SCOTT TILTON
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UNITED STATES, 29
Project: Louisiana Creole: Shared Heritage & Dialogue
Focus Area: Language, Culture and Literacy
Scott is the Co-founder and Director of the Nous Foundation – a platform for exchange between Louisiana and the French-speaking world. This work was rooted in him growing up in New Orleans in a household that partially spoke French.
Scott’s activism was a result of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and surfaced deep-rooted socioeconomic and racial inequalities in his community.
In 2015, Scott moved to Paris and married his husband, Rudy Bazenet. Together, they launched and directed an initiative that made Louisiana the first U.S. state to join the International Organization of the Francophonie in 2018. The Francophonie united 88 countries and regions across five continents to promote the French language and multilingualism. Louisiana joining the Francophonie was a major milestone in the ongoing French and Louisiana Creole revitalization movement.
In 2020, Scott left his job as a consultant in Paris to move back to New Orleans and launch the Nous Foundation with Rudy. Nous is a nonprofit organization with the mission to share Louisiana’s diverse cultures and languages with the world. Since its inception, Nous has made free language-learning resources available, organized conferences with language activists and developed global partnerships to support activism on the ground.
Scott plans to continue growing Nous and promoting linguistic, environmental and socioeconomic rights in order to overcome Louisiana and the Gulf South’s most endemic challenges.