Neighbor to Neighbor-Springfield presents an exploration of the history of Springfield's German Gerena Community School. This workshop will look at Gerena’s past and the crucial role it has played in the community, how that role has changed, and what those changes will mean for the future of Gerena and the North End of Springfield.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

How do you go from a community concern to a winning campaign? Come to this workshop about community organizing to find out! We’ll talk about clarifying what residents are worried about and what change they want to achieve, understanding the pathways to that change, and honing in on the most strategic course of action. These skills are applicable to any issue that may be impacting your community.

Facilitated by Community Action Works.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

Led by the Resistance Center for Peace and Justice (Northampton, Mass.), this workshop will explore the impact of the military industrial complex and the effect that increased militarization has on communities and the environment.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

This workshop led by Lower Valley Mutual Aid (serving Springfield and Holyoke, Mass.) is based on a "Solidarity, not Charity" model of mutual aid. Participants will discuss creating new systems when the current one has failed us. The time is now for us to step into our power as a community. We are in a moment in history that will decide who we are, and where we want to go. The hope of the Neighbor to Neighbor Mutual Aid Lower Valley is that the crises we are living through will bring us closer together, and bring safety, peace of mind, and good health to each member of our community. As your neighbors, we are reaching out to ask for your help in fulfilling this hope, in whatever way you can. We are asking you to step up and play an active role in building true relationships within your community, while giving support to your neighbors during this difficult time. Today might be their turn to receive help, but tomorrow might be their turn to provide it.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

Learn about the resistance to placing a biomass plant in a city that was named the asthma capital of the nation for two years in a row. From revoking the permit at the city level, to battles in court, to a battle at the statehouse and additional rulings, this has been a rollercoaster for a community that can not afford any additional pollution for its vulnerable youth and elders.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

This workshop led by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice will consider issues related to the labor market. We will explore job creation and how green jobs fit into Springfield’s future and the future of safe, reliable, and sustainable employment opportunities.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

In this workshop, the John Snow Research and Training Institute will present the results of a study conducted around problem gambling and how it has impacted the city of Springfield.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

"Listening to Puerto Rico, Learning from Puerto Rico: Community Response to Climate Disaster in the Aftermath of Hurricane María," features a presentation by Dr. Ricia Anne Chansky (University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez) with Gabrielle Armstrong Velázquez, Natalia Betancourt Malave, Aleyshka Estevez Quinones, and Yarelis Marcial Acevedo

Approximately six weeks after deadly Hurricane María made landfall in Puerto Rico, a student-faculty team at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez began a mass-listening project that stretched across the archipelago to collect oral histories and other biographical narratives related to the disaster. While the over 100 collected narratives reveal massive government-level failures in distribution of relief supplies and aid, they simultaneously highlight the courage and ingenuity of individuals and communities who developed innovative strategies to survive the aftermath. In this presentation, members of the UPRM team discuss the project with a focus on food insecurity, including a look at some of the mutual aid groups that were formed in disaster and continue to serve the people through the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion to follow.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

This workshop will discuss housing and how it impacts our communities. Participants will leave with additional understanding around how housing has been a way to disempower our communities and how our communities can work together to create our own solutions to the housing crisis.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

This workshop will explore the deep impact that capitalism has on the environment. We will examine how decisions made about housing, voting, and economics relate to environmental justice and who is affected by those decisions.

Facilitated by Arise for Social Justice.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

Facilitated by Livewell Springfield, this workshop will examine the impact of climate change on people’s health and discuss issues of health equity in communities which are disproportionately affected by environmental injustice.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

How do you go from a community concern to a winning campaign? Come to this workshop about community organizing to find out! We’ll talk about clarifying what residents are worried about and what change they want to achieve, understanding the pathways to that change, and honing in on the most strategic course of action. These skills are applicable to any issue that may be impacting your community.

Facilitated by Community Action Works.

All are welcome to join Springfield community members for this free session!

Register in advance here.

The Bell Museum and University of Minnesota conclude their series of virtual public events as Climates of Inequality hosts with for a public conversation about how people are responding to social and environmental justice questions raised by freeway alignment projects in the past.

Moderated by members of the A Public History of 35W project team.

Registration details coming soon!

Hosted by Hennepin History Museum and co-sponsored by the Bell Museum.

The Bell Museum and University of Minnesota continue their series of virtual public events as Climates of Inequality hosts with a discussion exploring the intersection of environmental justice, tribal sovereignty, and academic research in Minnesota.

This public dialogue focuses on manoomin/psiη (wild rice) and collaborations including First We Must Consider Manoomin/Psiη (Wild Rice), which brings together tribes, intertribal treaty organizations, and University of Minnesota faculty, staff, and students. The project prioritizes tribal views on the cultural significance and ecology of manoomin/psiη (wild rice), and on policies related to it.

Moderator:

• Mike Dockry (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), Assistant Professor, Forest Resources, University of Minnesota

Guests:

• Gene-Hua Crystal Ng, Associate Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota
• Tom Howes (Fond du Lac Band), Natural Resources Manager, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
• Mark Bellcourt (White Earth Nation), Co-PI of First We Must Consider Manoomin/Psiη (Wild Rice) (retired)
• Tianna Odegard (Upper Sioux Community), Independent Public Historian

Register here! (Zoom link will be sent to registered participants.)

Co-sponsored by the Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota

The Bell Museum and University of Minnesota kick off their series of virtual public events as Climates of Inequality hosts with an introductory discussion on environmental justice challenges in the Twin Cities through a storytelling lens, focusing on first-person narratives.

This panel will address community organizing for environmental justice in urban planning, pollution remediation, and climate disaster preparedness, touching on projects such as the Upper Harbor Terminal, East Phillips Urban Farm, and North Minneapolis tornado recovery. Learn what activists are doing to create new stories of environmental justice—and how you can get involved.

Moderator:

• Michelle Garvey, Program Director, Environmental Justice Sustainability, Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs

Guests:

• Catherine Fleming, The Calvary Group d/b/a Project Sweetie Pie
• Cassandra Holmes, East Phillips Neighborhood Institute Board Member and Community Health Worker
• Roxxanne O’Brien, Northside Environmental Justice Activist
• José Luis Villaseñor, Community Connector on Issues of Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice

Register here! (Zoom link will be sent to registered participants)

This panel is presented in collaboration with Heritage Studies and Public History, University of Minnesota

This session will be shaped by our core participants out of our shared efforts.

Details TBD.

This session will build on our growing exploration of the role of storytelling in mutual aid and other non-hierarchical organizing efforts. We will be joined by Tara Taylor of the mutual aid project Helpful Jellyfish based in Philadelphia who will help ground us in the slow work of shifting our deeply embedded ideas of what our own story is and what it can be. Together we will reflect on how to challenge “trauma porn” narratives, re-work our stories to have real material change in our lives, and better connect to each other through our shared experiences.

Free and open to the public.

The University of Illinois-Chicago's Rafael Cintrón Ortiz Latino Cultural Center will host Cheryl Johnson of People for Community Recovery (CPR) for a presentation on the organization's community organizing and advocacy efforts in the Altgeld Gardens public housing project on Chicago's South Side.

Register here.

This event is part of the Latino Cultural Center's series of virtual presentations and dialogues exploring themes from their local story for Climates of Inequality, "Resisting Cycles of Environmental Injustice in Little Village."

This session will explore ways that sharing stories—whether individual, community, or broader structural histories—supports ongoing mutual aid and organizing efforts. Led by organizers of mutual aid in cities from Newark to Miami to Milwaukee, the workshop will explore what mutual aid is and how it's different from charity or social service; how story sharing is central to sustaining and growing mutual aid; who storytelling is for and how history/memory can support mutual aid; and what roles people from different subject positions (students, organizers, faculty, local residents) can play. It will explore "mutual aid storytelling" as a practice for this moment and offer ways to ground learning spaces in holistic listening and healing practices.

Free and open to the public.

The University of Illinois-Chicago's Rafael Cintrón Ortiz Latino Cultural Center will host Jessie Fuentes of Chicago's Puerto Rican Cultural Center for a presentation on Puerto Rico’s reconstruction process after several hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the island. Fuentes, a scholar and activist, will discuss the ways residents have endured an exhausting, draining, and daunting recovery process rooted in Puerto Rico's history of slavery and racism.

Register here.

This event is part of the Latino Cultural Center's series of virtual presentations and dialogues exploring themes from their local story for Climates of Inequality, "Resisting Cycles of Environmental Injustice in Little Village."

In the spirit of our TLS shared values radical of honesty and openness, this week's meeting will be a planning session where core group members and the larger HAL network will collaboratively envision an upcoming workshop on "mutual aid storytelling." TLS is an ongoing and evolving process of collectively creating a learning community and we want to make that in-process aspect visible to everyone who participates. Join us to see what horizontal and sustainable workshop development can look like and gather tools and resources for your own efforts.

This session is free and open to the public.

This session will ground our community of practice, and identify participants’ goals and interests. It will also offer models for how participants can ground public memory projects of their own that seek to activate history and memory for justice-centered movements and mutual aid in the current moment. Topics will include: locating yourself and your history in relation to systemic power and histories of liberation and historical harm; bringing transformative justice approaches to public memory projects; and creating reciprocal relationships among mentors and partners for co-creation and knowledge sharing.

This session is free and open to the public.

All programs 4:30-5:30PM CST

Wed. Oct. 7, 2020
Ian Zeitlin with Sunrise Movement – Chicago Hub

Wed. Oct. 14, 2020
Oscar Chacón with
Alianza Americas

Wed. Oct. 28, 2020
Amalia NietoGomez with Alliance of the SouthEast (ASE) & Olga Bautista with Alliance for the Great Lakes

Visit go.uic.edu/climates to RSVP

Dr. Antonio Lopez, ECJ Scholar & Activist. On current efforts of EJ organizations to protect their communities, and shared lessons of power and environmental racism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wed. Sep. 30, 2020
4:30-5:30PM CST

Visit go.uic.edu/climates to RSVP

For more program description, go HERE.

For access needs or questions, email: lcc@uic.edu

The Humanities Action Lab, a national coalition led from Rutgers University-Newark, is hosting a conversation to reimagine public humanities and social justice in the context of the pandemic and anti-racist, Black Lives Matter protests, specifically focusing on pedagogy and the classroom in this moment. This conversation will feature HAL partners across the country, including stories from Newark and other community organizations on the ground. This project is an outgrowth of HAL's most recent project, Climates of Inequality.

Details TBD.

Edith Tovar and Juliana Pino Alcaraz with Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). On LVEJO's #LaVillitaRespira Campaign in response to the Crawford Plant demolition and future construction of a distribution center by Hilco Co.

Wed. Sep. 16, 2020
4:30-5:30PM CST

Week 4: Action!: Taking back our world.
What is Action? How can we act?
Saturday August 29, 2020, 11 AM CDT/ Noon EST

Moderator:
Adam Carr

Local experts:
Muneer Bahauddeen (Community Artist, Milwaukee, WI)
Nyheim Carter (Ironbound Community Corporation, Newark, NJ)
Tremerell Robinson (Center Street Bid 39, Milwaukee, WI)
Cheri Fuqua (The Middle Ground MKE, Milwaukee, WI)
Anthony Diaz (Newark Water Coalition, Newark, NJ)
Gregory Powell (Peace Garden Project MKE, Milwaukee, WI)

Week 3: Taking back our bodies.
How is food production, distribution, and consumption a contested process in each city?
Saturday August 22, 2020, 11 AM CDT/ Noon EST

Moderator:
Adam Carr (Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)

Local experts:
Michael Carriere (Milwaukee School of Engineering, Milwaukee, WI)
Carena Miles (Ironbound Community Corporation, Newark, NJ)
Tobias Fox (Newark Science and Sustainability, Newark, NJ)
Caroline Carter (Caroline's Raw Creations, Milwaukee, WI)
Fidel Verdin (True Skool, Milwaukee, WI)

The Humanities Action Lab, a national coalition led from Rutgers University-Newark, is hosting a conversation to reimagine public humanities and social justice in the context of the pandemic and anti-racist, Black Lives Matter protests, specifically focusing on pedagogy and the classroom in this moment. This conversation will feature HAL partners across the country, including stories from Newark and other community organizations on the ground. This project is an outgrowth of HAL's most recent project, Climates of Inequality.

Details TBD.

Week 2: Taking back our homes.
What do we mean when we say housing justice in our city?
Saturday August 15, 2020, 11 AM CDT/ Noon EST

Moderator:
Adam Carr (Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)

Local experts:
Robert Smith (Center for Urban Research, Teaching, and Outreach, Marquette University)
Lamont Davis (Washington Park Neighborhood Housing Committee Chair)
Elizabeth Pierson (Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc.)
Christian Rodriguez (Ironbound Community Corporation)
Daniel Wiley (Ironbound Community Corporation)

Week 1: Taking back our world.
Introduction to a city, its history, and what environmental injustice means for citizens
Saturday August 8, 2020, 11 AM CDT/ Noon EST

Moderator:
Adam Carr (Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)

Local experts:
Reggie Jackson (Nurturing Diversity Partners, America’s Black Holocaust Museum)
Camille Mays (Peace Garden Project MKE)
Anthony Diaz (Newark Water Coalition)
Neil Maher (Federated History Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University-Newark)
Christian Rodriguez (Ironbound Community Corporation)

Click here to view video highlights from Week 1.

The Humanities Action Lab, a national coalition led from Rutgers University-Newark, is hosting a conversation to reimagine public humanities and social justice in the context of the pandemic and anti-racist, Black Lives Matter protests, specifically focusing on pedagogy and the classroom in this moment. This conversation will feature HAL partners across the country, including stories from Newark and other community organizations on the ground. This project is an outgrowth of HAL's most recent project, Climates of Inequality.

For more info and to RSVP: https://halsummersession3.eventbrite.com

Session 2: Storytelling Today
Thursday July 9th
1:00-2:30pm EST/10:00-1:30 PST
RSVP here: https://halsummersession2.eventbrite.com

Session 1: Storytelling Today
Thursday June 25th
1:00-2:30pm EST/10:00-1:30 PST
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hal-summer-storytelling-session-tickets-110695481164

This forum theater performance developed by the Young Actors Theatre engages audiences in environmental justice issues and motivates them into creative responses.

Closing Event with Speakers, food & drinks, and DJ Poetik Selektions.

"A Celtic Church Uprising for the Future!" with vegan corned beef & cabbage & Saint Paddy refreshments (3:00 - 5:00 pm.)

Climates of Inequality opening event with speakers, food & drinks, and DJ Intell Hayesfield.

Examining the intersection of policy, technology, and environmental justice in drinking water: What policies and structures shape our current systems? Who is well served by these systems, and who isn’t? And how can we provide safe, sustainable, and equitable access to drinking water for all?

Fort Harrison State Park and IUPUI are partnering on this program highlighting creek health. Join us at the Delaware Shelter to discover the importance of our waterways and how pollution is aeffecting the ecological balance. Afterwards, walk the creek banks to pick up litter and provide a cleaner environment! Participants will have park entrance fee waived.

Fall Creek: A Look at Art and the Environment
A Tim Faris Photography Exhibit

Exhibit Opening December 9, 2019, 6:00 PM - 7:45 PM
Central Library, 40 E St Clair St, Indianapolis, IN 46204

Reception, Yellow Gallery, 6:00 PM
Artist Talk with Tim Faris and Stefan Petranek, Riley Room, 6:30 PM.
Preview of Indianapolis Toxic Sites and Community Treasures.

Exhibit on view from December 9th-January 25th

Winona LaDuke and Naomi Klein join the Clement A. Price Institute and the Humanities Action Lab to explore just ways of dealing with the urgent, complex issues of collapsing ecosystems and social justice.

Register today

Join leading advocates, scholars, and students from over 20 cities to launch a memory movement for climate justice.

Find the latest agenda here.

Narratives of environmental contamination, continuity, and survival from the Ramapough Lunaape in Ringwood, New Jersey.

Presented by Researchers from Rutgers University, Landscape Architecture
ANITA BAKSHI, EDWIN GANO, DIANA RANDJELOVIC, and BARBRA WALKER

FEATURING A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS:
CHIEF MANN, Ramapough Lunaape Turtle Clan Chief
CHUCK STEAD, Founder of the Ramapo Saltbox Environmental Research Center
JAN BARRY, Former Reporter for The Record
JUDY SULLIVAN, Founder of the Ramapough Conservancy
JUDY ZELIKOFF, NYU, Department of Environmental Medicine
MICHAEL EDELSTEIN, Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Ramapo College

Followed by an exhibition walk through with project partners, storytelling
with sketch artists, and an opportunity to participate in interactive drawings
that will become part of the exhibition.

Why does the past matter for the future of climate change? The legacies of environmental justice may hold the key to confronting the climate crisis.

Climates of Inequality is a multi-media installation created by Rutgers University-Newark students, collaborating with the Ironbound Community Corporation -- together with over 500 students, educators, and environmental justice advocates in more than 20 cities.

Through immersive virtual reality, moving testimony, and historical imagery, communities share sites of climate crisis from Newark to New Orleans. Follow local teams as they peel back the layers of history that created them. Then share your own memories on interactive maps and “vote” on local environmental policy.

After launching in Newark, this exhibit will travel to the over 20 communities that created it -- carrying the stories of Newark to each place in a memory movement to shape just climate solutions.

Join us for this preview event to acknowledge the project’s creators and explore how this multi-media installation can support student learning and public participation in environmental and climate justice.