Environmental Justice Summer Institute: Youth Workshops

 

Four Southern California groups are excited to announce a new partnership to jointly sponsor an inaugural Environmental Justice Summer Institute (EJSI):

• USC Environmental Health,
• Asian and Pacific Islander Obesity Prevention Alliance (APIOPA),
• From Lot to Spot (FLTS),
• Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI).

This five week, 14-session summer program will begin on June 26, 2014. ESJI was created to engage a diverse group of 15 local high school youth from Lennox, Hawthorne and Inglewood, around environmental health and environmental justice issues.

This EJSI curriculum is focused on educating, engaging, and empowering the youth to be agents of change in their own neighborhoods.
• Educate: Youth will learn about environmental justice and its disproportionate impact on people of color communities through workshops, presentations, and community tours.
• Engage: Youth will participate in an interactive workshop with urban planner James Rojas and conduct on-the-ground monitoring and mapping.  With partner USC the youth will develop hands-on experience to not only map out and identify highly polluted locations in their own neighborhoods, but to also have an opportunity to use air and noise monitoring equipment to track pollution levels.
• Empower: Throughout the program, the youth will work with Digital Rain Factory on digital storytelling to educate and engage their communities around the environmental concerns they have. The digital stories they create will also be used to advocate to their local elected officials, for changes they identify are needed through their summer program.

Curriculum to be covered:
• Researching environmental justice in our community
• Becoming environmental justice youth leaders
• Learning how to make videos for a cause
• Monitoring air and noise levels
• Informing public policy 101: The low down on our local policies
• Being a dynamic speaker
• Engaging the Community

Stay tuned for more exciting details of this pilot program! Search #EJSIFellows on Twitter to keep up on the latest developments, photos and more.

Learn more about the institute in these blog posts and Resource Page:
Environmental Justice Summer Institute: Youth Workshops
Youth Pollution Monitoring Activities across the Southland
Teaching Environmental Justice through Building Model Cities

The EJSI is partially supported by USC’s Children’s Environmental Health Center, which is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences  and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Additional support for staff participation is provided by grants from the Kresge Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation. 

Environmental Justice Summer Institute partner organizations on Twitter:
@USC_EH_Outreach
@fightAPIobesity
@SJLI_CA
@fromlottospot