The Clean Air Green Corridor Initiative is a Black and Brown youth-led community environmental justice initiative started by high school students and alumni of the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS). Youth are working to transform 182nd street into a pedestrian green corridor that tackles air pollution in the community and provides safe, healthy, and equitable access to Highbridge Park.
East Harlem life expectancy is 9 years less than the neighboring Upper East Side. Coupled with climate change effects, the health and achievement disparities outlook is ominous. Thankfully, there are solutions. The Camp Cada Paso summer youth program advocates for environmental justice based on data and best-practices. What’s the answer? Tune in to hear from our youth leaders!
Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is an environmental education organization working creatively with youth to achieve equitable zero waste, climate-smart school communities, and a plastic free biosphere. Their programs foster youth-led solutions by merging community science, civic action, media, storytelling and the arts. Students in CafCu programs live overwhelmingly in lower-income communities of color, and they provide an urgently-needed voice to the climate emergency. Students take on leadership roles that inform policy. CafCu’s award-winning movie, MICROPLASTIC MADNESS, features Brooklyn 5th graders in their program and has reached over 40 countries, inspiring global youth action for a plastic free future with schools as hubs for change.