Larissa Kennedy is a writer, movement griot/jali (storyteller), and community organiser from South London with roots in Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Larissa has a BA in Politics, International Studies and Hispanic Studies from the University of Warwick, where her research focused on historicising climate justice in the Anglophone and Hispanophone Caribbean.
During her time as an undergraduate, Larissa was formerly President of the National Union of Students, and of Students Organising for Sustainability. She also lived and organised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. For her Master’s degree, Larissa is studying Global Affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
In her organising, Larissa has been part of challenging structural injustice, and building collective power at all levels - from the grassroots to the UN. Larissa is founding chair of TALAWA, a Black-led collective of racialised students and young people focused on political education and transformative action at the nexus of Black feminism, climate justice and liberated education.
At shado, Larissa is a writer, editor, and co-host of the shado-lite podcast which discusses a number of the world’s biggest global injustices, supporting our community to move from apathy and overwhelm to collective action and hopeful pathways forward.