There are people in this work who truly understand that connecting others to nature is more than just a job. It's something that speaks to you. Gowri Varanashi is one of those individuals.

I first met Gowri in 2017 when we both worked together at an outdoor education program. From the very beginning, it was clear that she had a special talent. Whether she was working with a child who had never interacted with nature or an adult who believed nature wasn't "for them," Gowri has a remarkable ability to meet people where they are and find a way to connect them to the natural world. This is something I have always admired.

Today, I want to take a moment to highlight the incredible work she is doing, as it is precisely the kind of initiative our community needs to recognize and support.

CLAW – Climb Like a Woman: More Than a Climb

In 2018, Gowri launched CLAW - Climb Like a Woman, an NGO in India built around a powerful idea: use rock climbing to empower women.

What started as a way to get more women into the sport has grown into something much bigger, a movement. CLAW is about breaking down internalized barriers and shifting the story from "I can't" to "I can." Through shared experiences on the rock, women build strength, resilience, and real community. The organization hosts an annual climbing event and is growing city chapters across India, local spaces for gym meetups, mentorship, and connection, all led by women for women.

There's something really special about the intersection of nature and women's empowerment that CLAW represents. It's not just about learning to climb. It's about taking up space. And that message resonates far beyond the climbing gym.

Wilderness Ways: Bringing the Outdoors Back to India

Then in 2020, Gowri returned to India full-time and founded Wilderness Ways, an outdoor education initiative dedicated to helping people, kids, and adults alike rediscover their relationship with the natural world. Wilderness Ways designs programs around sensory challenges, wildlife awareness, survival skills like foraging and fire-making, and night walks.

What Gowri brings to this work is a truly global perspective. She studied Environmental Science and Biology at Bard College in New York, spent nearly a decade leading ecotour programs in the Peruvian Amazon (including walking through swamps at night tracking wildlife, so the night walks make complete sense), worked alongside local and indigenous communities whose knowledge of the land runs deep, and earlier in her career worked with NGOs in India on wildlife surveys and conservation. She also completed a 30-day NOLS wilderness and rock-climbing course and spent time with Wild Earth right here in New York, facilitating nature connection programs.

All of that lived experience pours directly into Wilderness Ways. These aren't programs built from a curriculum found in a packet. They're built from years of real relationships with the land, with communities, and with learners of all kinds.

Why This Matters – And Why We Lift Each Other Up

At Our Elements Outdoor Learning, we talk a lot about community. Our mission is rooted in the belief that community supporting community is how we create lasting change, in our relationship with the natural world and with each other.

Gowri embodies that belief. And organizations like Wilderness Ways and CLAW remind us that this work is happening globally, across very different landscapes and cultures, all driven by the same focus: help people find their relationship with the natural world.

One of the things I value most about my friendship with Gowri is that we can pick up the phone (or hop on a call across many, many time zones) and just talk about the challenges of running small, mission-driven organizations/ companies, about what's working, what isn't, and why we continue to be passionate about getting people connected. That kind of peer support is invaluable. We're collaborators, even if we're working on opposite sides of the world.

That's the kind of ecosystem we should all be building, one where organizations and individuals doing good work actively support, amplify, and learn from one another.

So if you're inspired by what Gowri is doing, follow Wilderness Ways on Instagram and Facebook, and check out CLAW on Instagram and Facebook too. Share their work. If you know schools, organizations, or funders who might want to connect with what's happening in India, make the introduction. That's how movements grow.

To Gowri: thank you for being a friend, a fellow educator, and a constant reminder of why this work matters. Keep going. We're cheering you on from the Hudson Valley.