment to community healing, cultural empowerment, and womanist changemaking. As an Advisory Council member of the KGCCWL, Rawls traveled to Charleston to support the conference and left as its honored awardee.

“This was a complete surprise,” said Rawls. “To be recognized for doing the work I love—uplifting humanity and nurturing sustainable communities—is profoundly humbling. I’m so grateful to the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for this beautiful and thoughtful recognition of my life’s work.”

The 2025 KGCCWL Spring Conference brought together more than 120 speakers, honorees, performers, partners, and supporters to recover stories, reconnect with Black faith and Gullah Geechee culture, and reclaim joy. Held at Mother Emanuel AME Church, a deeply sacred site of Black resistance, mourning, and resilience, the gathering served as a powerful space of ancestral honoring, healing, and womanist leadership.

Valerie Hill Rawls embodies the spirit of Womanist WARES—visionary, rooted, generous, and self-determined,” said Rev. Melanie Jones Quarles, Ph.D., Director of the KGCCWL. “We are honored to uplift her ecowomanist contributions and entrepreneurial legacy through this award.”

For more information about the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership, visit www.upsem.edu/cwl.

To learn more about the work of EWISE and Valerie Hill Rawls, visit www.ewise.org.

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About the EcoWomanist Institute Southeast (EWISE)

Founded by Valerie Hill Rawls, EWISE empowers women and girls of color to heal and lead through land-based practices, community development, and environmental justice. Through programs rooted in eco-spirituality and sacred activism, EWISE helps build resilient and just communities by reconnecting people to the earth and to each other.