CJ Youth Leadership Institute

Elizabeth Yeampierre is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican environmental/climate justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry, born and raised in New York City. Elizabeth is co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national frontline led organization and Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization. She was the 1st Latina Chair of the USEPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and opening speaker for the first White House Council on Environmental Quality Forum on Environmental Justice under Obama and recently featured in NY Times as a visionary paving the path to Climate Justice. She recently was named by Apolitical as Climate 100: The World’s Most Influential People in Climate Policy and a recipient of the Frederick Douglass Abolitionist Award FD200. 

This project builds frontline-led intergenerational leadership to address the disparate impact of accelerating climate change on frontline communities. Extreme weather events disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).  As the frontline of the climate crisis – BIPOC communities are the most vulnerable and the least prepared.  It will provide 25 youth of color a yearlong intensive, intergenerational mentoring, training, and practice opportunity in solution-oriented, climate justice movement-building incorporating energy democracy, land use planning, food systems, local climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, and the arts. Building on UPROSE’s bi-annual Climate Justice Youth Summit, the Institute will be a source of new, energetic, creative leaders that can lovingly steward communities, their country, and the world through a Just Transition to Climate Justice.  The Institute and Summit will elevate humanity by connecting the most marginalized to reclaim cultural traditions honoring mother earth, redefine leadership, and inspire new generations.  

The climate is changing at an accelerating pace.  According to the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) 2019 report, sea level rise, the frequency and severity of coastal floods, temperature rise and the frequency and severity of heat waves will increase in the 2050’s and 2080’s. Globally, according to the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report, Global Warming of 1.5C, “Without a sharp decline in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, global warming will surpass 1.5°C, leading to irreversible loss of the most fragile ecosystems, and crisis after crisis for the most vulnerable people and societies.”

The fossil fuel economy that produces climate change has also produced centuries of racial oppression and inequality.  The communities most impacted by Covid_19 were those living in the midst of discriminately sited environmental burdens- the same communities with asthma, upper respiratory diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes and historical trauma. Climate change exacerbates a legacy of racism, neglect and austerity as we saw in the Gulf South after Katrina and we witnessed after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Young people of color will inherit conditions they did not create and have not been prepared to manage.

UPROSE’s Intergenerational Climate Justice Leadership Institute will cultivate the leadership of frontline youth of color in the climate justice movement.  This Institute will build on UPROSE’s bi-annual Climate Justice Youth Summit.  We have held 8 such summits since 2008 in which UPROSE’s youth leaders brought together hundreds young people of color from NYC and beyond, with participation of Aboriginal youth from Australia, Indigenous youth from Indian Country and the global south.  Young people participated in learning circles, co-led plenary panels, performed spoken word, created visual arts and music performances.  These events were transformative for participants, but we must build wider, deeper relationships, understanding and leadership among frontline youth. 

Each year UPROSE’s youth leaders will recruit new youth leaders and activists from around the US and, eventually, from other countries, to participate in a yearlong training, mentoring and practice experience.  They will receive training in climate justice, Just Transitions, and the principles of organizing and movement-building and will plan and run the next Summit.  Each will receive mentoring from young adults who preceded them, and movement elders who have been shaping the movement for decades.  Climate change is a global problem, we will cultivate new global leaders and problem solvers.

UPROSE is a women-of-color led, intergenerational organization that meaningfully engages and develops intergenerational leadership dedicated to climate justice in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and beyond.  Our community is a multi-racial working-class neighborhood that is predominantly Latinx, Chinese and Middle Eastern.  Historically Puerto Rican, it is now also Dominican, Mexican, and South/Central American.   The majority of the youth who work with us are female identified and a significant number are LGBTQIA+.  Our base includes youth from 10-24, some are college-bound or enrolled, some are disabled, some have been incarcerated or homeless, or faced deportation or police abuse, but all come from struggle and work together to address climate change.  With staff mentoring, they learn to meet, set agendas, analyze power, plan actions, and make group decisions.  Four travelled to Antarctica and three to the North Pole with Students on Ice; they have spoken at the UN and the COP,  published articles in Teen Vogue and Newsweek, and educated their community about social cohesion, climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience. Their engagement translates into better grades and better decisions- we watch transformation take place before our very eyes – their needs are met when they walk in their power.

Our project is aligned with elevating issues in several ways.  First, we elevate the issue of climate change within our own community to understand its impacts and how they will intensify.  Second, we elevate climate justice, the racial justice response to climate change and its disparate impacts, to policymakers who often view complex problems without a justice lens, so their solutions replicate racial inequality.

It also relates to the first dimension. Scores of young leaders of color have fought for environmental and climate justice for years, but without the recognition, access to decision-making or shine they deserve.  That will change.

The Institute is derived from the idea that created the Climate Justice Youth Summit.  We began the Summit in 2008 to enable young leaders of color to exercise leadership and decision-making regarding issues of environmental and climate justice impacting their communities.  “Youth Led” conferences had marginalized youth of color or used them as poster children for an agenda they did not create, minimizing their ability to exercise leadership. These conferences also manifested the Anglo-American competitive tension between generations. In our environmental justice and climate justice movement we work, learn and build across generations – relying on each other to design strong, strategic, effective solutions.  Youth must be part of a shared leadership structure because one iconic leader in the face of climate change is not enough - we must be leader-full.  So, we created the Summit for young people of color. One year, one of our Trans women recommended a runway and fashion show to feature young people from NYC’s House Ballroom trans community to generate dialogue around deconstructing consumption. It was fabulous.  These young leaders established a Summit youth leadership tradition that has continued in each Summit.  It will be integral to the Institute as well. 

I come from struggle – I am a Puerto Rican woman who was displaced as a child and went to 5 schools in 8 years.  I witnessed and experienced poverty and violence in my family.  When we left my father, I helped raise my three younger brothers.  As a young working woman, my mom told me to study hard so that I would never have to depend on anyone. Thanks to the civil rights movement, I put myself through college and law school.  The first in my family to go to college, I felt obligated to use the opportunity to honor my ancestors. I remember my abuela lost seven children to hunger and disease in Puerto Rico through US policies.  I remember my Black Queer Puerto Rican uncle who helped raise me often coming home battered. I loved them and decided I would grow up to fight for them and people like them. The people I serve come from struggle and I want them to recognize their power and brilliance.  I want young people of color to know their history and the power that defines that journey, and to know they, like our ancestors, can create the future they imagine.

A civil rights attorney by training, I have been the Executive Director of UPROSE since 1996 and have integrated youth leadership and organizing with environmental and climate justice from the very beginning.  Under my direction, UPROSE staff and youth leaders have designed, planned and implemented 8 NYC Climate Justice Youth Summits serving over 4,000 young people of color from across NYC and the United States.  We have hosted over 20 summer leadership training institutes for Sunset Park youth and have supported year-round youth organizing since the 1990s, serving another 2,000 young people.  Together we helped complete Sunset Park’s Greenway-Blueway plan, completed  a brownfield revitalization plan resulting in Sunset Park’s designation as a NYS Brownfield Opportunity Area, helped create Sunset Park’s first waterfront park at Bush Terminal Piers, and ran multiple campaigns to defeat proposed polluting facilities.

Currently, we are engaging youth leaders in a variety of climate justice actions, including: 1) a campaign to defeat a corporate sponsored rezoning proposal for Sunset Park’s industrial waterfront; 2) a community-led Just Transition planning initiative called the Green Resiliency Industrial District – GRID; 3) innovative NYS climate justice legislation called the Community Leadership and Community Protection Act; and a first of its kind cooperatively owned community solar installation. 

I currently co-chair the national Climate Justice Alliance and serve on the steering committee of the statewide NYRenews coalition.  I serve on the Governor’s NYS Environmental Justice Working Group and the NYC Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board.

In 2012 Superstorm Sandy roared through the New York City region, causing $65 billion in damage.  Thousands of homes were destroyed in New Jersey, Long Island and Queens.  Storm surge flooded the Sunset Park industrial waterfront damaging businesses.  Due to many stresses and impacts, UPROSE almost closed its doors.  The planned Summit was to be cancelled.  It was the most difficult period for us.  I gathered the staff, board members and key community leaders to discuss our future.  As we numbered the many challenges and difficulties ahead, the will to stand our ground grew stronger.  The final consensus among everyone gathered was the community needed UPROSE now more than ever.  Our work is rooted in mission, movement and service to the community- for us it’s a life, not a job.  Because we don’t come from wealth, the decision to take a 50% pay cut was challenging.  The community responded with ideas and purpose and, despite the lack of resources, we launched the Climate Justice Center, NYC’s first community-based climate resiliency and adaptation planning initiative.  Our youth leaders also continued planning the next Summit, which they triumphantly ran in summer of 2013.  We understand resiliency at a gut level.  

A leadership example is the 2014 People’s Climate March in NYC.  The planning table was predominantly climate and environmental groups seeking to control the agenda and planning of the march.  I worked to ensure that we align this organizing work, and all subsequent work with the climate justice movement, with the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing which emphasize inclusivity, bottom up organizing and letting people speak for themselves.  After a process of dialogue, including an understanding of past failures in the climate movement, all the parties agreed to these Principles.  Accordingly, the order of march was established with frontline organizations and young people of color in the front and frontline leaders leading the speaking at key points.  The First Nations agreed for the first time to march side by side with the Black community.  UPROSE’s youth leaders stand out with all those sunflowers, our climate justice symbol.  Through my leadership, using objective principles, listening, and respectful challenges, frontline youth of color became visible at the People’s Climate March and their voices were elevated.  This is collaborative, intergenerational leadership in practice.  It will be our Institute practice.  

The Leadership Institute is certainly a new dimension of performance.  It innovates the performers, setting, means of expression, standards of validation and terms of debate.  People often equate youth activism with campus activism.  The Institute is new in that it elevates youth of color from non-campus, urban neighborhood contexts.  Further, the Institute must be culturally rooted, both in contemporary youth culture, and the enduring traditions of their communities and peoples.  Similarly, the authority to validate accomplishment comes from movement elders.  Academic and professional institutions provide important technical assistance in the implementation of local visions to transform infrastructure, but   movement wisdom carried by elders, born of experience, sees wholeness, interconnectedness and sees our communities whole, not broken into parts. Our approach to problem solving is as multidimensional as the problems themselves.

When frontline youth and elders of color define the terms of debate, different issues are prioritized, important shared issues are re-framed, etc., because their vantage point makes this necessary.  For example, we cannot strategize only about the reduction of carbon emissions, but how to reduce CO2, NOX, SOX and PM2.5 together.  Young leaders leaving the Institute will re-shape the climate movement along the lines of justice and a Just Transition to regenerative economies.  With this innovation, the movement will broaden and gain more power because it will be rooted in the experience of the emerging majority.  In 2042, people of color will be the majority in the US.  Our leadership and solutions must reflect that fact.

Activities

Classes introducing the history of extraction of our land, labor and resources

Workshops on principles of environmental and climate justice, Just Transition, regenerative economics, Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing

Exercises in whole systems thinking that drive the solutions this moment demands, including an understanding of a circular economy

Teaching case studies on operationalizing Just Transition solutions in local communities

Issue based Learning circles facilitated by Institute instructors and elders

Assignments to study their home communities and identify local Just Transition solutions

Communications & Social media training

Mentoring conversations between Institute mentors/elders and participants

Campaign and Summit tasks assigned participants and supervised by Institute staff

Recreational and socializing experiences provided

Shared room and board experiences provided

Outputs (quantities to be detemined)

# classes completed

# training workshops completed

#exercises completed

# hours social media training completed

# practicum assignments completed

# hours of practice completed

# hours of informal group experience

# relationships formed

Outcomes

Young people realize collective and self-efficacy needed to articulate their own climate justice vision and to challenge the limited narratives and narrow goals of the mainstream climate movement

Young people are able to see their communities holistically and propose concrete Just Transition projects 

Youth of color have new ability to build relationships with people of many diverse backgrounds

Impact

Climate justice movement grows stronger, able to compel the enactment of needed policies by reframing its narratives and goals in alignment with climate and racial justice

Frontline communities experience a Just Transition to regenerative economies through local actions and projects

Climate Justice movement grows wider and stronger, though still rooted locally

We serve approximately 450-650 young people of color at each bi-annual Summit.  These young people come from all over the country and the major environmental justice and social justice organizations in NYC serving Brooklyn, the Bronx and northern Manhattan. In year one of the project, we will serve roughly the same number at the Summit, and will add 25 youth leaders from across the US who will participate in the Institute itself.  In addition, we will include at least 25 youth activists from different countries and regions of the world to elevate awareness of our unity across the planet, our shared problems, and shared solutions.  Youth have participated  from other parts of the US, including the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and from London, England, and have skyped live messages from as far away as Australia, a young aboriginal woman dedicated to climate justice and supporter of UPROSE.  Our year five goal is to run 3 cohorts of youth leaders receiving Institute training, with two of those cohorts from across the US and the third from international sites in the Global South.  In addition, as part of these cohorts’ training experience, we would like to incorporate electronically groups of Summit participants from five other countries.  These groups would range in size from 15-50 and would participate in in-person activities like learning circles on site in their country, but also participate in full group activities like spoken word, musical performances, and plenary panels.

Our overarching year one goal is to organize, plan and fund the Institute.  To do this we will form an Institute planning and design group composed of movement elders, UPROSE Board and staff, Summit alumni and current youth leaders who will oversee the planning of the Institute.  Simultaneously, we will commence fund raising through outreach to foundations and supporters, and will design and implement (January 2021) an Institute scholarship and sponsorship plan. We anticipate that this initial planning phase will continue from July 2020 - December 2020.  As the Institute plan matures, we will outreach to key partners, prospective speakers and trainers, and other personnel needed to staff the Institute. Likewise, we will begin marketing the Institute to prospective participants in key frontline communities around the US (January 2021).  We seek to introduce our first class of Institute participants at the August 2021 Youth Summit and begin Institute training activities in September 2021. The first cohort will be national.

By year five, the Institute will expand from a single cohort to at least three, with at least one of the additional cohorts recruited from countries of the Global South. To accomplish this, we will need resources for expanded management capacity, additional personnel to staff the Institute program, and travel, room and board costs for staff and participants.  We will need a communications technology strategy for addressing technical, cultural and linguistic barriers.

Barriers to our goals in the next year are financial and technical.  The financial barrier is a lack of  resources to hire Institute management staff and additional funds that may be needed for travel, room and board for Institute trainees and trainers, speakers and elders.  This latter cost may be alleviated in year one by bringing in climate justice partners.  Technical barriers relate to the development of curriculum content on the integration of arts, technology and science in the climate justice movement.  Collaboration among artists, GIS planners, spoken word performers, and climate scientists is missing, but needed to explore instructional methods that elevate holistic thinking, interconnectedness, and complexity so necessary for advancing  local climate justice solutions. 

Barriers to year five goals are more significant and include financial, technical, and cultural issues.  The financial barriers are funds needed to support additional staff and resources for partner organizations in other countries.  Depending on the Institute design, funds will be needed for more travel, more speakers, more room and board costs, etc.  Additional technical barriers include the need for technology to enable ongoing communication among cohorts and instructors, as well as live connections among multiple sites during the concluding Summit.  The cultural barriers are primarily linguistic.  Even Summits limited to NYC have faced this barrier with Spanish and Chinese speakers isolated from English speakers.  If we seek to expand the reach of the Institute and Summit to the Global South, we need a strategy to overcome this barrier.

As a nonprofit corporation, UPROSE raises funds from foundations and donors.  The Institute is a fundraising goal of our FY21 fundraising plan, with a start date of the beginning of FY22.  A new fundraising strategy is the Institute scholarship and sponsorship program.  This program will elicit support from corporations, universities, and professional associations that may find our institute an important social branding opportunity.  Institute affiliation will help them attract new students or employees from younger generations who are highly climate conscious and supportive of climate solutions and racial justice.   Institute planning will be completed on a volunteer basis, with Board members, Summit alumni and key partners contributing time out of a sense of mission, the way most moment work is completed.  To address some of the year one technical barriers described, we will recruit partners from nonprofits, NYC-based universities and professional groups who can incorporate the more intensive curriculum development work into their own funded work at their home organizations.

For assistance with technical and cultural barriers described, we will seek a large, high capacity partner who can provide multi-year assistance in the design, planning and implementation of solutions to our technical and cultural barriers.  This partner would most likely be a university, but could be a tech company that sees self-interest and benefit in a partnership with UPROSE on the Institute, and sees a means to satisfying its own values of service to the global common good of solving the twin, intertwined problems of climate change and racial justice.

UPROSE works with partners on policy and local Just Transition/climate adaptation projects.  In the policy arena we partner with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and Climate Works For All to advance climate justice policy in New York City.  We partner with NY Renews on climate justice policy in New York State.  Nationally, our key partner is the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) which promotes Just Transition in over 70 local communities around the country.  Globally, we work with Grassroots Global Justice Alliance which has partnerships across the Global South

On our foundational Just Transition initiative, the Green Resiliency Industrial District (GRID), UPROSE has partnered with the Collective for Community, Culture & Environment (CCCE) and the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE).  They have helped UPROSE position the GRID as an alternative corporate-sponsored rezoning of the Sunset Park waterfront and helped convert the Just Transition vision into concrete projects that can be proposed to public and private partners, advancing a Just Transition practically and laying the foundation for a local regenerative economy.

 On local climate adaptation and Just Transition projects, UPROSE works with multiple partners on developing community-owned renewable energy; developing climate resilience plans for industrial and small businesses; and promoting climate resilience for waterfront commercial businesses. In developing community-owned solar energy, UPROSE has partnered with REVitalize, Solar One, Sustainable Capital Advisors, and Groundswell.  On industrial business resiliency, the organization has partnered with the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, the RAND Corporation, and The LifeLine Group.

UPROSE delivers substantial value to our community and numerous other stakeholders.    First, we provide a process for young people of color to learn about their world, good and bad, and to develop the skills needed to take action to change things for the better.  As part of this, many young people heal wounds, find safety, discover hidden parts of themselves and learn to lift their voice.  Second, we offer a variety of ways for our community as a whole to be engaged in public planning and decision-making around important issues that affect their lives.  These ways include community engagement in agency planning processes, campaigns to oppose or support significant projects or policies, community-based and led planning to develop our own vision for our community, and so on.  Third, we provide consistent, reliable, trusted intergenerational leadership that stands up for its community, for enduring principles and for a just future.  Finally, multiple outside stakeholders, such as elected officials, government agency officials, and private sector representatives,  rely on UPROSE as a trusted voice for its community and a reliable partner for engaged,collaborative, community-informed planning.  UPROSE also creates opportunities for partnership with entities seeking ways to invest in communities and climate adaptation.

UPROSE is a nonprofit corporation.  As such, we raise funds through government contracts, foundation grants and donations from individuals.  It is challenging to raise funds for climate justice work.  However, we have had some success raising awareness among foundation officials of the field of climate justice and the importance of investing in it.  There has been some movement and shifts over the past 3-5 years towards climate justice.  Part of our path to financial sustainability is this continuing philanthropic advocacy.  For the Institute, we are developing a new fundraising strategy based on scholarships and sponsorships.  Through effective marketing, we hope to generate interest in the Institute, in climate justice and young leaders of color such that corporations, other institutions and large private donors will want to invest.  We hope to make the Institute fully financially sustainable through this program in the future.

The Institute is a new project, so we have not raised project specific funds yet. However, a significant portion of our annual revenue from foundations is for general operating support.  This will enable the Executive Director and key staff to dedicate time to the planning and resourcing of the Institute.  In addition, we have regular donors who contribute to the bi-annual Summit, including Con Edison and the New York Power Authority.  We anticipate these donors will continue to support the Summit in the future.

We will seek to raise $150,000 in foundation grant funds for this project in FY21.  This will cover a project director salary of 70,000, fringe and OTPS costs, and $25,000 for expenses associated with year one operations.  Part of the project director’s role will be to manage a scholarship and sponsorship program.  Revenue from this program will cover specific expenses associated with the delivery of the Institute’s training program.  A longer term goal is to cover all Institute operating costs, including full time staff, through scholarship and sponsorship revenue.

Our current estimated expenses for 2020 are $841,452.  This amount includes $495,527 for personnel costs and $345,925 for OTPS costs.  The OTPS cost includes amounts for financial management and development consulting services.  This estimate of expenses does not include anticipated costs associated with the CJ Youth  Leadership Institute.

The Elevate Prize will help us overcome our barriers.  The two year grant provides start up funding for the Institute and the media and marketing campaign would support our scholarship and sponsorship plan.  We will invite donors and institutions to consider offering a scholarship to a young person to participate in the Institute, or provide a sponsorship directly to the Institute itself.  In exchange for the sponsorship, the donor would receive specific benefits to be defined, but might include adding their logo to Institute branding, and so on.  These opportunities have to be marketed through various media.  The Elevate Prize and MIT have wide networks and partners who may be interested in this initiative.  In addition, we feel that the Prize and its supplemental resources will help us with the technical barriers of producing the type of training curriculum and educational materials aligned with whole-system thinking, interconnectedness so relevant to the vision of climate justice and the Just Transition to regenerative economies/communities.  Finally, the Elevate Prize will help us overcome the technical and cultural barriers to the full expansion of the Institute to a multi-site, multi-cohort and international initiative.  The Prize can help us identify and secure state of the art communication and translation technologies needed to integrate Institute/Summit participants in different parts of the US and sites around the world.

Elizabeth Yeampierre, the Prize applicant, would specially enjoy leadership mentoring or coaching.  She provides coaching to all her staff, to other colleagues and partners, but does not herself have a coach. While enjoying the mentoring of key elders in her life, including a Board member, she is looking for something more.  In addition, we seek partnership support in the two related areas of fundraising and marketing.  As we described above, assistance with the design of the scholarship and sponsorship program would be beneficial. Similarly, assistance with a media and marketing strategy to connect prospective donors and other supporters to the Institute would be valuable.