Reflections

November 1, 2019

By Jeffrey Wong. This summer, among the verdant hills of Vermont, I had the pleasure to work with the incredible team at the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing climate mitigation and adaptation action through trainings and capacity building for industry, governments, and local communities in the US and abroad. I joined the organization at a pivotal transition as leadership and staff were reorienting their strategy to embody greater equity in their work. I learned that not only has ISC dramatically diversified its staffing from one person of color to almost half of... more

November 1, 2019

By John Nguyen, MS. This summer, I worked with the William Penn Foundation (WPF) who hosted and funded my summer fellowship. While there, I collaborated with their environmental grantmaking team to tackle stormwater runoff issues in Philadelphia and the greater Delaware River Watershed. Part of my summer activities included meeting our grantees along the Delaware River where WPF had funded projects for stream restoration and community action. On one site visit, I joined a community paddle event for World Fish Migration Day organized by WPF grantees and discussed the environmental advocacy work that was... more

October 10, 2019

By Saachi Das Kuwayama, MS. Saachi Das Kuwayama representing her organization, Appalachian Voices, at a solar energy symposium. While at Appalachian Voices, I learned just how deeply embedded politics are in all types of environmental work.  Meetings on topics from water testing to coal reclamation and pipeline advocacy always included in-depth discussions about the politics of relevant stakeholders and political implications of proposed actions.  For instance, discussions about the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines typically involved conversations about how allies in the General Assembly would react if... more

October 10, 2019

By Karen Goldburg, MS. The Colorado River When I first started working in the nonprofit field, I was intrigued by the concept of grantmaking.  I was amazed that philanthropic groups could afford large sums of money to nonprofits, in order for those organizations to carry out their programmatic efforts.  From this vantage point, it seemed to me that foundations played an incredibly significant role in both enabling and guiding the nonprofit sector toward positive environmental outcomes. I ultimately decided to pursue a graduate degree in order to explore the themes of environmental decision-making and... more

October 10, 2019

By Cyatharine Alias. Neighbor to Neighbor is a multi-issue, grassroots, environmental justice organization based in 4 chapters within Massachusetts: Lynn, Worcester, Holyoke, and Springfield. Neighbor to Neighbor’s base is rooted in the “new majority” – people of color, immigrants, working class, and women in each of these cities. In my short time there, I actively worked on several projects that included public transportation access, displacement gentrification, natural gas pipeline prevention, and police brutality. Though the campaigns for each chapter differed, the chapters are unified in the belief of a deep... more

October 10, 2019

By Laura Grier, MS. My summer as an Environmental Fellow came at the culmination of my graduate education in Environmental Justice and Policy at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. I had spent two years discussing human destruction of our natural environment, the trend that communities of minority and low-income status are disproportionately burdened with the impacts of this destruction, and our urgent need for strong environmental policy to address related social and ecological concerns. While my education had been solutions-focused, I didn’t realize what it had lacked until... more

October 10, 2019

By Faizah Barlas. October 10, 2019 Faizah Barlas (EGA Fellow) engaging in a discussion about which grant applications will be funded during the Grassroots Fund’s Participatory Grant-making Retreat. This summer, I was tasked with creating two Toolkit Reports each of which will function as a resource for grassroots organizations to understand the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund’s (Grassroots Fund) Guiding Values and provide action items for them to be able to measure their progress. The reports will focus on two of the Grassroots Funds’ core values: Just Transition and Shifting Power. The Grassroots... more

June 25, 2019

By Antionette Fowlkes. The drive to Minneapolis, MN from Ames, IA for my summer environmental justice fellowship with Pillsbury United Communities and the North Minneapolis Environmental Justice Coordinating Council (EJCC) was a peaceful and exciting ride. Often, I pass up the opportunity to take a road trip, but this one was necessary. As I made my transition from an active learning space on the campus of Iowa State University to an applied learning space in North Minneapolis, I asked myself a set of questions. I asked myself (1) how will my time in North Minneapolis make lives better (2) what does success look... more

June 25, 2019

By Stephanie Hung. From the EFP orientation, I was under the impression that my placement site would give me an assignment related to diversity, equity, and inclusion or environmental justice. When I arrived at PSE Healthy Energy, I was tasked with identifying the chemicals in oil and gas wastewater and evaluating the efficacy of existing wastewater treatment technologies to treat those chemicals. I was thrown into a heavily quantitative research project that involved analyzing lists of hundreds of chemicals and reading about multiple advanced and complex technologies. Where was the “justice” component? I had... more

June 20, 2019

By Teal Harrison. I first experienced Imposter Syndrome as a new graduate student. I am sure I am not alone in this sentiment. I started undergraduate as an international relations major, then transferred schools where I tried on Public Health, Education, and Anthropology before choosing to major in Behavioral Biology. I didn’t know what Ecology entailed until I studied abroad in Ecuador at the end of my junior year. I fell in love with my course and fieldwork, envisioning a successful career in ecology. With only two semesters until graduation, I rushed to make up for (what I felt was) lost time, taking as... more