Giving Tuesday 2022: Support Nos Quedamos’ Environmental Justice Youth Team

 

Support the next generation of environmental leaders in the South Bronx! DONATE In June 2023, Nos Quedamos will reach a major milestone in terms of its three-decades legacy of people-led service and innovation in community development and housing in the South Bronx. During the last 5 years, Nos Quedamos has actively worked at developing and implementing action plans that pay homage to the core principals that formed the organization. We have also kept a vigilant eye on forward-thinking succession planning that has included the development of Nos Quedamos’ Environmental Justice Youth Team peer program—the future of environmental advocacy in the South Bronx—which is affectionately known as “asthma alley” due to the disproportional pollution inequity in the region. Since 2021, Nos Quedamos has trained youth to become environmental leaders by expanding their knowledge and hands-on fieldwork in the Environmental Justice space and community organizing. 15 youth have graduated from two separate cohorts of the Environmental Justice Youth Team. These dynamic youth leaders have been instrumental at successfully coordinating the activation of a community rooftop garden at El Jardin de Selene (Nos Quedamos’ LEED-Silver rated mixed-use, mixed-income building). The youth team members have led a series of gardening practicums and art workshops using garden-specific elements (soil, seeds, rocks, found wood, fertilizer, etc.), and also introduced the benefits of meditative healing exercises via exposure and contact to nature for the building’s multi-generational and multi-ethnic residents. Download the youth team's brochure (PDF). In addition, the cohort is currently having discussions around the importance of Environmental Justice in communities like the Melrose section of the South Bronx (NQ’s main catchment area) and other communities of color across the country, and planning educational outreach sessions centered on topics such as reducing the cost of energy by utilizing green spaces as “resiliency hubs” to harvest solar power; improving overall mental health through time spent in green spaces like community gardens and parks, as well as expanding access to healthy and nutritious “fresh farmed” food (parts of the South Bronx have been qualified as “food deserts”), and how these people-led changes can mitigate health conditions that currently affect the community like asthma, diabetes, and mental health (among others). Youth cohorts have also acted as ambassadors of the community on environmental issues and have been invited to either participate on and/or moderate topic-specific panels: youth leader Imani Cenac (now part of NQ's staff in the capacity of Resiliency Organizer) moderated a panel discussion entitled “Youth Voice, Youth Leadership, and The Future” during the annual member convening of the Partnership for Resilient Communities in New Orleans in April 2022. More recently,  Carmen Vázquez (NQ's Community Organizer and youth cohort supervisor) spoke during the 2022 Urban Future Summit on the “Community Collaboration in Climate Justice” panel alongside Daphne Lundi (Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice) and Jeannette Williams (Urban Future Lab). Your donation will help foster tomorrow's environmental leaders TODAY! DONATE For more information, scan QR Code or click the link below. nosquedamos.org/giving-tuesday-2022