On Earth Day, April 22, 2006, Grassroots Leadership Network members will be hosting a range of activities designed to heighten awareness of the environmental health situations in their respective communities, and what they are doing to address and correct them.

Please contact Community Toolbox, or groups in your area, for more information.

On Valentines Day 2005 groups from around the country took part in the National Action Week. Please see below for all the amazing activities that took place.

Sponsored by the Grassroots Leadership Network and Community Toolbox

The Grassroots Leadership Network for Children’s Environmental Health (GLN) unites community leaders throughout the United States to create a collective voice derived from real –life experience facing environmental injustice. Together we aim to increase the extent to which policy-makers, mass media, civic leaders, and the general public recognize the expertise held by local community members and include us in key decision-making around children’s environmental health issues.

NATIONAL ACTION WEEK FOR CHILDREN’S ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND JUSTICE: FEBRUARY 14TH-20TH, 2005

This Valentine’s Day, let love lift you into action. Join community groups across the country and help create healthy environments for kids to grow and thrive.

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED?

If you’re part of a community group…

• Choose a DAY of the Week for action.
  • Focus on an ISSUE your community faces, like lead contaminated housing, pesticide spraying, or mercury contamination.
  • Organize an educational and advocacy ACTION, like a press meeting, a rally, or a toxic tour.
  • Direct your action towards a LOCAL TARGET, like your Mayor, City Council, or Board of Supervisors.
• Download an ACTION WEEK POSTER on this website. Use the national version to advertise the week to other groups. Use the local version to promote your group’s activities.
• Send GLN VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS featuring children’s artwork to your local targets, organizational allies, and community members. Let these cards serve as loving reminders of the importance of children’s environmental health. To order a set, contact gln@communitytoolbox.org

If you’re an individual…

• Support a grassroots organization! Get in touch with a participating group listed on this website or encourage a group near you to get involved.
• Help promote the week! Download and distribute the National Action Week flyer, direct people to this website, seek out media attention, and stimulate action!

VALENTINE'S DAY CARDS

Participating groups will be sending these cards to local policymakers, organizational allies and community members as loving reminders of the importance of children's environmental health.

View the card in Spanish!
 
 
 
 

PARTICIPATING GROUPS

To add your group’s name to our website, write to gln@communitytoolbox.org

Campesinos sin Fronteras (Somerton, AZ) was established by a group of farm worker community leaders concerned about the lack of health and social services for the farm worker population. CSF promotes self-sustainability to farm workers and low to moderate-income individuals by facilitating access to health, social, housing, education and scholarship opportunities. CSF takes health messages out into the agricultural fields and the community through its Lay Health Workers/ Promotora Programs.

Contact: Floribella Redondo, (928) 627-1060

Chinese Progressive Association (New York, NY) works to improve the living and working standards of people of Chinese origin living in New York. CPA addresses a diverse range of issues such as environmental justice, health, immigrant rights, housing, racial harmony, and political empowerment. Some of their programs include an environmental health project, youth leadership development, a tobacco prevention project, English and Citizenship classes, immigration rights education and voter education.

Contact: Mae Lee, (212) 274-1891

Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (Merrimac, WI) was founded in 1990 by community and tribal members who discovered their drinking water wells were polluted with high levels of carcinogenic solvents. Toxins emitted by a nearby weapons manufacturing plant moved into the groundwater, poisoning drinking wells more than a mile away. CSWAB’s mission is to strengthen communities affected by environmental pollution, restore the integrity of damaged natural systems and ensure mutual respect and social justice for all peoples.

Contact: Laura Olah, (608) 643-3124

Durham Parents Against Lead (Durham, North Carolina) was organized in 2002 as a support group for parents with lead poisoned and at-risk children. DPAL’s goal is to ensure parents know how to prevent lead poisoning, stand as advocates for parents of lead poisoned and at risk children, provide learning activities to help children protect themselves from lead poisoning, and establish resource centers in local head-start and daycare centers.

Contact: Sara Kerley, (919) 682-7136

Echo Park Community Coalition (Los Angeles, CA) was formed in 2000 by activists from different community and people’s organizations in response to pressing environmental, economic, political and cultural issues affecting Echo Park community members. EPCC has expanded from focusing on pesticide and anti-smoking awareness to lead abatement advocacy.

Contact: Arturo Garcia, (213) 241-0907

Friends of McKinley, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) works to promote lead poisoning prevention and to organize parents to advocate for improved health services and increased blood screenings in a "hot zone" of inner-city Los Angeles.

Contact: Melodie Dove, (323) 587-3192

Health and Environmental Justice Group- St. Louis (St. Louis, MO) grew out of an organization founded by medical students to address community concerns about a commercial medical waste incinerator. Since its formation in 1999, the group has contributed to the closure of the waste incinerator and has continued to work on lead poisoning, asthma, and air pollution. HEJ seeks to educate St. Louis residents through promoting changes in policy and through calling for individual, corporate and governmental responsibility towards the environment.

Contact: Kathleen Logan-Smith, (314) 935-6426

Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency (Vinita, OK) is the only citizens’ group organized to help communities deal with the multitude of state and federal agencies working on the issues at Tarcreek, the nation’s first identified Superfund site. LEAD Agency aims to educate the community about these concerns and reduce the exposure to these toxics.

Contact: Rebecca Jim, (918) 256-5269

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (Chicago, IL) grew out of a school environmental justice group originally formed by students and parents. LVEJO has joined a coalition of community groups to reduce the emissions of Chicago’s only two coal burning power plants, the largest point sources of air pollution in the region. The group has expanded its work to integrate community organizing with sustainable neighborhood development through democratic community participation in planning and decision-making.

Contact: Juan Miguel Turnil (773) 762-6991

Newtown Florist Club (Gainsville, GA) is a 53-year old organization with a long history of environmental justice work in their community. Sixteen industries emit toxic pollutants in the air and water supply of this working class community. NFC focuses on anti-racism, community economic development, and environmental justice through projects such as its youth bucket brigade.

Contact: Tabatha Jackson, (770) 718-1343

People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (Austin, TX) was formed in 1991 by community activists who wanted to redefine environmental issues as social and economic justice issues and collectively set an agenda to address these concerns as basic human rights. Through an intergenerational approach with both youth and elders, PODER seeks to increase the participation of residents in corporate and governmental decisions related to toxic pollution and economic development in their communities. Its projects include the Bus Riders Union and a weekly environmental show called Young Scholars for Justice.

GET IN TOUCH!

For more information on GLN and the National Action Week, contact GLN at:

ACTION WEEK FLYER DOWNLOADS