Communities for a Better Environment
Fall 2020 — Community Partnership #1
This semester, EthiCAL Apparel’s social good theme is Environmental Justice. In understanding how climate change disproportionately harms BIPOC communities, EthiCAL Apparel plans to partner with a series of Bay Area organizations and nonprofits who are advocating and organizing for marginalized populations impacted by environmental deterioration.
If you’re looking for an environmental justice organization that addresses racial and socioeconomic inequalities, allow us to introduce to you our 1st community partnership: Communities for a Better Environment. Below, you can learn more about this organization. We are proud to support CBE and will be donating a portion of our profits from our first sales event to support CBE.
For 40+ years, CBE has provided powerful and expert tetrad of organizing, research, communication/story-telling, and legal support to California’s environmental justice communities, with a core focus on civic engagement and grassroots, ground-up approaches. Leadership development is core to their organizing model to increase civic engagement, strengthen and build the leadership skills of our members and build multiracial and cross-sector alliances.
As youth leaders of our own generation, we specifically wanted to share campaigns and initiatives from CBE’s Youth for Environmental Justice programming (Youth EJ). Since 1997, CBE’s Youth EJ supports the emergence and development of young climate leaders in our frontline Black, Indigenous, People of Color communities. Through consciousness-raising, organizing, and leadership development, CBE works to empower our youth who live at the intersection of multiple oppressive systems to strategize, organize, and define their path towards a Just Transition to clean energy.
CBE’s Youth EJ provides a safe place for young people to feel heard, to grow, and to learn. They empower youth to critically engage and to collectively challenge the oppressive systems and mainstream narratives that exist in their communities. This program advances justice and equity by offering three core practices for youth members: leadership development, opportunities to build grassroots campaigns, and space to share their narrative and build connections with other organizers as well as the public. They offer workshops that validate, educate, and uplift young people of colors’ experiences, emphasizing environmental justice, and intersectionality. Their curriculum includes themes such as Just Transition to a Grassroots Feminist Economy, Anti-Blackness in Communities of Color, Resilience, Self-Care & Healing Practices, and Community Control & Self-Governance.
Right: Map of Richmond examining where dense poverty exist in proximity to Chevron (source: https://www.policymap.com/maps)
Linked below are several articles about the Youth EJ Program where you learn more about their — awesome — youth organizers:
- Richmond Youth EJ Member, Miguel Diaz, speaks about his experience in CBE’s Youth EJ Program. Richmond Youth EJ leads a narrative campaign that calls for the City of Richmond to end its ‘Toxic Relationship’ with the Chevron Refinery. Read more here.
- CBE’s East Oakland intern, Mykela Patton, speaks about her efforts to organize for cleaner air for Deep East Oakland and the intersectionality of climate change alongside other systemic issues. Read more here.
Of course, be sure to check out CBE’s various social media platforms if you are interested in the Movement for Environmental Justice:
To commit to environmental justice inexplicably means to denounce systemic racism that has created unequal access to quality living standards and vice versa. The intersections of racism and environmental degradation are not just a mere coincidence but rather a series of intentional policies and decisions at play that are meant to stratify and oppress marginalized communities, namely Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and the urban poor.
Lastly, to our EthiCAL Apparel and UC Berkeley community, we hope through this semester’s organizing that we set forth new precedents for tangible action in the fight against environmental injustice. In recognizing how deeply racialized our political, socio-economic, cultural, and environmental landscapes are, we are taking the first of many steps to ensure a more equitable and sustainable future for all.
(P.S. look out for more cool and ~insightful~ content from EthiCAL Apparel’s #SocialGood Team!)
Author: Natalie Chu| Editor: Serena Lowe| Graphics: Natalie Chu| Team: Social Good
