Social issue movements are inherently interconnected as they are all built upon one another and they each affect one another. The climate justice movement is an intersectional movement, and thus as a part of the movement we work towards collective liberation for all social justice issues. Right now in particular there is a huge outpouring of resources and ways to get involved in the racial justice and Black Lives Matter movement. I spent time compiling and sorting through a bunch of resources that I have found super helpful, educational, and informative. In knowing that the climate justice movement and racial justice movement, just like all other social justice movements are ultimately intersectional, I made sure to spend time this week amplifying the resources that are available. You can find my compilation here. Included on the document are a bunch of different links to petitions to sign, places to donate money, and educational resources. I focused a lot on educational resources because they are super important spend time looking through. Throughout the doc I have asterisked a few resources that I have personally found super helpful. It is important that we all spend time continually educating ourselves and learning more about important issues such as racial inequality and white supremacy in our country.
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The Climate Justice Movement is inherently intersectional with all other social justice movements, because we recognize that social justice problems stem from the inequitable systems in our country. The Climate Justice Movement organizes intersectionally with all other social justice issues towards collective liberation, understanding that without racial justice, there will be no climate justice and that without climate justice, there will be no racial justice. Climate justice is so much more than just being about saving the climate; climate justice calls for radical change and equality in our world. Climate justice is social justice. With that said, as the national conversation turns toward the Black Lives Matter movement, we in the climate justice movement too, turn our focus towards racial justice. For a review in which the ways the climate justice movement is intersectional with other social justice issues make sure to check out this slideshow presentation from our New England Region Pr-Earth Day Workshop Series.
This week for Legacy I focused my work on racial justice. There have always been many resources available to help the fight for racial justice, but in particular over the last week, there has been an outpouring of such resources readily available to be used. Change starts at the most individual level. As a white person it is imperative that I recognize the role that I play, whether I intend to or not, in upholding institutions of white supremacy and racism. In being a functioning part of our society, which is rooted in white supremacy, I too contribute to these unjust systems of oppression. Therefore, it is my job to actively use my privilege to fight against these systems in order to dismantle white supremacy. There are many ways in which this can be done, all are valid, but you have to do something. Doing nothing only continues to uphold the systems of oppression that we (particularly as white people) both participate in and benefit from. A great way to begin is by educating yourself on how to be actively anti-racist and how white supremacy and white fragility dominate our society. A fantastic book to begin this with, which I read (for the third time) this week, is "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo. This compelling book explores the concept of white fragility and how white people uphold racism in their everyday lives by their actions, reactions, and words. The book brings an awareness about how to begin to be actively anti-racist in your daily life, a necessary first step in beginning to understand how we all can dismantle racism in our society. This week, I also spent time signing petitions, using social media to amplify the voices of Black people, continuing to educate myself, and sharing resources to help those who need it. I will share several of the many resources that I used down below. There are tons of ways to get involved and to be productive during these challenging times. There are several database style resources here, here, and here. These resources have links to petitions to sign, ways to donate, groups and individuals to send emails to or to call, and education resources. For a database of resources specifically on being anti-racist for beginners, you can click here. Another great resource to check out is the White Supremacy in the Age of Trump course syllabus by Professor Loretta J. Ross of Smith College which you can check out here. Beyond these resources there are so many other resources being compiled online for use right now, it just takes a little bit of research. You can also read this great article here about ways to get involved as a white person in America. Finally, another way to get involved is by watching this YouTube video without skipping the ads to raise money in support of organizations supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. You can even have the video playing in the background of your browser and muted if you need to focus on something else. Another great way to further educate yourself is by watching documentaries, videos, movies, and listening to podcasts about racial inequality, the broken criminal justice system in America, and white supremacy. Although I have yet to watch it (which will likely happen within the next few days), I have been told that the documentary 13th on Netflix is a great discussion of the criminal justice system in America. Whatever you choose to do, do something. This week for Legacy, I worked on spent time working on re-applying for the National Outreach Team. Due to some unforeseen internal conflicts, my entire team has been asked to re-apply for our positions. This week I dedicated a lot of time working on this application so that I can put my best foot forward in my re-application. First, I spent time brainstorming how to answer each of the questions. Next, I went back through my bulleted brainstorm list to expand on some of these ideas. This helped jog my memory of specifics that I wanted to be sure to include in my answers. After that, I began going through and writing up paragraph length answers to each of the questions. I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to write about, so I split up some of my answers into multiple paragraphs in order to improve clarity and specificity. Finally, I began to proofread my answers and to edit them to make sure that they sound how I want them to sound before I submit my application. This process took quite a bit of time and I had to really focus down in order to make sure everything came out how I anticipated. Overall, I am happy with how my application turned out so far, however, I may continue to make minor edits to some of my answers in the next few days before I submit it. You can view a copy of my brainstorm session and answers by clicking here.
This week for Legacy I worked on creating a database of contacts for different organizations, groups, and schools in each of the New England states. This will be helpful for keeping all of my contacts organized so that whenever I have to plug applications or get the word out about something I can easily go into the database and send out emails to organizations and other groups in the state. I started by focusing on the state which currently have applications open or who I know will have applications open soon. These chapters were my priority because will use those contacts soon when sending out emails and getting other information out to groups. Right now, several of the New England chapters are looking into expanding their chapters by getting lots of new organizers, and I have been busy plugging their applications, and so I think that having this database of go-to contacts will be super helpful for myself. The database is organized by chapter and under each chapter is organized by type of group. For example, some of the categories are: environmental organizations, political organizations, youth activist organizations, high school and college clubs, etc. Also, I communicated with several chapters this week. Some chapters just closed out their first round of applications and they will be onboarding new organizers and helping to get everyone involved while other chapters are setting up applications and looking into holding virtual open meetings to attract a wider group of youth who might want to get involved. You can view the current database here but note that not all of the pages have been worked on yet, as I prioritized the chapters who are actively pursuing expanding their group of organizers currently.
This week I focused on communicating with individuals and chapters to strategize next steps and outreach in the coming weeks. I successfully facilitated a regional call in order to debrief and get feedback on the workshops. We also discussed next steps, in particular the need to work on creating student ambassador programs. After the call I wrote up notes about what we talked about and sent it to the whole team and asked organizers who were unable to attend if they had any more feedback or ideas. You can view the notes here. I also communicated with individuals as needed, answering questions and offering suggestions on where to go next. I hope to continue to provide assistance to the new chapters as they begin getting started. Meanwhile, I also continued to plug applications for new and existing applications. This week's primary focus was on plugging applications for the Maine chapter. Since they were particularly interested in finding a finance director, I focused on reading out to colleges in Maine, because college students are more likely to have experience with finance and interest in it than a high school student would. For the next few weeks, I will continue to help chapters with applications and I will think about new projects that we can work on over the next few months across the region. Looking forward to the next few weeks.
Over the past two weeks, a lot has been going on for my inquiry. Last week was Earth Week which meant that I wrapped up the week long pre - Earth Day workshop series with all of the New England chapters. Although I faced some unexpected challenges along the way, in the end, I was able to pull off a great series of workshops with the help of many local organizers in the region. It was a great way for all of the chapters to collaborate and work together to spread awareness about the movement throughout the region. We even got some new organizers for a few chapters which was really awesome. Something exciting that happened on the last day of workshops, which I happened to be co-presenting during, was that a state representative from New Hampshire joined the workshop and had high praise for my co-organizer and myself. This week on the regional call, I will be looking for feedback from organizers to see what they liked and did not like about this project and how we can continue doing things like this in the future, or not, depending on how people felt everything went.
This week, I focused on on-boarding new chapters from Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont into the region. It is super exciting because now the region has a chapter in every state, rounding out the region with seven chapters. For this I got on calls with each of the new chapter leads and presented a slideshow to them, introducing them to the regional structure and explaining to them how they can use me as a resource. You can view the on boarding presentation here. It was super great to begin getting to know the new chapter leads and to strategize initial outreach with them, for example plugging applications so that they can create a core team. I’m looking into setting up a call with a bunch of the chapter leads for the region so that some of the more experienced chapter leads can help serve as mentors for the newer chapter leads, which I am hoping will be a great resource for the chapters just starting out. This week I also will meet with the whole regional outreach team to identify new goals for the next several months. I am also hoping to brainstorm some new projects that we can work on and to identify ways to still be effective in our outreach even during quarantine. I think that everything got super crazy before Earth Week because there was so much that had to get done, so I am hoping to regroup everyone and get feedback on everything that we have done so far. I’m excited for what we decide to spend our time doing over the next several months. This week I focused my work on preparing all of the chapters for our Pre - Earth Day workshop series. I have been working hard to ensure that all of the presentations are prepared and that everyone is ready to go. This week had to spend a lot of time communicating with many different people in order to make final adjustments and to give organizers any help that they needed. I also needed to work to get some more organizers for our later workshops and to do some logistical work before the first workshop. On top of all of the time I spent communicating through texts and emails, I also spent a fair amount of time on video conference calls with many organizers to answer any questions that they had and to get everyone on the same page. I also had to work on my own presentation and check in on other groups' presentations to make sure everything would be completed in time. You can view my working presentation here and some of the other groups' presentations here or here. Overall, this week was pretty successful. Although at times it was slightly stressful, in the end, I knew that everything would work out. There was a lot that had to get accomplished this week and a lot that did get accomplished. It was important to remain organized and clear in my communication so that everyone knew what was going on. It was important to balance both individual check-ins and whole group check-ins as well as balance how I spend my time coordinating and organizing all of the workshops with working on the ones that I am presenting. There was a lot to get done this weekend, but I managed to complete everything and stay organized. Over the next few days, I will have to continue working to ensure that the rest of the presentations get finished and that everyone can be prepared to host their workshops. It will be necessary to ensure that communication stays clear and effective and that everyone knows what is going on. It will also be great to hear feedback after the first few days of workshops to see what we can improve for the next set of workshops.
Over the past week I have been working hard to get all of the New England chapters working on an outreach project that will take place before Earth Day. The project is essentially a way to get youth all across the region excited about and involved in what each chapter is doing for Earth Day, now that we can no longer have in person strikes or actions. The plan is to have a variety of workshop topics, ranging from beginner to more advanced, that will take place virtually, the week leading up to Earth Day. I am working with organizers from each of the New England chapters to get this project up and running. Organizers from each chapter will be working on creating lesson plans and materials to present during the workshops. The workshops are intended to be between an hour and an hour and a half in length and will involve an interactive presentation, a time for questions and answers, break out discussion groups, and a culminating discussion wrap up at the end. Workshop topics range from introductions to the youth climate movement all the way to workshops on the specific impacts of climate change on New England and discussions of climate legislation throughout the region. There is variety in the topics in order to give everyone workshop topics that will be helpful and interesting to them. I wanted to make sure that there was a range of topics so that youth who are new to the movement, all the way to youth who are very experienced, will still be able to take away something from the workshops. This week I worked on communicating with all of the organizers, getting everyone on the same page, and working with individuals to begin planning out workshops. I have also been on many calls with different groups of organizers, working to ensure that everything is running smoothly and to get their input in several decisions. In order to stay organized, I have utilized a group chat with the core organizers of this project to be able to communicate with each other. I also worked on planning the workshops that I am running. You can view the entire plan of this project here. This week I also worked on creating a slideshow presentation template that everyone can use as a little guide when they create their presentations. You can view this document here. There is a lot of work that will need to be finished before next Wednesday, April 15th, but I know that by working together as a team, we will be able to get it all done. I'm excited to see how these workshops turn out!
Over the past few weeks I have been working hard on multiple projects for US Youth Climate Strike. Due to the Covid-19 situation, we have decided to cancel all in-person Earth Day Strikes, instead moving our efforts to be virtual. This was a major change of plans and required us to completely rethink how we are going to do Earth Day actions as well as specifically for my team, how outreach leading up to Earth Day is going to look. However, despite our disappointment of having to change our plans, so far we have come up with some great alternatives, which will be shared in a future update once the information becomes publicized. Along those lines, I have had several conference calls about our changing plans in the last two weeks, both in terms of how to move forward in Boston, how to move forward as a New England region, and how to move forward nationally. The National Outreach Team is also going to be having a call in the next few days in order to check in and discuss what we all have been working on as well as to discuss expectations and work moving forward. Besides working with the already created New England chapters, we have been working to create new chapters in states and colonies which are currently not represented in our organization. The past few weeks I have been working hard to send out applications for new chapters which will be created in Rhode Island and Vermont. In the coming weeks, I will also be working to send out similar applications for a chapter which is being restarted in Connecticut. I also have been helping to pick up some work in the Rocky Mountain Region, which needed applications sent out for Montana and Colorado. In the past few weeks I have also started the process of organizing a New England Regional Summit which will hopefully happen towards the end of the summer, of course only if the Covid-19 situation has calmed down by then. If not, we will push the date back until when it is safe to hold the summit. I've compiled a core group of organizers from the different New England chapters to help spearhead this project with me. We began some initial brainstorming work for this project and will begin to organize into sub-teams to work on different parts of organizing the event in the coming weeks. However, this project is not a main focus right now, as I am mostly focusing my work on helping chapters get ready for Earth Day (virtual) actions. There are a few New England chapters that a relatively small and will be needing a lot of help leading up to Earth Day while there are a few New England chapters that are heavily self-sufficient. There will also be new chapters that will need to be onboarded in the next few weeks and these chapters will likely need a lot of help starting up. I'm planning on hooking these chapters up with the other New England chapters as soon as I can so that the transition for new chapters runs smoothly. I'll be reaching out to a few of the very experienced New England chapter leads in order to get their advice, tips, and other important resources from them in order to help the newly created chapters. Looking forward to meet the new chapters, continue working on Earth Day actions, and organizing a New England Climate Summit.
Over the past few weeks I have been hard at work preparing for the Earth Day strikes. Recently, I have focused my work on developing student ambassador programs within the New England chapters. Student Ambassadors are one of the main ways that chapters can grow their movement into more local communities -- a key part of outreach. I have been in close communication with all of the chapters about starting up these programs by giving them resources and guides to help them strategize how best to grow their movement into local schools. It has been important to recognize that each chapter is different, so what might work in one chapter, will not necessarily work in another chapter. Simultaneously, I have been working on creating new chapters in Rhode Island and Vermont. Nationally, outreach is focused on a first round of new chapters by sending out applications for key states and colonies in the United States and it has been the job of the regional directors to promote the applications within their region by sending the applications to organizations, nonprofits, college clubs, and high schools within the states or colonies that we have applications for. I have spent a lot of time researching and finding groups to send out these applications to. Also, I have been working on strategizing outreach initiatives for New England. I had been sent some really helpful educational resources that had a whole bunch of toolkits and resources for outreach events. These guides outlined how to organize teach-ins, which are events where chapters would invite community members and community partners to in order to educate the public about the climate crisis and to inspire them with a call to action. These guides also gave lesson plans to teach people of all ages about the effects of the climate crisis. These guides were broken down by topic and I encouraged my team to find a topic that directly impacts their community because every region of the United States is impacted by the climate crisis differently. There were also some resources that highlighted ideas for outreach in specific settings such as in schools, clubs, or at local libraries. I have spent quite a bit of time digging through these resources, but have yet to look at everything because there was so much to look at. I am hoping to develop a more concrete list of resources that I can share with all of the chapters. The final thing that I have begun working on is organizing a New England USYCS Summit for Summer 2020 with the National Logistics Team. Many chapters across the country have been wanting to plan summits in their region and have looked to the regional directors to help coordinate something. I decided that this is something that I would love to do for the New England chapters, and this will likely be a main focus of my work after Earth Day, but for now it will stay in ideation and initial planning phases.
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Overview of My InquiryFor my US Youth Climate Strike (USYCS) Inquiry I hope to learn what it means to work at the national level in order to organize and create change in our country. I will work with the National Outreach Team in order to develop partnerships around the country for the chapters of USYCS to be able to gain support from. I will work with my team in order to find partners and develop lasting relationships with them. Climate justice will not happen if we do not work with other organizations. The partnerships will help each state’s chapter to further develop themselves and create more of an impact on the state’s government leaders.
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