SWOPblogger

We just recently came back from a trip to the Bay Area! It was hella fun! Mónica, Emma, and I went out there for the FCYO’s Convening of the ReGenerations-Environmental Justice Cohort. There we got to meet new people, organizations, and we also heard about environmental struggles across the nation. It ranged from air pollutants to not having a high school in their community.

One story was that in the San Joaquin Valley in California their water is highly contaminated. This contamination is due to fertilizers, animal factory waste, and leaky septic systems. All of these contain nitrate, which is the contaminant. The young women who were representing Community Water Center were telling us that they don’t even have water to drink at their schools. They are being denied something that all humans need to live. To me that is outrageous. This contamination doesn’t only deny the people drinking water, but also causes cancer in adults and can also cause the death of an infant. It was overwhelming hearing these heartbreaking stories, but the fact that we had all come together and the fact that we built the unity that we did, was very empowering and inspiring.

Also that we were in an intergenerational setting was great, because although we have our differences in age, we are all on the same page and are fighting for the same things. We did a workshop on working intergenerational. We talked about all the stereotypes each generation had about the others. For example, the group 18 & under thought that the older generations see them as immature and incapable of handling leadership roles, which wasn’t entirely true in the eyes of the older generations. Breaking down the stereotypes and seeing what everyone thinks you think of them really helped us work together more comfortably.

We also got to have a media training, presented by the Center for Media Justice, which was very useful. The most useful piece for me was when Karlos had a script you could follow if you were to be interviewed by a reporter. That’s a big help to me, because when it comes to being interviewed I have a real hard time saying exactly what I want to say. It always helps me when I have an outline to work with.

We all made new relationships. By the second day it felt like we were all one big family, because of the environment we were put in. We stayed at the CTWO mansion and shared rooms with 4 or 5 other people. We also had to share four showers with 30 people! It was a pain at times, but it only made it easier for us to get to know everyone in the house.

Overall it was a great experience and hopefully we'll all be able to keep in touch and continue to build relationships and movement we have created together.

Labels: Envirionmental Justice, youth