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Excerpt from my praxis on community
Excerpt from my praxis on community
Community is necessary to the pursuit of securing any kind of justice. The work of changemaking is varied and vast; a community with diverse skill sets and perspectives is needed to advance any movement in a comprehensive, inclusive manner. While some find their passion in science and work at developing scientific solutions to engineering effective green energy or mitigating carbon emissions, others may be writers, speakers, organizers, or artists, who can serve the movement in their own unique way. The combined efforts of all of these talents is what propels a social initiative forward in all disciplines. There is incredible strength in numbers. The bigger your community, the greater your outreach, and thus, the more change becomes unignorable. When a community upholds values of inclusivity, solidarity, acceptance, and passion, they can form an example for how they wish to see the world operate and how they wish to see people treat each other.
My practice of community has deepened throughout my time in this community. Within the community of our house and the greater community, I have learned so much about partnership and cooperation. Within the Environmental Justice Semester's home, I have worked with my peers on a wide range of projects, including recording a podcast, developing social media posts for our partner organization, or compiling presentations to educate our fellow changemakers in redlining, greenwashing, or agricultural solutions. As I worked with my peers, I noticed how our respective strengths made us stronger. Laina Digeronimo's diplomacy in reaching out to podcasts to host us and making the people we worked with feel welcome and comfortable was a much needed asset to our journey in securing two different partnerships with environmental justice podcasts. When we spoke on the podcasts, we supplemented each other where the other was less knowledgeable and offered each other support and encouragement. I am much stronger for my partnerships with her and my fellow EJ students, and they have been an example for me as to how communities should function in care and love.
Evidence of Learning
Evidence of Learning
4A: Kinship and Citizenship
4A: Kinship and Citizenship
EJ Changemakers must partner with their community, listen to its values, and support its priorities.
4B: Solidarity
4B: Solidarity
EJ Changemakers intentionally include multiple perspectives from members of communities who are historically oppressed or disadvantaged to include them in the work of restoring justice.
4C: Dialogical Leadership
4C: Dialogical Leadership
EJ Changemakers must be strong leaders who set priorities, inspire change, support their team, and manage work, but they must do so without hierarchy or competition. They must lead in the service of their communities and ecosystems.
My fellow EJ graduates and I organized the first ever Northeast Ohio Youth Climate Summit in 2024 after the semester's end, inviting 100 students from all over Cleveland and beyond to engage in breakout rooms that we co-created and hosted with community partners. I collaborated with the Mayor's Office of Sustainability to write and prepare a simulation allowing students to assume the roles of citizens, city council members, and industry representatives to collaborate on achieving the goals of the Cleveland Climate Action Plan. I also worked on outreach for the summit, contacting 15+ schools to send their students to the summit. I am still on the committee for the summit this year, and I am taking on fundraising in addition to my outreach and breakout room responsibilities.
In March 2024, I attended my first Climate Fresk, an engaging workshop that utilizes data from the IPCC to educate people on climate science. This experience was incredibly compelling for me, and I wanted to find ways to stay engaged in that work. I became trained a few weeks later to become a facilitator for this workshop and am currently working to bring it to my own school to teach people about climate issues and solutions in a community oriented manner. My classmates and I conducted a school-wide Climate Fresk on February 23rd, 2024 to teach faculty and staff about the social and environmental effects of climate change.
I prepared materials, wrote a curriculum, and created a schedule for the EcoWonder camp, a day camp for girls grades 6-8 who are interested in making environmental change in their communities. Over three days, the girls wrote letters to politicians about the causes they cared about, learned about the mycelial network and how they too have a community of change to reach out to, and went on a kayaking trip to collect trash from the river.
Established Continued Laurel Partnership between CASE & Redhouse
My Redhouse cohort and I were instrumental in securing a partnership between Laurel students and Case Western Reserve's soil remediation project. In addition to collecting samples and participating in this year of Case's experiment, we have aided our Laurel community by creating the opportunity for future students to pursue lab experience at a more advanced level.
Cleveland's Erie Adventure: Dive into Climate Action
I was invited and paid with some of my classmates by the Mayor's Office of Sustainability to a planning workshop for high schoolers to discuss and give feedback over Cleveland's Climate Action Plan, the same plan I led my breakout room on in the summit. While there, I was asked to facilitate a discussion on people's personal climate priorities. I met students from ten different schools who were interested in policy and creating a greener city, and we came up with non-negotiable goals we'd like to see accomplish in sectors of green transportation, green energy, and urban canopy coverage.
With other members of the Cleveland ACE (Action for the Climate Emergency) Chapter, I attended a rally for House Bill 197: a proposal for a pilot program of community solar in Ohio. We spoke in front of AEP (American Electric Power) whose lobbyists are currently one of the only barriers to passing HB 197. While there, we spoke about the benefits that widespread access to solar power would have on Ohio citizens and connected with senators and advocates who shared our cause.
(Written September 25, 2024. The bill may have since passed.)
Dead Poets Society Club
In my tenth grade year, I organized a club called the Dead Poet's Society, modeled after the idea of the 1989 film. It was a space for people to express their passion for literature, movies, and current events relating to artistic expression. We had passionate discussions about the ethics of media created around true crime, the role of books in discussing historical events, and many more topics surrounding gender, family, social justice, and more.
Green Key Ambassador
Although I have only been apart of the admissions team since my tenth grade year, I have been apart of panels and invited to events for Laurel since I entered the school. Anyone who knows me would tell you that I love my school and that I am a firm believer in the power of education and in learning communities. I feel so grateful to get to show off my school and guide other girls in their school decisions because of how much Laurel has impacted me for the better. When asked, I always tell prospective students that my favorite Laurel tradition is song contest and my favorite class is English.
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