What is Environmental Justice? Exploring common definitions and how education can address them.

View the recording of the Virtual Town Hall here.

 

  • Dream in Green, a local environmental non-profit, starting a conversation with various stakeholders defining the environmental justice movement as it relates to education.
  • Discussion on how our community, especially students are affected by local issues.
  • Providing resources to understand the social issues involved and learning from guest speakers about possible next steps.

 

Miami, Florida – Achieving greater equality for all citizens and ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the equitable distribution of environmental risks is at the forefront of the environmental justice movement. It is connected to a variety of other issues experienced by Miami residents, such as climate change and social justice. The scheduled virtual town hall will bring together diverse stakeholders to define the movement at this time through the lenses of various sectors.

 

Dream in Green, a local non-profit, has been integrating environmental sustainability concepts into formal education by providing lessons and teacher-training since its inception in 2006. The organization’s mission is to empower individuals to tackle environmental issues in their communities. Now, it will provide a platform for individuals to learn about the intersectionality of environmental justice with other issues that students, teachers, and parents are experiencing and how it relates to their everyday life.

 

“To address our mission on addressing climate change and sustainability issues everyone needs to be involved and equality is at the center of that. There is much evidence that a lack of equality causes an unequal burden on communities that are predominantly black or from another minority. Environmental racism requires environmental social justice.” Jesse Rittenhouse, Board Chair, Dream in Green.

 

Local speakers such as City of Miami Beach Mayor, Dan Gelber, and Tina Brown, Executive Director of the Overtown Youth Center will share their perspectives and answer questions from participants in a Town Hall style presentation that will focus on education’s role in ensuring environmental justice in the community. Additional panelists confirmed include Sterling Laylock, sustainable development consultant for Integrating Green Technologies and Daniela Tagtachian, the inaugural Mysun Foundation Fellow and former Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Miami School of Law Environmental Justice Clinic.

 

“The goal of this event is to engage our community in a conversation on how environmental justice affects our students, how it could be presented and explained, and how we can tackle this issue together” – Barbara Martinez-Guerrero, Executive Director, Dream in Green.

 

The event will be held on Thursday, August 6th virtually, with registered attendees having the opportunity to ask questions about the topic as well as posing questions to the panelists. After the event, Dream in Green will provide additional resources to participants and hopes to gather ideas on how to integrate the topic into its longstanding free program for schools – the Green Schools Challenge.

 

To register please sign up at tinyurl.com/dreammiami

If you have questions for our panelists, please submit them to ba*****@dr**********.org.